Take A Walk In My Shoes at 300 Plus Pounds

September 4, 2014

As Atticus Finch once said in To Kill a Mockingbird, "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

If you have never tipped the scales in the 300 plus pounds mark, I am sure you can never understand what those who have, go through on a daily basis, lucky you! To truly understand what someone goes through you need to know directly from that person’s perspective. Well, that is what I am going to do, I am going to be brutally honest so prepare yourself to be awakened to the world I lived, and others live. A world that many people will never truly understand. Hopefully via this article I can help those out of this mess... for it is truly a mess that can be reversed.

Home Life

As you become larger and larger, the only place you truly feel comfortable is in your home but your home ends up being your worst enemy and you never truly ever feel comfortable. You just learn to live the best you can. The obvious reason is you can eat without anyone seeing you. Don’t kid yourself, nobody gets heavy without overeating. Yes, sure, some people have “glandular” problems but to keep your weight so high you have to take in a tremendous amount of calories each and every day to sustain that weight. It is the most simple equation ever. Take in more calories than you burn, you gain weight. Burn more calories than you take in, you lose weight. Take in about the same amount of calories you burn and your weight is maintained. A very simple equation that is super hard to do. So what else is so bad about being at home?

Furniture is not meant to hold such a large person. Ever sit in a chair and break it?  I have. You know how shitty that makes you feel? I do. So do you get new furniture only to break the new furniture?  No, you repair the furniture you just broke. What breaks? The springs are what breaks. The springs cannot hold your weight so they literally rip away from the frame. How do you fix it? You put a piece of wood in the springs place. So now you can sit in the chair but you might as well be sitting on a concrete slab for that is now how comfortable it is and not only for you, but for others. You want to tell them, "Hey, don’t sit down too hard, although that chair looks really comfortable and you think you can just plop right down into it... don’t or you will break your back!"

Stairs in your house are a nightmare. Sure, if you are 80 years old you may think that is when it starts to be a problem.  Try going up and down stairs when you are out of breath in an instant and your knees are ready to explode. So you limit the amount of walking you do to save your knees. But that limits the amount of activity you are doing hence burning even less calories leading to more weight gain.

Sleeping. I used to love to sleep and then I dreaded it, feared it. Why? When you go to sleep your body relaxes. When your body relaxes, your throat relaxes.  And when your throat relaxes and like the rest of your body has extra fat, (the fat has to go somewhere) your throat literally closes. Then what happens?  You suffocate and when you suffocate you wake up gasping for air. Imagine this happening to you every 35 seconds. That is what I went through. I dreaded going to bed, going to sleep, for it was the hardest struggle of the day. I was so tired I needed to sleep but I could not sleep because I would suffocate every 35 seconds. This is called Sleep Apnea. I went for a sleep study, like I really needed to be studied. Anyone my size more than likely has some level of sleep apnea. I could sleep sitting because your throat does not close on itself in a sitting position. (Only when lying down.)  So I would try to get some sleep on the train to and from work. After the sleep study was done, I was told I needed to wear a sleep apnea mask. I told them that I would not wear one and to not bother me.

An hour later the head of the Sleeping Disorder department called me and said, "Mr. Masciale, we have been doing these studies for many, many years and you have the worst case of sleep apnea we have ever seen. You can die."

I said fine, send the guy over with the machine and let him show me how to use it. He did, and I wore it twice for 10 minutes tops. It was the most uncomfortable thing I ever wore and although I am not claustrophobic, when I put that on... I was. So I tried to sleep on one side or the other. I read somewhere if you sleep on your left side, you for some reason have better breathing ability. I tried a snoring medication to shrink the tissue in my throat. That made things even worse. Apparently when tissue shrinks in your throat it releases liquid and that liquid ended up all over me. Nothing like waking up in a puddle of your own saliva numerous times each night, ewww. I even tried bringing a recliner into my bedroom and sleeping in that but that did not work either. I just could not get used to sleeping in a chair. Then adding insult to injury, I was so noisy when trying to sleep, suffocating and drooling, my wife started to sleep in another room because my noise kept her up. The downward spiral was spiraling even faster out of control.

