The Weights
One Mainer’s battles with obesity and depression
by Sarah Hannan
My name is Sarah Hannan, and I am obese.
Actually, scratch that. I am morbidly obese.
At one point in my life I weighed over 550 pounds. Due to lack of physical activity, I developed ulcers on the back of my left leg and underneath my panniculus. (For those of you who do not speak Doctor, a panniculus is a flap of skin that hangs down from the waist.)
You may wonder how I could let myself balloon up to that size. Many factors contributed to my weight gain.
One is genetic: my mother is obese. Another is that I used to eat whatever I wanted to eat. When I was a kid, my mother tried to make sure my sister and I had healthy meals, but as I got older I had more control over what I ate, and I ate all the foods that were wrong for me. I lived to eat. I love carbs: cookie-dough ice cream, bacon pizza with extra cheese.
A doctor first told me I had a weight problem when I was entering fifth grade. I was on the cusp of puberty, so my body was going through those changes, and I was under a lot of stress. I had undiagnosed mental-health problems and my home life was difficult. My family had moved into yet another bad situation, one that ended with me being molested. It only happened once, but the damage was done. I turned to food for comfort. I would eat to celebrate and I would eat to commiserate.
Another factor was lack of exercise. My mother often encouraged me to go outside and play, but I spent much of my childhood just sitting in front of the TV. I would make up stories about the shows. Doctor Who made a big impression on me. It inspired me to write a story about time travel, titled “The Odd Girl.” This short story took me over 10 years to write. I started writing it in sixth grade and didn’t finish until a couple years ago. I would start writing it and then stop and start rewriting everything. I wasn’t mature enough to finish it, and I wasn’t on the right medications.
By the time I graduated from high school I weighed over 300 pounds.
I have struggled with depression and bipolar disorder for most of my life, but I wasn’t diagnosed until after I turned 18. The treatment made me feel like a guinea pig. My medical providers would try a little of this medication, then a little of that medication. The results were hit or miss, but all the while I continued to gain weight, due in part to those prescription drugs.
At this point in my life I was still living at home with my mother and sister in Waterville. I was too mentally disabled to work. My income came — and still comes — from Social Security. I did try working before being placed on Social Security, at a combination Dunkin’ Donuts/ Baskin-Robbins. I lasted two days before I broke down. Even if I had toughed it out, I would not have lasted much longer, because soon after that a pilonidal cyst burst at the base of my tailbone. I didn’t even know the cyst was there until it burst.
One morning a few weeks later, I fell and could not get up. I didn’t have enough strength in my arms and legs to lift myself off the floor. I yelled upstairs to my sister for help, but even with her assistance I couldn’t get on my feet. She had to call 911. The 911 operator sent an EMT team that specializes in responding to falls. They had to maneuver me into a basket and hoist me onto a stretcher. This was the first of many times I was driven to the hospital in an ambulance. It was just after Valentine’s Day, 2009.
That first stay in the hospital lasted five days. I had cellulitis that needed treatment, and a colonoscopy was done to determine the source of some bleeding. It turned out that the blood was coming from cracks etched in the skin around my bottom. Because I had fasted for over 36 hours to prepare for the procedure, the first night home from the hospital I binged on food and got sick.
Following this hospitalization I was assigned a caseworker and a team of home health-care workers that included a nurse. But as time went on, I got worse. I was in the midst of a mental-health crisis. The meds weren’t working, in part because I couldn’t always remember whether I had taken them or not. I found it too tedious to organize the pills in a med caddy, so I put them all in a storage bin in the kitchen and took them whenever I thought I hadn’t already done so.
I had open, bleeding ulcers on the back of my leg and beneath my panniculus that caused me great pain, and a yeast infection on my left leg and thigh. It took two people to treat the ulcers under my panniculus, but I was only assigned one worker at a time. I was in such bad shape that I couldn’t even climb the stairs to my bedroom. I slept in an old waiting room chair with a footstool. The painful ulcers kept me awake, so I was prescribed sleeping pills.
I realized I needed more help than my home health-care workers could provide, but I had to fight to get back into the hospital. I was brought to emergency rooms numerous times, only to be sent home again. Finally, in a desperate attempt to get admitted, I tried to kill myself.
The doctor in the emergency room at Inland Hospital, in Waterville, told me he wasn’t convinced I really wanted to die. He was right, but I was in the midst of a meltdown, out of my mind and in horrible pain. Had I not gotten help soon after that, I don’t know what I would have done. I might have actually killed myself.
My weight-loss journey began on a Sunday five years ago, when I was finally admitted to MaineGeneral’s Thayer Center for Health, which is also in Waterville. In the years since, I’ve had my wins and losses. Following my stay at Thayer, I was sent to a rehabilitation center in Westbrook, where the staff closely monitored what I ate and helped me work on a weight-loss plan. By the time I moved to Portland, in early 2011, I had lost about 200 pounds, which brought me down to the mid-300s. But once discharged, I had no one but myself to take responsibility for my diet, and started putting on weight again. I wasn’t exercising, either. When I stepped on a scale at a diabetic center this past winter, I weighed about 430 pounds.
When I saw my nurse practitioner this past February, she gave me the goal of losing five percent of my body weight (about 20 pounds) by my next appointment, in mid-April. I managed to lose only two pounds, but the 20-pound goal is easier goal than the 100 pounds she advised me to lose three years ago. Still, I will have to meet that higher goal before the nurse will send me to a surgeon to consult about removing my panniculus, which is my ultimate weight-loss objective.
At this point in my life, at the age of 27, I live by myself. My bipolar disorder is in remission and will remain that way as long as I take my medications, which I now do religiously. I still get depressed from time to time, but it is not nearly as bad as before. Home health-care aides from two different agencies have helped me take care of myself. Those from one agency help with the mental-health issues. They take me to appointments, walk with me, and give me goals to achieve, like learning to cook healthy meals. Aides from the other agency monitored me for physical health problems. They used to check on me every day, but their visits have tapered off as I’ve become more self-reliant.
I keep a log of all the foods I eat and try to exercise every day. At a minimum, I go up and down the stairs twice in a row. I’m trying to cut down on carbs, eat more protein, and monitor portion sizes. I have almost completely cut soda from my diet. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don’t. I don’t really have planned meals, so I eat when I want to eat. Sometimes I eat when I’m hungry, but I also eat when I’m bored, which is unfortunate. Most evenings I eat tuna sandwiches with celery. A can is enough to make two sandwiches with a little tuna left over, which I also eat.
To fill my time when the aides aren’t here, I watch TV shows on my computer and read romance novels. Some of my favorite authors are Lynsay Sands, Nora Roberts and Lori Foster. I also like to write in my free time. When I am writing I listen to country music on my computer. I have several projects going, but my pride and joy is a 100-page manuscript titled, “Begin Again: The Story of Tommy and Gina.” It’s a love story.
To those who can relate to my story, I offer this advice: If you are trying to lose weight, don’t give up hope. It’s worth the effort. I may not be where I want to be yet, but I am feeling better and seeing the difference.
Special thanks to Deborah Berry of Employment Connections Maine for facilitating the publication of this story.
