Peadar de Burca: The Skin You're In

Like Tomasz Sekielski who was so fat he needed to go to the zoo in Warsaw to find a weighing scale that would measure him accurately, she needed bariatric surgery. Upon waking after the operation, she was in so much pain she begged the doctors to reverse the process. The worst agony of her life. Vomiting blood. Oh God. She thought she was going to die from the pain. Did she think she had made a mistake?

Before answering that, let’s go back to Joanna’s pre-surgery life, diet after diet, losing 20 kgs but 25kgs comes back, yo-yo body, yo-yo mind, up and down, walking in the mountains, up and down, red, tired, everyone hanging around waiting for her because she was always last. Like a lot of overweight people, she bought elasticated jeans so she wouldn’t have to confront the reality of die leiden des jungen Joanna. Her joints were sore from psoriasis, a condition most likely linked to her weight, but, but…sweets, cookies, cake, they are all so fucking tasty and great and…cheese…how she adored cheese…how she loved her great friend food.

My friend too, and yours no doubt, because…because…food is great, food soothes the soul, but a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips. I have a psychological dependence on food, in many ways it is not only my friend but my master, but I’m one of the lucky ones who does not put on weight. Fat burns off me very quickly. So, my cliched response to overweight people before meeting Joanna was, “Get off the couch fatty and step away from the Gouda.”

Ah, if only it were that easy…

So let’s go back to October, when everyone was struggling under the weight of lockdown and many of us chose consumption as an antidote to confinement. Except Joanna, who decided to change her life. It turned out that the deathly pain only lasted for a few minutes and the next day she was up and about. In the following months there was no connection between her stomach and her brain. She didn’t feel hungry. “There were certain days when I realised it was 5pm and I hadn’t eaten yet. I was eating baby food jars, one jar a day for weeks.” She had to learn how to eat again. “The doctor gave me a banana and told me I must chew each bite 100 times. He told me, I am not on a diet, I am simply eating normally.” Now, her stomach can take more food, but she doesn’t want to take big portions. “I love dumplings with barscht. I would wait the whole year for it. I could take the plate and eat twenty. Now I take two and I’m satisfied and Christmas is what it should be.” Of course, with such small levels of food, Joanna was not getting enough vitamins and she lost half of her hair. The hair grew back and there is a palpable joy in her voice when talks of going to the shop and being able to buy a t-shirt with S on the label and her daughter being able to hug her properly. Joanna says she would like to help others with weight issues. Without knowing it, she has helped me. Our conversation has forced me to rethink what food means to me.

Perhaps I need to become the master.