A New Hope

Well, howdy, pals!

Just a short disclaimer… I’ll be talking about some surgical stuff and my bariatric journey. If that’s not for you, no harm, no foul, but this post may not be for you!

It has been a hot second, I know. Lots has happened since my last entry and I’ve held back on writing about it simply because it has taken some time to process, check I’m still whole (physically AND mentally), and get over the post-surgical tiredness hump. But I made it! I did it! It has been twenty-two days since I’ve eaten solid food, and while most people’s initial reaction to that information is something like “ugh,” “oof,” “omg,” or even, “wow,” I assure you, it’s not as bad as it seems. My Roux-en-Y gastric bypass happened on Tuesday, April 1^st and went off without a single hitch. In fact, it was kind of amazing, but that’s merely what occurs when your surgical team is top notch!*

*A shout-out to Dr. You, the OR team, and the PACU nursing staff who took care of me on that day. When I tell you my experience was a rockstar treatment, that’s no exaggeration! I was cared for, considered, checked on, and encouraged from the moment I walked into the surgical pavilion until the moment I got wheeled out on Wednesday morning. I knew I was in the right place when I danced my ass into the OR and was immediately told by the team they were a pirate crew on Tuesdays. I fit right in with the vibe, was asleep before I knew it, woke up with moderate pain around 9:30pm, got a nice narc nap, and then was up and walking laps of the PACU by 2am. I cannot say enough good stuff about that group of people and will continue to sing their praises. Healthcare workers have a tough job, and to see it done with joy is a pretty heart-filling experience.

I’ve taken the days since my surgery one at a time. It is literally a full-time job to function as a human after your organs have been surgically altered so they work the way they should. My new stomach is roughly the size of a chicken’s egg and my food now bypasses the part of my intestines that seemingly never operated normally. I can take in about four ounces of food at a time. And yes, I do realize that seems outrageously tiny, but it needs to be in order to put my body into the state of deficit it requires to shed my excess weight and give my comorbid health conditions the old heave-ho. This also means I am sipping water and eating small meals the whole day- although never at the same time, because there’s just not enough room for all of that. I also take six different supplements each day that I will need to take for the rest of my life to ensure I’m getting the vitamins and minerals required. It’s a lot, but I’m finding it easier as the days become weeks.

In a very good chat with my bariatric psychologist, she likened what I’ve gone through to a patient who has had to learn to do something from scratch, much in the way physical or speech therapy helps people regain those skills. My body has been out of touch with itself for decades and I’ve given myself the opportunity to begin again, which is hopeful, but also daunting. In the past year, and most especially the last month , I can finally say I have learned to tell the difference between real, honest hunger and head hunger/food noise. The first four days of the liquid diet were hell. I actually cried real tears over the following things: Cap’n Crunch, Oriole Park at Camden Yards hot dogs, Twizzlers, Sunkist Orange soda, land a Crunchwrap Supreme. There was a point where I actually considered ordering Door Dash, chewing the food, and spitting it out. And that, folks? That’s food noise. My very own form of addiction at its foundation. I have come to realize that those foods aren’t some evil villains. And plenty of people can eat them normally and in moderation. But for me? Food was an obsession. A singular thing I looked forward to, used to self-soothe, to reward, to celebrate. It was my first priority, my main relationship. I don’t want that to be true ever again.

As a young person growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, life was HARD. In the era where plus-sized representation was Minnie Driver in Circle of Friends (dress size – 14) and Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones’ Diary (dress size – 10/12) I was off the charts of what was considered “acceptably chubby”. And the shame and sorrow I felt were carried into my young adulthood where I found myself lying about my eating habits, about my feelings, my desirability to romantic partners, and, in turn, making myself as small and undetectable as I possibly could within reason. All that did was make me miserable, which led to binging and starving, hiding food, hiding feelings, hiding who I really was because of the fear of being told, again and again, that I was too fat, too tall, too wide, too much. My once robust self-esteem got whittled into a shadow of its former self and subsequently, so did my joy. By the time I hurt my back in the mid-2000s,  it was a downward spiral that would lead to over one hundred pounds of weight gain, a compressed lumbar spine, a destroyed sciatic nerve, and the loss of countless things I enjoyed – acting, sports, travelling, walking on surfaces like sand and grass, etc. Before I knew it, I was forty-five, walking with a cane, and didn’t know who I was when I looked in the mirror – which honestly had much less to do with vanity than one might think. Bear with me, here…

I have always been FAT. Since early childhood, when kids in my class would grow an inch and gain three pounds, I’d grow two inches and gain eight pounds. I was always the slowest runner, winded before other kids, not as flexible. Here’s another confession for you – I have never, not once, in my entire life, between able to cross my legs at the knee. By the time it was a thing I even thought about, my thighs were too big. But I refused to let it stop me because, candidly, no one really understood why it was happening. I ate the same way other kids did. I played soccer and softball and danced and ran track and played a mean drum set and walked up and down the same staircases of the same schools as everyone else my age. The weight just stuck. And for a long time – and I mean a VERY long time – I believed it was something shameful. A short coming that was my own fault. A punishment for something I must’ve done. That I would always be fat, plain, ugly Erin Riley, and I deserved it. I deserved that no one would ever want to be my boyfriend or that I’d never play a romantic lead in a play because, well, just LOOK at me.

Today. In 2025. I look back at that young woman and I want to hug her. I want to sit her down and tell her she’s more beautiful than she realizes. That one day, she’ll find clothes that fit her and learn to wear make-up on her own terms. That she WILL play romantic leads. That she is worthy and deserved to feel so much more confident than she was allowed in the oppressive, small-minded world where she grew into an adult. Somewhere around my 33^rd birthday – believe it or not – I figured it out. It was the first time someone told me I was beautiful and I not only trusted them to tell me the truth, I trusted myself to accept it. Something clicked. Something integral and powerful changed in me and I began to own myself regardless of what the world thought of my outer shell. I made decisions based on what I wanted, rather than what I thought would make other people tolerate my existence best. And while that was more than ten years ago, it’s what has forged the path to this moment. You see, the decision to have surgery has absolutely nothing to do with my desire to be perceived as traditionally beautiful or socially acceptable. It has everything to do with realizing I want to live the second half of my life on my own terms.

I have spent way too much time shoved into a box painstakingly crafted by the patriarchy, societal pressures, outdated ideals, and my own inability to push the feelings of self-loathing away. Forty-six years of my life have been filled with anxiety, sadness, pain, fear, and a burning blanket of self-doubt I wrapped around myself until it almost ended me.

I chose to have surgery so I can give myself a chance to live a happier, more present, more intentional life. One free of shame and full of feral, unchecked happiness.

That is the one and only goal.