I was not the king of my castle; I was the prisoner of my self-inflicted, self-imposed nightmare. Of course I always seemed to have a chip on my shoulder or be in a bad mood. You would too if you basically had almost no sleep every night for years and years.

Visiting a Friend’s House

So put in the furniture issue from above but in your friend’s house. Oh my God, it is bad enough I broke my own furniture, what if I did it at someone’s house? I was afraid to sit on anything anywhere else. I would try to test the furniture for sturdiness. I could not sit in a chair that had arms; I was too big to squeeze in between the arms. I could not sit in anything that had springs or just looked rickety. I could not sit into something that was too soft or I would not be able to get out. Like quicksand, I would be stuck in a very soft, too soft couch until I was left alone where nobody would see me so I could slide off the couch on to the floor to get up. What a sight that must have been.

I did not want to eat in front of anyone because I was sure they were saying “does he really need that?” or at least that is what I was thinking (I know it was being said). That is what people do, human nature.

Trains, Planes, Automobiles & Boats

Can you imagine the horror on a person’s face when I would walk onto a train or a plane looking for a seat? I could just hear their thoughts…”Please god don’t let him try to sit next to me, please…” I had to make sure that I got to the train as early as possible to get a two-seater knowing nobody would sit next to me. Planes are even worse since the seats are so much tighter. I hated to have to go on a business trip. Forget about trying to put the tray table down and having to ask for a seat belt extender because the average seat belt will not go around you and click in. The same thing in a car, the seat belt was an issue and some cars were just too small for me to fit comfortably in as a passenger. How about a boat?  Wow, that is a doozy. Imagine stepping on the side of a boat to go on and then the whole boat just tilts to your side. Then you go snorkeling, jump off the side of the boat and you are unable to get back in the boat because you are just too heavy to pull yourself up and it takes two or more people to haul you like “the catch of the day” back into the boat. Just getting into a car was an issue. Imagine putting over 300 pounds of pressure on one knee while you left your other leg to get into the car. Every time I got in my car I thought my knee was going to explode. Then the steering wheel is starting to get closer and closer to your stomach until you shirt is cleaning the steering wheel as you drive.

Going Out On The Town

"Would you like a booth?" Are you freaking kidding me you moron! Do I look like I can freaking fit in a booth? Training, you need training and fast. Oh no, all the chairs have arms, well this is not going to work. My God, I can’t get close enough to the table so if anything falls off my fork it falls on me. I am ruining all my clothes.

My wife always thought I wanted an end seat at a movie, play or whatever event we went to where you had to sit down so I could get up whenever I wanted without disturbing anyone or to have quick access to leave at the end of the event. Nooooooooooo! I needed an end seat because I needed the isle to be able to hang myself out in! Otherwise, I would be sitting on top of whoever is on my left or my right which is completely embarrassing and not fair to the person I am now making feel uncomfortable. When I did not have an end seat, I had to have the kids on each side of me.  In the beginning they did not complain that I was taking of some of their “personal space” but as they got older it did start to become an issue.  They started to understand “personal space” and wanted theirs back from me.

When it came to my kids events at school, sadly, I would not go because I was too embarrassed by the way I looked. I missed everything from Aly playing flute, Steven playing sax and tennis, to awards dinners etc.

I can never get that back and I am ashamed that I did it but in my mental state I had no other choice. I cannot express how sorry I am. I used work as an excuse to not come to these events and at one time it was true.  But later on, in their high school years it was not as bad. I could have made at least some of the events but chose not to because I looked like shit, hence I felt like shit.  I was becoming a self-imposed hermit.

