Ok.....who'se brave enough to answer?!

At your heaviest weight, what was your most embarassing moment(s)?

Yeah, I know. It's only fair that I answer this too!


As if being over 420lbs wasn't embarrasing enough, I can remember at least 3 incodents.

I went to Six Flags with a few family members, and I couldn't fit on the rides. After waiting in the long lines, I squeezed myslef into one of the seats, the safety bar would not latch over my big belly. I had to get off the ride and leave infront of everyone, with lots of people witnessing the whole event! And this happened not once, but twice! I was stupid enough to try to squeeze into another ride, only to have the same thing happen! For the rest of the day, I could only watch my family have fun while me and my fiancee (who is scared of the rides) walked around, feeling hurt and humiliated! (I was so glad to have him there with me, at least!)

The second time was everytime I went to the doctor's office. I was too heavy to be weighed on their scales, even though it went up to at least 350lbs. The nurses would have to go into a storage closet, and litteraly drag out an enormous scale ment to weigh people who were in wheelchairs! And the only space they had available was in a hallway, where anybody walking by could witness the whole thing!

And third,...........my fiancee and I were gathering our laundry together to go to the laundromat. We like to keep our clothes separate sometimes. Going through his clothes, he picks up a large pink garment and says, "Why is your shirt in with my laundry?" and tosses it with my pile. Knowing my clothes, I knew it wasn't a shirt he picked up and tossed, it was my underwear!!!!! Was I really so big that he thought my underwear was a shirt???!!!!!

That was years ago. Praise the Lord that I have lost over 120lbs, (however it was unfortunately due to being sick) and just recently had a panniculectomy to remove my large hanging belly. I like the way my new body looks and am still hoping to lose more weight from smart food choices and walking.

I was just traveling down memory lane, and felt like sharing those experiences with you. Anyone else had any embarrasing experiences?

I can totally can relate to the whole amusement park thing, I rember being at the fair, not even at my highest weight and trying to ride the spinning swings, I couldnent fit, the bar would not go down. It really hurt my feeling as was just horrable having to walk away from the swings but wait in the crowd waiting for my friends to get off.

However as far as my highest weight, I can really only think of a few things that where embarising, this is most likely because by that time, I had learned what I could and could not do. I also set up a lot of walls, and just would not let myself do things, that I thought might not end up well.

I do recall being at a busy park with my friend and her puppys we where on the grass playing with them, when I went to get up I fell back and landed really hard on my back, had wet grass from my head to my toes, and was so embarrased at what I had done, the on top of it I had to walk home. It was not a good day at all.

The other one was at a family reunion when I over heard my aunt that that I havent seen in like 5 years tell my sister, "Oh my Lord, She has gotten huge!"...I have always been fat...this wasent news to me or her I didnt think. But for some reason my aunt didnt see that my sister who was very thin the last time my aunt had seen her as a teenager, was now a little under 300lbs her self...but she had to say how big I had gotten, It really made me feel picked out...and well hated. I just didnt get. Oh well, I dont think that aunt really ever liked me, and I didnt care too much about her. I hope I run into her when I'm at goal weight, but I dont think it will make a diffrence.

So thats about it for me. I can atleast say the same thing, its behind me now, and I have lost 160 lbs, I have come so far, and I know what those moments made me who I am and a stronger person.
God Bless,
Melissa

Ok, I'll play, too.Like a lot of people, I have had the amusement park thing for years. Nothing stinks like actually enjoying rides - and not being able to ride on them anymore. When I take my nieces to like the little fairs and community days, it stinks A. not being able to go on the rides with them and B. lying to the littler ones when they ask why I don't go on with them. I'll tell them it is because I'd have to take my glasses off and then I'd get a migraine because I didn't have my glasses on - which is true. But the main reason though, is because I just don't fit...and I can't tell a six & nine year old that.Another embarrassing thing I have to deal with is not fitting through turn styles. Front to back, I am entirely to wide to fit. And I am not tall enough, even on tiptoes, to get my belly over the stupid thing. Considering I LOVE to go to concerts, this is horrible. Sometimes I am lucky enough to find the wheelchair entrance line and will go through that one, but not usually.In HS & college, we had a lot of those one piece desks. I didn't fit. So I had to sit with a chair and a table. Sometimes it was a chair and one of those one piece desks facing backwards. In college, I had such anxiety because sometimes the table would disappear from the classroom, etc.

