Side Effect: Weight Gain

The doctor smiles at me comfortingly.
"It's a very safe drug. The only side effect you might experience is weight gain."

Weight gain?! Now the doctor's smile just looks to me like a mocking idiotic grin.

"Wait, what about other options? Don't you have any drugs that carry a risk of brain aneurysm instead of weight gain? I'd take that! What about birth defects? Cancer? Come on, work with me here." Doc just chuckles at me. No such luck.

Damn FDA! Hey to a woman, weight gain IS a serious side effect. Every few months I get a new drug and along with it, another 15lbs to carry around.

When people say, "You don't look sick" - to me, I do look sick, because all that weight happened from various effects of the illness. And then combine that with being too sick to get out of bed many days - that really does a number on your metabolism. It's the law of nature - go into hibernation, come out with a body shaped like a grizzly bear.

For all of us who have been through this cycle with an invisible illness, we now have a new level of stigma. With fatigue, to the unkind world we look "LAZY." Now due to the drug effects, we look "FAT." Fat and lazy - just about the worst possible things to be in image-conscious, modern, workaholic American society.

Isn't it absurd that at a time when I am in pain, I can't work, my life is passing away before my eyes, that what I am really concerned about is weight gain? It just shows how crazy-making it is to be a female living in 21st century America.

Yeah I'd like to believe that it's just me, being a neurotic mess, but I'm actually less weight-obsessed than most women I know. I keep hearing the complaints about weight gain from women with so much to be proud of.

Many years ago in college, I went out to lunch with a woman who had just returned from a year of volunteer work in war-torn Bosnia, sheltering refugees and providing rape crisis services. She described a life of constant near-death experiences, dodging bullets and threats. With grace and humility, she related how she witnessed and comforted the victims of rape and torture. I was absolutely awestruck by her. BTW she was just drop-dead gorgeous in an old-fashioned way, voluptuous figure, cascading blonde curls, long lashes, etc. I asked her how she was dealing with returning home to "normal" life.

She said, "Well, I'm so ashamed, I have gained 20 lbs and I just feel like a loser for being so fat and not having control over myself."

Geez, shows where priorities are, huh? It doesn't matter if you are a cross between MacGyver and Mother Teresa, if you are overweight you are a loser?!

Meanwhile a male friend relates this story to me: A woman he works with has returned from a mission to Saharan Africa with a horrible wasting disease. She is under medical care. Her eyeballs are all yellow and her skin is wan. But she's thrilled that "now she can wear all those designer clothes she couldn't fit into before, and she (in her own words), thinks she looks great!"

It's crazy. I tell myself it's crazy, and I still worry about it.

Meanwhile I have this fantasy....

I'm back at the doctor's. He looks at me seriously and says, "Well we have this new experimental drug for chronic pain. It's just that it carries some risk of side effects. I have to warn you about this. You will lose 20lbs and all the hair in your legs will fall out."

I sigh dramatically. "Well doc, I'll take this new drug. As for the side effects.... well I guess I'll just be brave and deal with them."