This took place on April 2 2016. Just to let you know the original "Dying of Obesity" is the most viewed on the blog. The original is here: http://bbwsinthewild.blogspot.com/2016/02/dying-of-obesity.html
That being said this won't be liked by everyone and it's a little gross for some. It is a real true story though.
When I rolled out of bed that morning I didn't want to go to work. I wanted to go look at cars. I wanted to go back to sleep. I wanted to think of my girlfriend, phone, skype whatever with her. What I did was swear, get dressed and pour corn flakes. One of the guys at work had brought in some sort of sickness from a place he'd deliver too or, more likely, a drinking party he'd gone too, and half the people were out sick. I had to leave early and take a massive van through downtown and in and out of traffic.
On the run sheet was a familiar address and customer, a mid 50s woman who had tried to kill herself for years with cigarettes and pain pills and now was spending tons of taxpayer money to delay the inevitable, and a new name and apartment number.
We've developed a routine to get into this place. No men are allowed past the front desk. Now why any man would want to sexually assault someone in a facility full of the elderly, the disabled, and the addicted, I have no idea. Anyway I did the usual "I come here every week, not to mention I'm gay, see here's my boyfriend" (Showing a picture of a coworker to the female security guard) And as always they let me in. The first delivery went off fine. Into a small cramped dorm room that smelled like socks and cigarettes to replace the filters on an oxygen concentrator, and provide more tubing. Her 16 year old daughter, who shared the room with her was nice with a chubby round belly and wild looking.
The next stop was actually the same floor down a hall. And it was either the same woman I saw before in the common room or an exact duplicate. I knocked at the door smelling a unique smell that I smelled before. A raspy voice gasped out "Come in!" I'd looked at the information we had. The pharmacy had been unlocked while the tech was outside having a cigarette break the the pharmacist was in the bathroom, and when I'd picked up the cases they'd prepared I'd glanced at the prescription blank with the info on it. Which is legal because I am HIPPA compliant and I'm not passing any drugs or her name to you people. However I will use it for a more accurate description.
At a glimpse:
Ethnicity: White
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 671 Pounds (As of that morning)
Bodytype: Heavy Pear
Age: 29 ( I took her for at least 35 first time I saw her)
She was sprawled on top of a futon in bed mode completely nude. To give you as accurate a picture as possible she looked like Candy Godiva but with worse skin, and wider hips. Rather then her belly pooling and spilling off the edge of her lap it was layered on her hips and reached forward to her knees. It's underside had a brownish tinge to it. Her breasts pooled lifelessly on her belly. The futon had a plastic sheet over it and a regular but stained bedsheet on top of it. Her eyes bloodshot and tired, widened when she saw me.
It's always awkward when we walk in on one of our customers naked. And it happens more often then you'd think. In this case she sort of lunged fell to the right grabbed a sheet, pushed herself back up, and draped it over herself, her breath becoming short and ragged. "Oh... My... God..!" She pant/wheezed at me. "I thought... you were my... C-N-A!"
"It's all good." I said as casually as I could. "Happens all the time." I started unloading the cart and asked her where she wanted it. She gestured vaguely at a kitchenette counter buried under a pile of receipts, wrappers, and food containers. I piled the boxes on there. According to the labels it was standard stuff for a bariatric or geriatric delivery, bed pads, meds, more oxygen tubing, gloves etc. Some generic stuff like Paper towels and wipes (Lots of those) and, not generally a geriatric product, Tampons.
Her voice made me jump. "Could you do me a favor?"
I turned around. "Can you get me my walker? I really need to use the bathroom." Her breathing was much more regular although it was still shallow and rapid. Her face, padded in flesh, looked pleadingly at me. "If you don't mind."
"Of course not." I said. I grabbed it and carried it over to her. She pulled herself forward and placed her hands down on it and tried to rise. But the Futon was too low and she was left panting. I had turned back to the counter and her voice came from behind me again.
"Oh" *GASP* "Fuck..."
I turned around and said "Do you want a hand?"
"Well..." She wanted either to not flash me or remain modest. My best guess, just reading her face and manner and the way her yellow teeth bit her lip, was that after years of being treated as a disgusting animal by humanity she had turned into one to a certain extent. At least based on the smell and look of the room. So I jumped in.
"I've been in home healthcare for years. It's nothing I haven't seen before." I stepped over and took another massive conversational step. "Do you need any help in there" I said gesturing to the bathroom.
"No, thank you, you're so" *GASP* "Kind." As I reached down she said "Do me a favor. Can you put my pills in my reminder over there?"
"Sure." I said. I grabbed her hand. Looking at this objectively, at 2am, I should've said that I was wearing the purple nitrate gloves earlier but I don't want to rewrite the whole damn thing so I'll say it here. In short I do it because I may be somewhere not to clean fixing or replacing something that is basically Palm Springs for bacteria. Also several of the places I go to are vulnerable to MRSA and ElizabethaKinga. So yeah I wear gloves. Anyway through my gloves I could feel the sweat and fat of her hand. I had pushed the walker to my left her right, the side closest to the bathroom and bracing my left leg I grabbed her and pulled up feeling her pushing. The sheet fell away and she started to rise exactly like a hippo at the zoo.
Even with fraction of her weight my back ached. Her legs flexed and propelled her up. For a moment I was face to face with her, her panting breath hot and rotten against my face. Then I returned to my full height putting me looking at her hair. It was greasy and nasty looking. I felt a bump against my legs right above my knees as her belly swung. Her breasts were just swinging there lifeless and pale. She leaned hard on the walker and pressed her way towards the bathroom. Her backside was doppled, the skin stretched almost beyond endurance with a sheen of sweat on it. It was like a massive cellulited rectangle. Her legs rolled with swollen lymph nodes and excess fluid. They rubbed together as she waddled and wheezed the at most seven feet to the bathroom her long oxygen tube playing out behind her. I watched as she squeezed her hips through the extra wide door into the bathroom
I returned to my job taking a look around the room. In the corner crushed against the kitchenette counter with a computer one a small bedside table and a small TV on the counter facing the bed. On the wall facing the futon was a card table with a big flat screen on it. I glanced inside the kitchenette and saw bare cupboards and a broken commode in the corner. Bags of junk food and microwave dinner boxes were scattered around on the dirty carpet another stash of chips on the fridge squeezed into the space between the bed and the futon. I found the pill reminder and filled it. The smell of the room was really intense. It smelled of sweat, filth, yeast infections, urine, fecal matter, and death. Meanwhile she'd gotten off the toilet and was dragging her body toward me. The cellulite on her belly seemed to cling to the stretch marks, healed and new, that covered her body.
I took a deep breath of the stench and asked "Do you need assistance cleaning up?"
She gave me a startled look and I said "I've been doing this stuff a long time."
"I can have my CNA do it."
"When will he get here?"
"An hour ago."
"I don't mind." She sighed and gave me the marching orders. With a gloved hand I got a wipe and reached into the warm, extremely smelly, moist cavern and wiped it as thoroughly and gently as I could. I'd done it before on geriatrics and the extremely disabled but this was insane being that close to the overstretched skin, the cellulite, and the stench. I've been close to my girlfriend and she's not skinny but this was outer worldly. I finished took off my gloves, had her sign the delivery form, and left stunned. I hope I'm on the South Run forever.
As I read your blog I can only guess what the medical delivery person thinks when he sees my wife. My wife of 12 years is also a very large women, 5'4" and 680lbs approx. To use your terminology she is a heavy pear with a large belly to match. The main difference between my wife and the women you describe is hygiene. I make sure my wife is well cared for and kept as clean as humanely possible. I've seen what hygenic neglect can do to a person and that is something I could never allow to happen to a loved one, especially my wife and mother of my children.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless I'm sure she makes a none too flattering impression on those who are unprepared for the shock of her appearance or for those who are just plain fatophobic.
Anyway my hat is off to you for how you handle these somewhat delicate situations. In a world where fat hate is so rampant, affording some dignity to people of size, even if they given up on themselves, is commendable to say the least.
Thanks you for your post. Unfortunately large people often have problems with hygiene usually do to the apathy of their carers. My hat's off to YOU sir for taking such good care of your wife. To bad there aren't more of you.
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ReplyDeleteThank you. Luckily I was raised by parents that taught me to give a shit about my responsibilities in life. Unfortunately in this world, too many people have zero empathy for the individuals that they are supposed to care about. It's not right....not by a long shot. Not too long ago I read where a husband was found guilty of neglect and abuse in the death of his morbidly obese wife. Whatever sentencing he received probably wasn't nearly an adequate form of justice. There is no excuse on this planet for allowing a loved one to die of neglect.
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