I know there has to be more, but like someone said, you kind of know your limitations after a while and kind of put up a wall and keep yourself out of potentially embarrassing situations as much as you possibly can.

Hmmmmm........seems we all have the amusement park problem. I say we should open up an amusement park specificly made for obese people and have signs saying, "You must be THIS WIDE to ride this ride!!!!!

Of course I am just kidding. I have had problems with those turn bar thingies too. Even some of the seats in movie theaters......the arms on those chairs are just so narrow! Like I said, I may have had my big belly removed, but I still have a big butt and I like going to the movies. The last time I went was a few months ago and I had to go see the employees and ask for a folding chair from the back room. I've never had to do that! My fiancee is so sweet! He is overweight too, but he carries his weight in his belly. But so I wouldn't feel alone, he also sat in a folding chair too. They have wheel chair ramps and stuff for the physically disabled, why not get chairs where you can raise the arms up and down??!!! This goes for everywhere, not just movie theaters. Everyone deserves comfort, even those who have a little extra chubbiness on them!

I too can agree with the amusement park issues.  The last time I went was when I was in college and went to the county fair with some friends.  That stupid bar didn't wanna go down so the Guy got a running start (as much as he could in the small space and jumped up in the air and put all of his weight on the bar to make it close - that shyt hurt like hell - but it did close.)  Last amusement park ride for me for a long, long time.

However, one of my most embarrassing moments was when I went to see a new GI doc (I have an undiagnosed chronic abdominal pain issue - the embarrassing moment and the chronic pain issue are the main reasons I had WLS to begin with) and he proceeded to tell me that he couldn't diagnose me or really even get a good look @ me because of my size then he proceeds to mutter under his breath about "people in prisons eat bread and water and they all lose weight and I should be on the same diet because I seriously needed to lose weight"  Needless to say I reported this mofo to the Texas Medical Board of course he's no longer my GI doc!!!  However I never did forget what he said and ended up having WLS!

My other embarrassing moment was the worst of all.  Again it's related to my chronic abdominal pain issue.  A close friend of the family got me into Scott & White (Texas A&M Medical School)
 and I was referred to Dr. Starr (he's an allergist) who is known at this Med School as the smartest doctor at S&W.  Well, he goes through my records and what not and on this one particular day I was having a serious exacerbation of the abdominal pain.  So, I called his office and he tells me to go to the hospital (it's 49 miles away from me and I'm in too much pain to drive myself) so, a friend gets me there and he admits me ( I know, long story) well, he wants me to have an abdominal MRA and MRI to see if he can spot anything wrong in my abdomen and/or my abdominal artery.  They put this plastic device on my chest/abdomen and send me into the machine for the tests (I'm full of pain meds and I fall asleep while in the machine.)  When it's time for me to come out of the machine I won't budge.  I'm literally STUCK in the MRI machine.  They start pulling and tugging on me which eventually wakes me up and I realize what's going on and I start to panic and they still can't pull me free of that darn machine!!!  They ended up having to cut that plastic shield off of me (as much as they could reach) my arms are pinned in and I'm going crazy they give me some ativan to relax me and calm me down and proceed to dismantle the table (while I'm on it) to get me free.  Needless to say I've never had another abdominal MRI or MRA again. They've done one of my head and orbits, but that's as far as I'll go into that machine because I'm so afraid of getting stuck again!!!! 

Abdominal CT scans I can handle, just not abdominal MRI scans!!!  Talk about scary and you know they were talking about me and they will NEVER FORGET THAT!!!!!

I also suffer abdominal pain that has gone undiagnosed for 3 years!  The doctors do minimal tests, (no MRI's or anything) and just keep telling me to lose weight.  I have lost about 120lbs and had a panniculectomy. They don't even give me credit for that! They still say "Well, yeah, but you still have allot to lose!"  Doctor's can be so heartless!!!!!   I lost my weight due to the pain and hardly being able to eat. I was in the ER one time and the doc told me that judging on the amount of weight I needed to lose, what I was going through wasn't such a bad thing and to continue with it!  Continue not eating and being in pain.............just because I needed to lose weight????!!!!!!!   These doctors should never have gotten a medical licsense!!!!!

