Tuesday, July 20, 2010

...But I Get Up Again

I've been falling down lately. My right knee just buckles under me and sometimes I cannot regain my balance...and down I go.

It happened once in a Starbuck's (where I was taking advantage of their newly free WiFi) while I was getting off a stool. Everyone in the place gathered round convinced that the morbidly obese guy had suffered a heart attack. I embarrassedly assured them otherwise but they were not convinced until I got up on my own steam, after about two minutes of just lying there.

It happened once as I walked from the 34th St. A train to the Pennsylvania Hotel (to do tabling for QuestionCopyright.org and BookLibertor.com at the Hackers On Planet Earth conference). A cop came over to see if I was alright and, again embarrassed, I assured him I was. He insisted on giving me a hand up, for which I was grateful. I wouldn't have asked for the help on my own but I was glad to have it; I was still a little wobbly. I'd tried to bolster myself with a plastic cone next to a parked Con Ed van and had come down on the cone, banging my head in the process.

It all has to do with my weight. After having been losing it over a period of months I began gaining it all back over the last three. My weight-loss had relied on long walks every day and I somehow (playing Wii Fit, I think) injured my ankle, preventing me from walking so much. I don't find that I can easily adjust my food intake -- my appetite -- to compensate for lost exercise. So here I am, 323 pounds again, having to start all over. Only my right leg (my ankle and my knee) hurts whenever I take a step.

I wish to hell my insurance company would pay for bariatric surgery. I'm pretty sure it would save them a bundle in the long run.

Meanwhile, I have a cane at the ready.

No comments: