The Last Supper

We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth

—Virginia Satir, family therapist

The mole was huge! It was more like I had a hiatal hernia than a mole, and then while the surgeon was in there fixing the hernia, I said, "sure go ahead with that drastic guypass thing. I've had enough of this eating stuff for one life time. Enough talking and writing about how food is my bugaboo, my drug of choice, yet not finding a permanent fix other than death. Find me a tool; bypass is a tool, not a cure. I'm bored with it all. It's like writing about a break-up that happened almost a year ago. It's writing a story that never changes. I'm fat, I eat when I'm bored, and you can see how bored I am! I get bored a lot! Bored and boring. See, it's sort of a vicious circle. I get bored, I eat, I chastise myself for eating. I feel like crap because I chastise and berate myself for being less than human so I eat more, I get bored of feeling bad so I eat. Then sometimes I'll write about eating or write about boredom or think about what I can eat next. Though for this moment in time I'm writing about a mole.


A "mole" that turned into a hiatal hernia where nearly "half your stomach was in your chest cavity!" and me admitting I need the guypass. But really, the truth is, I did the research and chose to have gastric bypass surgery, and while I had the bypass, the surgeon found and fixed a hiatal hernia and he never paid the first bit of attention to any mole. I'm still covered in moles. 


At first I didn't think any doc in his right mind would think I was heavy enough for gastric bypass or had a high enough BMI for my insurance to pay. When the doctor first met with me and was reading my statistics, he said I didn't have the BMI. Dammit!  I told him to give me a few hours and I could correct that. He laughed. We remeasured my height and wouldn't you know, I turned out to be several inches shorter than I thought I was, and that shortness made me the perfect height for the surgery. So you see in my case, it was not that I was fat after all. It was really that I was too tall! If only I had admitted this years ago when I discovered I was at the wrong elevation for my weight. Time for gastric bypass surgery! Which btw, is not the easy way out so stop saying that! I've said that too, and it's b.s. because now I am unsaying it. I lost weight. Losing weight is the easy way out. Keeping weight off is the easy way out. Staying alive, in relationships that are loving are easy too. But staying alive in a relationship that's demented is not easy. My relationship with food is (ever so slightly) demented. (See the addiction rearing it's ugly head?)


With additional morbidities like increasing knee pain from arthritis which makes is difficult to want to walk to the end of the driveway hauling my rear-end with me, asthma, bursitis in my right hip, lymphedema, uterine cancer, well, it was either start investing in one of those ultra-size coffins and croak the boring way or as my sister phrased it, "some people aren't willing to give up the food" which translates to some people want to hang on to their addiction. That phrase was a turning point for me. I thought at my age 54, that I had eaten enough. I am ready to give up the food.


I want more mobility for the future I have, the ability to breathe with ease, and less chance of cancer recurrence plus the benefit of repairing the hiatal hernia will make what little food I can eat go down easier -- no coughing and choking in restaurants. So although I was too tall for the surgery, I had valid reasons to get the surgery (valid whether you think they are or not). Plus my food addiction (that so many people can't seem to relate to just like a heroin or alcohol addiction. "Why don't use just stop drinking?" "Why don't you just put down that half of a pie?" Many times someone else has to be one to see one on this issue. Although, I don't have to be a heroin addict to see one. I'll take her nervous, ratchety, jittery word for it as I busy myself crossing the street to get away from her cardboard begging sign.


Though I've loved food forever, I loved gardening since I was a young child. I remember pulling weeds in the backyard by choice. What kind of kid does that?! Yet I don't feel a compulsion to weed pull. With food it's another story though I'd say my food addiction sort of ebbs and flows, this past year has been a struggle with loneliness, grief, unexpected transition where food would help me numb the pain where as pulling a weed just made a mess in the driveway. I don't know if I became a foodie because I was fat, because I loved food, because I was an addict or if starting out a foodie created an addict or whether it all started when I was a child and instead of one day not getting that much needed hug, I was handed a cracker instead. Voila!


I read somewhere that for a healthy person, you need to get 4 hugs a day minimum. For the past year, there are a lot more crackers than hugs around here. It came down to crackers or prostitution. And crackers are cheap (I was used to cheap with my x). Crackers are there when you need them. Crackers don't dump you for a trashy-looking brunette who works on cars, has occasional sex with you (when you actually can) (until she finds one of those sores), and moved her wet-bar into your living room to replace your family. I chose crackers (metaphorically speaking) Crackers = all foods.


Going forward with this new "tool" that I'll be forced to make healthier choices. Through the use of this tool, I'll be forced to eat smaller amounts of healthier choices. I'll be forced to deal with my addiction with a different method. No booze because it's too chemo-like. No over-spending because I have no money. And no gambling because I really don't like Vegas baby! (No offense, Tricia). 


During my recuperation from "mole" surgery I watched a documentary entitled The Last Supper about foods that criminals chose to eat before being put to death. The idea is that these food choices take us to a kinder, gentler time in our lives though there is also a double-sword because the condemned can eat but he doesn't really enjoy the food. He hardly has time to digest. Since this documetary is mostly about Texas, most of the guys chose country fried chicken, country fried gravy, country biscuits & country gravy, and fried peach cobbler with country gravy and a pack a smokes.


My sister, my photographer. 

In the movie they explained other instances of last suppers. A common method of punishment during the Middle Ages was to bury the condemned man alive with a straw in his mouth. Milk was poured through the straw keeping him alive as long as possible (that must be big fun!) This "last supper" served two functions. One, the "sin" had more time to leave the body, and "finally" it was the condemned man who "chose" to die. I feel I've been suckin this straw a mighty long time.