Well, I'm a virgin to this board, so jumping in here is as good as anywhere!

Hi! I'm Tammy from Texas

My most embarrassing moment was at the gyno--which is already embarrassing for women of all sizes, anyway. I had had a bad pap come back and was having a biopsy of my uterus. The doctor (female) put in one of those cheap plastic speculums and it was too short. She tried another one and it broke! She had to send someone to find a metal one, so I had to lay there, with some stranger holding my belly overhang up, doc between my legs, at least 2 other people standing around, while some intern searched for a tool. I was deeply humiliated and started crying. One of the ladies standing by grabbed my hand and squeezed. She had no idea how much that gesture of kindness meant to me.

They finally finished and the biopsy came back negative. I'm due for another pap smear "shudder."

Hi Tammy,

I'm so sorry for what happened to you.  I have PCOS with constant bleeding so bad that I have severe anemia.  My last pap was 16 years ago and it came back abnormal and they tried the biopsy but I was bleeding so badly they were unable to get a good sample. I will not have another pap until I am much smaller for fear of the same scenario you described.  I am looking forward to my WLS in less than 2 weeks for many reasons but this is one of them.

As for my most embarrassing moments - I posted them on the thread created on the main forum.

I know this is an old post but I just found it. Your post brought back memories of when I went to the movie theater to see Shallow Hal (and I was probably about 40 lbs less than what I weigh now and about 170lbs smaller than my highest weight). Anyways, when the movie was over and we were leaving the theater,  another heavtset woman was sitting near me and when we were walking out, a couple guys said something like: Hey look, there go 2 that could have been in the movie. It was very humiliating. Luckily, at the time, I was dating a guy that was about 6'7" and 200+ lbs and he got in their face... those guys were shaking in their boots, LOL I've also had little kids say some pretty hurtful things. Some on purpose and some just from pure innocence/ignorance. Considering how some adults are, it's no wonder the kids grow up with no manners.

Again I know this is an old post but i just found it and boy can I relate to several of these embarrassing moments. The 2 that stand out are Tammy's Gyn exam post and Chembe's MRI post. When I was diagnosed with endometrial cancer and facing a hysterectomy, my oncologist sent me to a Gyn that specialized in doing vaginal hysterectomy's, she was trying to avoid me being cut open because of healing issues and my large pannus. So here I am on the table, feet in the stirrups and this doc asks one of the nurses to hold my belly up "so things will look more normal." I was so humiliated. I had never had someone have to hold my belly up during an exam and then to hear him say "so i would look more normal!" So he proceeds to tell me he was 90% sure he could get my uterus out vaginally but they would have to hoist my belly up with tape during the surgery! It ended up that I was later diagnosed with ovarian cancer too so had to have a traditional hysterectomy because he did not think he could not get my ovaries out that way. That leads into my 2nd embarrassing moment. The dreaded MRI machine. I am already claustrophobic anyways, so when they send me for the MRI test, the technician calls me back and tells me that he did not know if I would be able to fit into the machine so he said not to undress and they would do a test run just to see if i would fit, no sense getting all undressed and getting the anti-anxiety medicine if I wouldn't fit anyways. So already scared and now embarrassed, they do the test run and I just barely fit and this is taking the padding and stuff off the slider thing you lay on that goes into the machine. They didn't put me in all the way and I knew I would barely fit in that machine (I had originally requested to have an open MRI but my oncologist said they wouldn't give as clear an image and wanted me to try the reg MRI machine. The guy asked me if I wanted to try it but knowing I would have to be in there for like 45 minutes and I am claustrophobic, I declined. Plus I knew I wouldn't be able to stand laying on that hard board for 45 minutes as my back already hurt just doing the test run. All I could think about was what if I got stuck in there. So Chembe, I really do sympathize with you and am so sorry you had to go through that. I did end up having an open MRI (which diagnosed my ovarian cancer) and even the open MRI machine was a tight squeeze (my belly was touching the top of the machine) and they also took off the padding and I had to lay on that hard, flat board. My back hurt so bad I could not get up off the table when it was over and had to be hoisted up by the technicians, Ugh...