Perhaps I was meant to be fat?
Always waking hungry
craving breakfast as
a start.
And done digesting that
arrived
strong appetite
for lunch.
After eating this
extended sluggishness
dragged on.
Until an evening meal
consumed
spread need
of rest
then sleep.
Hence
imagined workouts
all postponed.
To days
which
never came.
Since writing the above lines, in 1981, I continued avoiding the gym.
Later, chronic illness deterred exercise.
Yet I remained fairly slim.
Until around 2014.
Once consulted, doctors said expanding waist size often happened during “middle age”.
Next, an unusual type of vertigo attacked.
The scales went into reverse.
Whatever I ate, weight loss persisted. Alarmingly fast.
(From peaking at 87kg (192lbs/13.9) I dropped 27kg (60lbs): to 60kg (130lbs/9.2).)
By 2015, very weak, it became harder lifting my feet.
I began shuffling along.
A few people wondered if I was dying.
(Such thoughts also worried me.)
A test revealed severe pancreatic insufficiency.
I had been wasting away due to malnutrition.
Literally starving.
Because my stomach failed at digesting food.
Doctors focussed on this skinny state.
Though I haven’t gained the weight back, despite years of enzyme supplements.
There are positive sides:
Being nearer a semi-goth look.
Without makeup.
My cheekbones show more.
I quite like them.
School uniform could fit again.
So, that’s something.
As an M.E./CFS sufferer
(across three decades)
I’ve moved from ill and fat.
To ill and thin.
Thin seems better.
But
I’d sooner be well.
Hi everyone!
Frankly, I felt too sick and depressed for blogging, this week.
But, didn’t want to give in, and miss a chance of interacting with you all.
So decided on posting, anyway.
Comments are always VERY welcome! 🙏
Art on the blog is mine. Hope you like it?
Thanks for reading. 🙂
( Anxiety / art / beauty / blog / depression / illness / life / mental health / poem / poetry / reading / thoughts / writing )
Ken Hallett Blog 
good for you for not giving in! 🙂
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Thank you, Wendi!
Hope you are having a good day. 🙏
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thank you so very much Ken…….I hope today is behaving itself for you! 🙂
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I have bouts of vertigo every once in a while, and they are the absolute worst! I can’t imagine having chronic vertigo 😖 extending my sympathies!
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Thank you, Larisa!
My vertigo is probably not as bad as yours, since it’s rarely the spinning kind (which I dread),
but more like being on a fairground ride, or a moving walkway, I can’t get off.
Feelings of falling/sinking into the ground/having the floor move sideways/being on a waterbed/etc.
These can become quite mild and gentle, though always there, to some extent.
I’ve gotten used to such sensations over the years. On good days, I can almost ignore them.
Their habit of changing, from one moment to the next, however, provokes an underlying unsteadiness and anxiety.
And they can flare up, at any time, in scary ways.
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Oh that’s understandable. Mine come with a vengeance, unfortunately. But still, any form of vertigo is awful and should be banished off the face of the earth ☹️
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Yes, I agree.
No doctor can explain my type of vertigo.
It started suddenly, as I was talking to someone, in August 2014.
And has continued ever since.
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I am glad you didn’t give in, Ken. I hope you are doing well.
Also I loved the artwork. It’s a little different than your usual ones I feel. I reallly liked it !
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Thanks, Harshada!
Yes: quite perceptive of you! 👏
That painting was done many years after most of the ones you have commented on.
(I thought it looked organic enough to fit with the post’s theme of internal processes.)
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Ohhh…Cool !!
Yes, all your artworks complement very well with your poems.🌠
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Thin is better than fat. Why? Because, when you are thin people sympathise including the doctors. When you are fat, they are like…You are FAT as if you don’t know. Columbus! Good, you recovered from thin, thinner or not so thin after all.Good work 🙂
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Thank you, Kalabalu!😊
I found, because illness makes me weaker, it feels better to be a lighter weight.
(I would not want to carry those extra pounds around, now.)
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🙃 so true extra pounds is tiresome
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