Dressing to The XXXXX’s

Imagine being a 5X, can you? Being on a trip with your family and needing a shirt or some clothing item, any item other than socks or shoes. Where do you go? You can’t just go to Macy’s or Penney’s or Target. They do not carry sizes that big. You have to find a Casual Male shop. Being that large, there are very few stores that carry anything you can fit into. The quality of the clothes is shit and so are the styles. You always look like you either just got off a boat from Cuba or from Las Vegas. The quality of the material, really, I am guessing old mail carrying bags that are repurposed. There is high end clothing by a company called Rochester Big & Tall but the prices are astronomical and the only one I know of is in New York City so you would have to go through the mail, forget that. After a while, all the pants have some kind of stretch waistband so now you are wearing pants that are really sweats or pajamas. I always thought it was funny going to a store like Macy’s and the person in the Men's section would go... “Can I help you?” Really? Sure, go find me a 5x French cuff shirt in purple. What? You don’t have sizes that big, no shit Sherlock! I guess they are just trying to be nice and should not assume you are looking for something for yourself. I could be looking for a gift for my skinny friend, the one behind me that you can’t see.

Shoes are interesting. Let’s see. You can have shoes that have laces, well you can, but you can’t bend over enough for your stomach gets in the way to tie them. So you have to leave them tied and slip them on. After a while, that does not work so some people just wear them like slippers and stand on the back of the sneaker, not even putting it fully on. Socks are another issue. All of a sudden one day I was unable to cross my legs enough to put on socks. What the heck, oh my god, really! I also could not stand up and get my foot up high enough to get a sock on. I almost started to cry. So I had to start wearing boat shoes to work. Work attire is business casual so I was able to get away with it and although they have laces, they can just be slipped on. Then, to add insult to injury when I did have to wear socks I had to ask my wife to put them on for me. How humiliating. I tried for an hour to get my socks on before asking. I was yanking my leg up with a belt tied around my ankle. I was in excruciating pain just trying to put on a sock, one freaking sock and I could not for the life of me do it. I truly have never been more humiliated in my entire life. This was an interesting issue. My weight was causing an issue with my hips. I was unable to turn my leg outward enough to let my foot come close enough to me to be able to put on a sock. If you sit down and bring your foot over your other leg, the leg you are raising turns outward and I lost that function due to my weight. Freaking skeletal system!

Hygiene

Let’s just say that your arms don’t get any longer but as your body gets wider there are places that are very difficult to reach, next topic…

Vacations

A vacation was no vacation for me. It was all of the above rolled into one huge reason to worry. I would not go swimming for I was ashamed of the way I looked. I was always in a bad mood. The only thing that made me happy was eating and since we went on cruises a lot, that was like bringing an alcoholic to a bar and saying, “Have at it! All you can eat/drink all day long for seven days.” I had to always buy bigger clothes to go on a cruise then eventually I had to buy bigger clothes after the cruise. Vacations were the most mentally draining for me since.  It was one big worry jam-packed full of temptation and humiliation.

That's Life!

Put all of the above issues together and that is your life when you are that big. One huge dark cloud hanging over you, one rapid downward spiral because there is nothing about any of this that you can turn from lemons into lemonade other than being alive. (Which much of the time you are thinking what the best way to end it is!) I was never happy. I was always at the breaking point so if anything happened I was immediately at DEFCON 1. Just a nuclear disaster waiting to explode, literally. Just put a fork in me, I was done. At least that is what I thought until I had a chance meeting with an ex-coworker who went from very large to skinny before my eyes. That’s a blog for another time.

So, the next time you see a person of a large size, don’t make fun, don’t talk down to them, don’t cringe or make a face. You just took a walk in my shoes.  Remember what you just read…and be a friend.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Michael Masciale, underwent the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy in April of 2012. At the time of his surgery with Dr. Alfons Pomp of Cornell Weight Loss Surgery he weighed 388 pounds. He has since lost an astounding 210 pounds!

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