Forty-one liters today, no, not the amount in the pool, no, not the amount on your last month’s water bill, and sorry, not the amount of gas you purchased last week. Forty-one liters of fluid comes from your body through a catheter placed in a little hole that hasn’t seen the sheen on a toilet bowl in 12 years.
You wonder and comment, “One day, I was fine, and the next day, I couldn’t walk or get up because my knees failed me.” You cry. I cry inside thinking that this weight of 450 pounds didn’t just happen overnight and the failure of your knees isn’t an intrinsic failure; it is because of time spent supporting the consequence of your habits.
Friends don’t come over anymore because your needs are demanding. You can’t get together with friends. You don’t enjoy your children’s school plays and activities (they’re actually on the same road of inactivity as you). You can’t go grocery shopping. You can’t walk, you can’t turn yourself over, you don’t move, you can hardly breathe due to your size. I’m reminded of Joe, Charles Dickens’ professional poker player in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, who, after gaining weight, became somnolent, fatigued, and prone to falling asleep during the day.
We are keeping you from eating because of potential surgery. This is aggravating to you; it is unsettling, almost traumatic. I’m sorry.
We move on to the next patient, another one like you, not quite as advanced but suffering from decubitus ulcer infection after sitting in the same place for years and in her stool because she found that one day, she couldn’t get up to get breakfast. She was too weak to move her 417-pound frame. Here in the hospital, you will both have people whom taxpayers pay to turn you in bed.
You thank us, you’ve never looked so good, you’ve never breathed so well, you can almost turn in bed to reach the button to call your nurse…..your nurse is upset at us.
Comments