Chapter 1 - consulting room story

After many years of struggling alone I finally summoned up the courage to visit the doctors' surgery to ask him for help with my problem.
Before I got to the clinic I stopped off at the supermarket and bought two dozen double chocolate iced cream doughnuts and two litres of chocolate fudge milk and ate it all in ten minutes in the car to distract myself from how anxious I felt about trying to face my problems.
The gorging made me late, and sticky, but even so by the time I found somewhere to park and the right entrance I was feeling hungry again. Although all the food was causing my stomach to feel bloated and I could feel my belly sticking right out in front of me I still felt the urge to stuff myself again coming in violent hunger pangs.
There was a long queue at the reception and by the time it was my turn there were another eight people behind me waiting.
The receptionist looked at me and asked me about the nature of my visit.
'I prefer not to say' I said. I felt sure she could see how embarrassed I was. My big fat belly meant I could not get close enough up to the counter to whisper to her.
She looked annoyed. 'If you can't tell me anything about your problem it may cause delays in getting treatment' she said.
'I have some personal problems' I stammered ' - And I find it difficult to talk about.' My feet and legs were beginning to ache from standing so long in line.
Some people in the line behind me seemed to hold their heads down in sympathy. Others fidgeted and coughed.
'Oh well, you will have to wait your turn. Take a seat upstairs'
I muttered thanks and waited to see if there were further instructions.
She said very slowly and deliberately, 'The doctor will see you when he's finished with his other patients. His consulting room is just up those stairs if you want to go and take a seat and wait.'
I turned to look up at the stairs. They were covered in grey vinyl with metal edging. They lead up past a sunny window with a box of plants in it. There was no way on earth I could get up them. At my size my hips would be too wide if I went up straight and if I tried to go up sideways my belly was even wider. I knew at once I could not use the stairs and began to panic. I turned back and met the receptionist's eye.
'There's a lift over to your left' she said. She was smiling, but her voice had hardened.
I felt relief begin to wash over me and began to waddle heavily away. Then I saw the door of the lift. With careful steering it would have allowed a single wheel chair in. Again I could see immediately that there was no way my bulk would go through he frame of the door. I stopped and felt sweat dripping down my paunch. I began to feel panicky and breathless and turned back to the reception desk. The person behind me in the queue was getting twitchy. The receptionist was watching me with a cold, judgemental eye.
'Is there . . a . . problem?' she asked.
'I don't think I can use the lift or the stairs' I felt my shame rising hot inside me.
She said slowly 'Oh well if you have some kind of . . mobility problem which prevents you from using the stairs or the lift its going to be more difficult to get to see the doctor. Are you disabled?'
I felt like crying 'No, not . . .at least I . . . I just can't get up those stairs or into that lift . . unless there is another way up'
'Well the doctor will come down if you are disabled but you should have let me know before you came so we could arrange you a special consultation. You will have to wait.' She gestured towards the long narrow benches which lined the wall.
The people behind me in the queue were sighing and tutting as I sidled past them with my head down. I knew from bitter experience that my backside would not begin to fit on that kind of bench. So I walked over to where I could just lean against the wall, puffing and blowing and sweating and red faced with shame.
After about an hour of waiting my back was aching and my belly was taut and bloated but I felt weak with hunger again. Then the doctor appeared, tall and strong and well built, with his eyes shining and a smile on his face. I was so deep in my well of shame that I hardly dared look at him.
'Please come through' he said and showed me into a downstairs consulting room. I felt his eyes on me as I waddled slowly after him and had to manually drag and push my belly and hips through the door. He showed me a seat and I hesitated to sit down. The chair had arms, and I knew my fat body would not fit into it.
'Do sit down' he said, not unkindly, but I met his eyes and he saw how upset I was. I shook my head. 'I can't sit there!' I said starting to cry 'I will not fit into a chair like that'.
He looked steadily at me for a moment then fetched two chairs without arms and put them front to front to make a wide seat I could relax on. 'Please' he said, 'Make yourself comfortable.'
