Chapter 1 - anticipation pt3 ch 1

"Ms. McCann? Melanie McCann?" I could hear the nurse say as she looked around the crowded waiting room puzzled. "Hi, right here" I said getting up to sign myself in. As I walked to the desk I could see that Nurse Donna had finally recognized me. I had only been coming to see Dr. Silverman for the past six years. "Oh....Melanie...sorry honey I didn't recognize you right away. Did you umm...change your hair style?" she said to me clearly uncomfortable with the situation. I played a long "Oh yes I did, I went with a bob. Thanks for noticing." The whole encounter between me and Nurse Donna got really awkward as she walked me down the hallway to the examination room. She kept trying to talk about hair styles, asking me where I went and what stylist did the work and what products I used. I work in a doctor's office too, so I get the whole small talk thing that nurses have to do but this was different. You could tell there was more going on in her head than was coming out of her mouth. I appreciated that she didn't want to hurt my feelings because we both knew the real reason I looked so different, I had gotten fat.

Donna handed me my gown and told me Dr. Silverman would be in shortly before closing the door. As I began to strip down I thought about night Luke first told me he loved me and the five months since then. A smile crept across my face as I reminisced about how great the past few months had been. We had grown very close and not just sexually but emotionally as well. Someone had truly loved me for the first time in my life and it felt amazing. In the past I had always rolled my eyes whenever one of my girlfriends talked about the warm gushy feelings they had about a guy but now I was experiencing them for myself and it was strange. Part of the gushy feelings came from the fact that I was just more relaxed now than I had ever been before. Anxiety had been a constant force for me since childhood but this new relationship had helped me soften the edges. Just knowing that I had Luke to lean on was a really calming influence for me, whenever I was having an anxious moment I would think about him and it helped. I still had moments of intense worry but I was no longer letting them drive me to complete exhaustion. Being happy felt right, it felt comfortable. I liked the changes that were going on with my psyche but unfortunately my personality wasn't the only thing that had taken on a new shape. My body had decided to join in on the fun as well.

Standing on the cold linoleum in just my underwear while holding the gown I looked down at the fat mound of flesh that used to be my stomach. My lower belly had grown so big it jutted out about three inches ahead of the rest of my stomach. There wasn't any hang at all to the fat, it just kind of stuck out suspended in front of me. My bellybutton which was still visible was slowly starting to get covered by the rolls of my upper and lower belly. I had cellulite along my ribs and my love handles bulged out at my sides with creases forming at the tops of them. I grabbed my belly with both of my hands and as the fat squished between my fingers I jiggled it violently. That was when I heard the knock at the door. "Shit!" I said to myself as I haphazardly threw the gown over my chubby body and hopped up on the examination table.

"Good afternoon Melanie, how have you been?" Dr. Silverman asked without an ounce of surprise as he entered the exam room. Considering how Donna had stumbled all over herself at the sight of me I expected at least an eyebrow raise from the good doctor. He gave nothing away and got right down to business. "So are we just doing the standard physical today? Is there anything that's concerning you?" Dr. Silverman asked as he got out

His notepad and began to scribble some stuff down. "No" I answered.

There are only a few things in life less appealing than getting a physical but somehow he is able to make it tolerable. I think it has to do with the fact that some doctors only care about the next prescription they can write out, not with Dr. Silverman, you get a genuine sense from him that he actually cares about you and your wellbeing. He is also a small old man so you never really feel intimated by him, which is one of the main reasons I have kept him as my doctor for so many years.

During the examination I started to feel dread wash over me because I knew the one thing I wasn't ready for was coming. I was going to be weighed. I hadn't weighed myself in almost 3 months. I started putting on the pounds pretty quickly after that night at the steak house and it was easier to ignore my weight than to watch the scale tell me how I was getting fatter and fatter. I had ballooned up a lot since that night and was definitely in denial of how big I was getting. To cap it off, my last visit to Dr. Silverman was almost five months before I even met Luke, so I was much bigger than the last time he saw me. Regret clouded my mind as I thought about all the times I made excuses as I shoveled fattening food into my face. "Oh it's only a pint of ice cream, oh it's only a snickers bar" I would say to myself before I would slide the snack past my lips. Now I am not a complete idiot I knew I was gaining weight, it was pretty obvious when I saw my button land in the fish tank after it popped off my work pants one day. I just chose to make excuses and hide from it, mostly by wearing baggy clothes and sweat pants. Luke was responsible for most of my weight gain. He got me into stuffing and my stomach had gotten so stretched out that I was hungry all the time. It made me make poor choices and that's bad when you have a feeder boyfriend that has a kitchen exploding with junk food and a mother who cooks enough food to feed a small village. Not to mention a fat friend who insists on taking you to every greasy spoon in town for lunch. Another factor was that as I piled on the pounds Luke seemed to grow more and more attracted to me, I couldn't keep him off of me sometimes. It was a turn on to be wanted that badly so I just kept eating and eating. But now I had to face my gluttony head on, there were no more excuses and no more places to hide my ***.

Reflexes check, blood pressure check, heart rhythm check, breathing check, eye test check, it had seemed like Dr. Silverman had gone over everything and my physical was done. He went over to the counter and paused for a few moments. I couldn't believe it I had made it through the whole examination and wasn't going to get weighed in. I was so happy and relieved that I started to inch my way off of the table that was when the doctor put up his finger and said "Hold on dear we are almost finished." Crushed I sat back on the table and turned some shade of grey. I was about to cry when Dr. Silverman turned around and said the last words on earth I wanted to hear "Ok Melanie can you please stand on the scale for me, I am a bit concerned about your weight."

It felt like an out of body experience as I walked across the exam room and on to the scale. 'Clank' the sound bounced off the beige walls and back into my ears. All I could do was stare at the ceiling as the doctor slide the weights over and over until the scale finally relented. "Ok" the doctor said as he went back over to the counter. I looked down at the scale to see the damage. 178, one hundred and seventy eight pounds! I had put on fifty five pounds since I met Luke only 7 months ago. I was legitimately shocked at my weight. Before I stepped on the scale I had figured I was maybe 155 at the most. I didn't even get a minute to process the horror show in front of my face when Dr. Silverman came back with some weird clamp thing in his hands. "What is that?" I asked sheepishly. "It a device called a skin fold caliper, it is used to measure your body fat percentage. Can you please step off of the scale for me and lift your gown to your rib cage." I did as the doctor told me. I got off of the scale, lifted my gown and exposed my fat belly to him. The caliper first gripped my bulging love handle. I could feel the tool squeeze into my soft flesh as the doctor took down notes. Next he clamped onto my lower belly, the upper part of the clamp was almost in my belly button giving me a weird sensation and the lower half cupped the rest of my blubbery roll. I felt so unbelievably fat at this moment. As I was standing there having my fat gut being pinched and measured, I felt like another person. It was like I was in some other person's body, some fat person but with my thoughts. This was the point where I became completely overwhelmed. I tried to look up to stop the tears but it was no use. I broke down and cried.