I'm pretty sure the straw that broke the camel's back was when my family took a trip to Busch Gardens, Tampa, FL April, 2012. As a Central Florida Native I've been to Busch Gardens dozens of times in my life. It is my favorite theme park because it has cool shows, cool animals, nice water rides, good food (at least they used to...R.I.P. to the ginormous slice of strawberry cheesecake I ate on my 7th grade science research field trip), and awesome roller coasters.
The Busch theme parks had a great deal going on where any preschool child age 0-5 got a free annual pass for up to 2 parks. That covered 2 in my family! So the family got an annual pass for Sea World (this is before Blackfish) and Busch Gardens. As a pass holder I got a discount on tickets so my extended family went too. I was so excited to take them to Busch Gardens. I was showing the kids all of my favorite rides and attractions. Then, the big kids and adults wanted to ride the roller coasters.... Cool! I love these things! I can take it! I'm brave! I'm a cool mom, watch I'll show the kids I still got it!... We wait in line a ridiculous amount of time....
Then it's our turn. My son picks the row he wants. We sit. The attendant lowers the safety bar and tried to lock us into place.... um... Then she tried again... and again....The stupid bar keeps popping up. I'm sucking in my gut.... The ride attendant tells us to step back and weight for row #35 (or whatever number it was). She explained that this was the row for guests with "larger body dimensions". Huh? I know that that's a thing but me?!? Am I really that person now?! Oh. My. God. How embarrassing.
Well, at least they have a row for the phat people. Good, at least I'll be safe and still have fun. So for the rest of the day I'm good as long as I can ride in my special row *grumble grumble my heart broke every time I said that to myself*. We get to an old fashioned wooden coaster. Cool, I've never been on one of these before. I think it had just stopped raining. We ran through the cue with lots of people running behind us. No wait and we'll be first in line. There was no row for guests "with larger body dimensions"on this ride. I'm thinking to myself, they probably have a larger seat, it's not like the thing turns you upside down and flips you out.... WRONG! I sat down and the bar wouldn't go over my big fat belly...or maybe it's my big butt that's the problem. *tear* There's no back up plan for the phatties on this ride. I just have to get out of line and wait at the exit for my family. They decided to ride it like 5 times back to back. I just stood there waving at them when they passed by or hi-fiving them when they ran from the exit to the entrance. I felt like everyone knew why I was waiting. How embarrassing!
As I wait for my family at the exit I look at all of the people leaving the ride. Then it hit me, 50-100 people pass me. They are all talking and laughing talking about the adrenaline rush from the ride. I'm crushed. My body dimensions are larger than all of these men, women, and children walking by me. I really am morbidly obese and my phatness stands out in the crowd. It's stopping me from doing something that makes me happy. It's preventing me from having fun with my children.
No. Never again. I am special and it's nice to be recognized for being special, but not this way. In terms of body dimensions (and health) I just want to be normal. I'm tired of failed weight loss attempts, whacky blood sugar, crazy hormones, and yo-yo dieting. By this time I had heard about WLS but did not have a lot of facts. I decided on that day that I would start looking in to this surgery thing a little closer because I was desperate.
No comments:
Post a Comment