The story so far

It all really started in 2005, I was in a bad way. I was 21stone and as a result I did very little and spent most of my time sat on the sofa watching TV. I tried to tell myself, and others, that my weight didn’t affect things in particular how I cared for the children placed with me as a foster carer but of course it did. I couldn’t do anything.

I did take them places but was always a spectator and when we went places that involved me walking I was soon exhausted and grumpy and often on the verge of tears because I couldn’t cope. In fact I now realise thinking back (and watching home videos) I was often grumpy because everything in just the day to day life was so difficult.

I watched one video recently of Christmas 2005. It is particularly telling if you watch it at high speed. All that activity, people standing up, sitting down moving backwards and forwards across the room, going in and out of the room. And through it all I never move, I stay glued to my spot on the sofa. I also noticed how well trained the children were too. What ever I needed they fetched, if they needed something doing, they came to me. At one point I knocked a box over so it was just out of reach (which wasn’t far as I couldn’t bend because of the size of my stomach) and immediately one of the children said ’I’ll get it for you Helen’

It is hard to believe that I honestly didn’t realise any of this at the time and really thought that my size made no difference to how I cared for the children.

I also never went out. I don’t mean I rarely went out. I actually mean I never went out. It was too much effort and I was so self conscious and embarrassed of myself. I spent most of my time on the internet. More often than not arguing with people because I was so insecure and emotional and unhappy.

If what happened next hadn’t have happened I can imagine the way my life would have gone. More of the same, I would have continued to stay routed to the sofa eating and got bigger and bigger until dying an early death probably weighing 30 stone or more.

In the summer of 2005 I got ill. I occasionally had a night were I was in intense pain. It would start with feeling uncomfortable and gradually increase until my entire body was wracked in agony. I have never known pain like it. It usually lasted about 7 hours and then it would ease off but I would be left feeling ’wobbly’ and unwell for a couple of days. I did nothing for a long time because like everything I put it down to my size and thought if I went to a doctor I would just be told to lose weight.

The ’attacks’ got gradually more and more frequent and at the end of November I phoned the NHS direct in tears from the pain in the middle of the night. After asking me some questions the said I needed to go to hospital and sent an ambulance.

After being examined, blood taken and being asked a million questions a doctor came to see me with some morphine. I love that doctor. It is the first time I have ever had morphine and was astounded with how well and how quickly it worked. Within moments the pain was completely gone. I don’t think there is any better feeling than not having any pain after your entire body being wracked in pain for hours.

I was told that my liver count was raised and they were admitting me to do further tests. I was kept in for 2 days. They took a lot of blood, I started to get quite annoyed thinking “why couldn’t they take all they needed in one go?” And different people kept coming and asking me all the same questions. Have I been abroad? When and which countries? Have I ever injected drugs? Have I ever had a blood transfusion? Etc.

Then someone told me they were going to test for hepatitis, I just said ‘ok’ as I didn’t really know what it was and was just thinking if that is what they think is wrong with me of course they should test for it.

Not long after a doctor came to my bed, drew the curtains round and said she needed to make sure I realised the implications of what they were testing for as she didn’t think I understood the seriousness. After having said that she then got very evasive. She didn’t really tell me anything other than I wouldn’t be able to get travel insurance and would probably lose my job as a foster carer. I tried asking questions but she just didn’t answer how you get it and when I tried to establish what would happen she just said if the test was positive they would do a biopsy of my liver but then wouldn’t say any more than that.

I was then discharged from hospital with an appointment to go back in a week for the test results. I went home very confused and really more clueless than I had been before the doctor spoke to me so I did something that is widely accepted you should never do with a medical condition. I did an internet search.

I ended up on a site with a very official sounding name though I have since discovered it is definitely not official and isn’t much more than scare mongering. Within 5 minutes of starting reading I was in tears and hysterical thinking I was going to die… and soon. I also seemed to have all the symptoms it said and also realised it had probably been lying dormant since before I had my son and he probably had it and was going to die too.

Luckily I have good friends who did a good job of calming me down but still I was convinced I had it and convinced I was going to die. A week can be a very long time and you would be surprised how much you can think about in a week, well pretty much your entire life really.
Everything they say about what you think about and what does and doesn’t matter when you know (or think you know in my case) you are going to die is true. Money and possessions didn’t matter a jot. Other than that I had a loan without payment protection and I was worried about my son ending up with the debt.

What I really thought about more than anything else that week was how I had wasted my life and all the missed opportunities. I realised that my life was absolutely full of missed opportunities and I regretted every one of them, every time I had been too scared, too fat, too unhealthy, too self conscious or just said no because I seemed to be used to saying no. I regretted what I had done to my body, when I had had the opportunity to be fit and healthy I had chosen to wreck my body and make myself incapable of so much. I had made myself ill and unhealthy when I hadn’t had to be and that just suddenly seemed so shocking and an appalling waste.

In that week I made the decision and told people that if by some miracle the test result was negative and I got a second chance I would make the most of it. I would make the most of every minute of my life from that moment on. I would make up for every single missed opportunity in my life, I would go back and do them all, I wouldn’t miss any more opportunities. When opportunities come my way I would grasp them with both hands unless there is a real and good reason not to. And most of all, I’m going to fix and look after my body. NO MORE EXCUSESS OR PUTTING IT OFF. I would lose all of the excess weight and get fit and healthy. In fact If I don’t have hepatitis I will run the race for life in 2008.

