A Gal’s Changing Body

Seeing that Twitter thinks I should follow Southwest Air reminded me that I wanted to talk a little about fat. Ha, there you go, Southwest, you’ve now cemented yourselves as the airline people think of when they think of weird things having to do with fat. That must be a PR coup for you.

Anyway, I’m stealing myself for another round of “Go see all your doctors!” later this month. It’s fine. It’s just check-up and check-in time. It’s just that now I must be monitored. Monitored. It’s like being Minotaured, except that you don’t get stuck in a labyrinth and fed young people. Well, maybe that comes later. But it does feel a little like “now you have a monstrous body which we must all try to exert control over so that it does not get out of control! And kill us all!!!!!”

And they’ll ask me how I am and I’ll say fine except that I feel like I’m having trouble breathing in weird circumstances–not that I get out of breath, but that I can’t catch my breath. Like I’ll be in the garden weeding and I’ll have no problem bending down and picking up a pile and putting it in the compost pile and the next time I do the exact same thing, mere minutes later, I’m taking all these short breaths because it’s like I can’t get air into my lungs and then it will pass weirdly, like sometimes it will stop because I have stopped the activity and sometimes it just clears up while I’m in the middle of said activity.

So, that’s weird. Probably some kind of mild asthma, I’m thinking, which, considering all my lungs have been through, was bound to happen.

And I think sometimes I can feel where they did the biopsy in my chest. I feel a long pain there sometimes, like a toothpick sits right between my sternum and my right boob, but deep in there and, if I’m stressed or hunched too long, I can feel it in there. But I’m not really sure that’s a problem. Still, you mention the weird shit, right?

Oh, my lungs. I remember when you were the most fucked up part of me.

Here’s the part that’s really weird and I’m concerned they’re going to think I’m crazy. My fat is changing. I’m not becoming less fat, I don’t think. But its consistency is changing radically. I can feel it, too. Like on my belly, there are areas where it feels like something firmer is giving way to something softer. I can feel rivulets in the firm fat and then, after a while, months, there’s less and less of the firm fat and I’m left with the squishy fat.

I’ve been reading up on types of fat, but it’s all very “here it is, here’s what it does, here’s why it is a problem that must be dealt with!!!” and there’s not anything about just what it feels like of what might cause it to feel different.

So, I don’t know. It’s weird. I read an article on Web MD that described fat as an organ, but that doesn’t seem right. My liver doesn’t change consistency (I guess. Maybe it does. I now have my eye on you, liver).

Or maybe it’s just a part of getting older–parts that were firm become squishy. Still, that seems weird.

Ugh, ha, clearly, I have a lot of anxiety about going to the doctors. I wish you could make one appointment and they would all just come in and see you. That would be nice.