I sat down and felt my huge fat backside flop over the back of the seats and my massive gut swell up in front of me. I still felt uncomfortably stuffed because of the doughnuts and I had to open my knees wide and let my fat drop down in between my knees. He watched as my belly touched the floor for a moment before I sat back a little.
'Can you tell me a bit about what has brought you here today' he asked patiently, handing me a tissue for my eyes.
'Doctor . . .It's about my . . . I wanted some help with my . . .my weight' I said at last.
'You have come for help with your weight?'
'Yes - I need help doctor . . .it's because I'm . . .I need you to help me with . .I'm so fat! . . . .'
I began to shake and sob uncontrollably.
'... I've come about my fatness - it's so embarrassing - I'm so ashamed . . . but I have grown so fat over the past year and I need you to help me doctor because I just can't stop eating!' The tears ran down my fat face and splashed onto my swollen breasts.
'You feel that you eat a lot?' he asked.
'Every day I eat from the moment I wake up until the moment I go to sleep and I often wake up in the night to go and feed again because I get so hungry . . . and once I start eating I just can't stop' I was crying so hard now that every word came out like little scream.
He began to type something into my notes on the computer. 'So you eat large quantities of food and feel compelled to keep on eating?'
'Yes - and now I have put on so much weight I can hardly walk. All I do all day is eat and steal food and eat more food because I am so hungry all the time and I can't control myself' I said.
'And you have put on a lot of weight?'
'Yes . . .I feel trapped inside all these layers and rolls and folds of heavy fat . . . ..I don't know how much weight I have put on . . . '
'We had better get you to . .hop up on the scales and see the size of the problem' he smiled.
'But you don't know how much weight I have put on . .you don't know where I started. . .'
'Do you know how many clothes sizes you have gone up?'
'About twelve sizes'
'Well . . in your notes it says that just over a year ago you weighed fourteen and a half stones. . .'
He place a pair of scales in front of me so I could get onto them and then helped me up when he saw what a struggle it was with my enormous bulk to stand up.
After three attempts I stood up on the scale and my fat body swelled out in front of me so I could not see the display. I saw him purse his lips and blow a little air out when he saw the reading.
'How heavy am I doctor?'
'You have put on something like twenty three stones in twelve months . . . and now - You are too heavy for your height, in fact you are in the range doctors call super-obese . . . . you weigh 37 stone 9 pounds. Which is 527 pounds - 239 kilos - which means you have a BMI of 87.'
I sat back down heavily and felt completely mortified and completely defeated.
'I just don't know what to do. I have got so fat but I just can't stop eating. All day and all night I just feel forced to eat . . .I have to stuff myself and I am just compelled to gorge myself until I pass out and then a few hours later it all starts again.'
The doctor looked at me kindly.
'Alright, slow down, let's get all this down properly. No-one here is going to judge you for your size or your eating habits so it is OK to be completely honest with me about your concerns. Now you are certainly right to be concerned - You have been putting on an average of one pound of fat every day . . . .now you to be say that you feel you eat too much? What exactly are you eating - what kind of foods? - and how much each day?' the doctor observed me closely.
I tried to focus on what he was saying, and as he said the word 'foods' my stomach began to rumble loudly.
'Are you feeling hungry now?' he asked
'I usually don't go so long between meals - I have been waiting to see you over an hour and now I feel starving hungry - sorry'
I began to blush again as my stomach made even louder rumblings as I spoke. 'I am always hungry - every minute of every day I am either eating, feeling hungry, resisting eating, or feeling so full and bloated and uncomfortable that I can't eat, but once I have started stuffing myself I am so greedy that I can't stop until I actually pass out.'
'So you overeat for most of every day?'
'Yes and all night . . . and I eat even though it hurts to get so full and I hate being fat and I have been overweight or obese all my life because I am so greedy. But it's got so much worse and I have got so much bigger . . .I have put on so much weight in the last year that people do not recognise me . . .I'm so fat now no one even knows me' I could feel my shame rising again.