That was something unthinkable, really a huge unimaginable goal. At that time I could hardly move. Although I was serious and meant it I really couldn’t bring myself to really believe I would do it.

The week passed and I went back to the hospital for the test results. You guessed it, it was negative. I didn’t have hepatitis. After more tests and scans and things it was established I had gall stones. Incredibly painful but not particularly dangerous.

You would think that would be enough but apparently not. Fate or whatever decided the point needed ramming home. Usually a morbidly obese patient wouldn’t be operated on for gall stones, they would be expected to lose weight first and that is how it started with me. I was doing well. The knowledge that eating anything with fat in could result in you being in a&e in agony begging for morphine is quite an incentive not to eat it.

Unfortunately because of the frequency and intensity of my attacks (the final straw was when I was in a&e 3 times in a week) they decided to do the operation as an emergency. I was well aware of the risks of an operation whilst morbidly obese (they call it morbidly obese for a reason) and I was genuinely scared I wouldn’t wake up from the operation.

I did though, obviously and thought it was finally all over I now just had to wait to heal and then could get on with my plans to make the most of life. But apparently even thinking I was going to die twice wasn’t enough.

Several members of my family have a little problem, resistances to various medications. Mainly local Anaesthetic but also anti biotics. I’m not completely resistant to it but it usually takes more than one course to get the upper hand.

I was left with a surgical infection after the operation and was put on anti biotics. By this time I was back home and the anti biotics were obviously not working. I was in worse and worse pain each day. I phoned the nurse at my gp’s and was told I hadn’t given them chance to work so I did as I was told and waited. A couple of days later my mum came over, saw how much pain I was in and phoned for the doctor to come out.

Whilst we were waiting I went to the bathroom. I bent over and what happened next was horrific. The wound coming out of my tummy button with 6 staples in it burst open and stuff started oozing out, through all the dressings and was just running everywhere. It was a sort of dark red brown and I thought it was blood. The quantity and speed it was coming out of me truly terrified me. I was screaming for my mum to phone 999 whilst thinking ‘I won’t last long enough for the ambulance to get here’

For the third time I thought I was going to die only this time I thought I had moments.

Luckily just after my mum had phoned for an ambulance the doctor she had phoned earlier arrived and he was fantastic, so kind and reassuring and told me that it wasn’t as alarming as it seemed, it was actually just the infection that was coming out and it needed to come out. I would be ok.

What followed when I arrived at hospital is an experience I never want to repeat. I was initially told I would be taken back to theatre to have the staples removed from the infected wound. I was told not to worry, they never do that with a conscious patient. Then when the doctor came round to see me he said they would take them out on the ward.

Up on the ward I told a nurse this and she said no she thought I must have it wrong, they wouldn’t do that don’t worry but she was wrong. It turns out the doctor didn’t want to risk putting my under for a second time because of my size. They gave me an injection of Tramadol (which made no difference) and then removed the staples from the infected wound while I was conscious. Each and every one was it’s own individual nightmare. I thought it was never going to end.

Following this I had a month of laying in bed being visited daily by district nurses while the wound healed without the aid of staples (though the infection cleared up after being put on very strong anti biotics).

By the end of this I was so sick of being ill and incapable and unhealthy it really reinforced the decisions I had already made. I just wanted to do things, everything, start the plans I had made 7 months before but hadn’t been able to start because of my health. The day the health visitor gave me the all clear (17th June 2006) and told me I could resume my normal life and she didn’t have to come back again I felt like I could do cartwheels.

I wasted no time and the summer of 2006 was very busy and much fun. Unfortunately my new lifestyle of making up for missed opportunities and not missing any more didn’t fit too well with losing weight and getting fit. Too many holidays and parties. As a result I stopped losing weight. I knew how it always goes, how it has always gone in the past, I lose some weight, my determination goes, I gradually give up and put more weight back on than I lost.

I was scared I was going to do this again so I did something I would never have thought I would ever do. I hired a personal trainer. I have now been training with matt for just under 2 years and my god does he make me work hard.

I lost 7 stone and got down to 14 stone 7lb and yes on 21st June 2008 I ran the race for life.

That was an incredibly emotional thing for me. I had trouble sleeping in the days leading up to it. Even though I knew I could run 5km and had in fact by that point ran 10km, this was the think I had been working towards for 2 years, this was the unobtainable goal I had set. I couldn’t believe the time was actually here and I was actually going to do it. I felt sick every time I thought about it. As we stood in the crowd of people behind the start line counting down from 10 with everyone I was fighting back the tears.

Not only did I run the whole thing as had said I would I did it in a faster time than I have ever managed to run 5km before. A fact that still baffles me considering the hills and crowds of people in the way. No idea how I managed that.

It has not been easy, over the last two years there have been plenty of drama and emotion and almost giving up and thinking ‘I can’t do it’ as well as moments of joy when I see myself in the mirror or see an old photo of myself and realise just how bad I was and how far I’ve come, the satisfaction of managing to do something I couldn’t do before. All the boxes and bin bags of clothes that were too small have all gradually gone and most of them I have got too small for and had to get rid of and move onto the next. The feeling each time I put one of those items of clothes on and it fitted is just fantastic.

But there is no pretending it is easy and it still isn’t. I still have a lot of weight to go and a long way to go with my fitness. I am now planning to do the 13 mile great north run in October and my new long term goal to aim for is the 2010 London Marathon.

If you have actually read all of that - Wow you have more stamina than I’m going to need for the London marathon.