My fat (but actually very normal-sized) legs

Almost a year ago, I mentioned some good news about weight gain. Recall that I was starvation-level underweight just two years ago for a variety of health reasons, and also that I cannot just step on any old scale and balance on my pegs to see what's up, so checking my weight requires a clinic appointment and a rather amusing trek down the hall, out of the clinic and into the adjoining hospital to borrow an empty room with a bed that can weigh me. My primary, a couple nurses, a parent or two (and possibly some intrigued bystanders), watch as I transfer to the bed and we all discuss how many pillows and shoes will make the measurement inaccurate. Okay, there's no reason you'd ever recall the details of that last, but anyway, trust me when I say that checking my weight is An Event.

I am a little over 5 feet 11 inches tall and in November of 2005 I weighed less than 75 pounds. Then I got the feeding tube, and also the trach and vent. All three have contributed to my weight gain. The first in the obvious way, but the trach and vent help me get enough air so that eating isn't such breathless work. When I last got weighed this past spring, I was a joyful, thrilling 125 pounds. That is the most, by far, that I have ever, ever weighed.

And it feels good. I quit with the feeding tube liquid nutrients by night in hopes of not gaining too much and making it harder to transfer myself. And while I never eat much. I do eat all. the. time. It will be a gray day when my cholesterol finally forces me to eat like a responsible adult.

Image description: A color photo of the first day of kindergarten for me and my twin. We're standing in the front yard wearing identical homemade dresses with red plaid miniskirts and skinny stick legs. We have blonde bowl-cut hair and are squinting into the sun. And yes, those index cards pinned to our fronts are a cruel and humorless joke of my soulless mother: they have our names, homerooms, addresses and returning bus number printed boldly on them in case we got lost and were too stricken with the adventure of it all to utter our own names. Can you guess which one is me? My twin is barred from answering first.

I was a skinny child, and for most of my adult life I've probably weighed about 110 pounds. (Remember muscle weighs most and I don't have the ability to maintain and build that well.) I've always been skinny, with stick legs. I've gotten jealousy from other women and admiration from men for my underweight, weak-muscled thinness.

Image description: A color photo of me sitting in my scooter in a mall food court in Arizona, circa 1992. I am expressing my disapproval of impromptu photo ops with a sober look. I'm wearing a baggy white t-shirt to hide my scrawny arms and bony collarbone, but I'm also wearing a yellow flowered miniskirt and thong sandals because slim (bony) legs get compliments. I've cropped my Dad out, by the way, though he's wearing an identical expression.

And I've sort of been in awe of how my legs have changed in the past couple years. For the past year, every day, when I see them, I find myself thinking, "Whoa! There they are." Sometimes I think, "Chubby! I am actually chubby!" Sometimes I'm grateful for their relative strength. Sometimes I think, "Wow, I'm a bit fat."

I am totally not fat. I've been trying, these past months, to determine how much of my reaction is to the impressive change in my legs and weight, and how much is social conditioning about body image and what "fat" looks like. I can't separate it out. Most of us can't: you can check yourself on that by looking at Kate Harding's study of BMI classifications at Shakesville.

The above two photos are of my past skinniness. I don't have a photo of my legs as they are now and I'll give you a few days to imagine before I get around to that. They're no longer skinny and they'll never be muscularly toned, but they're also not at all fat. Even if I sometimes think that when looking down at them.

Question for all: Above, in paragraph two, when I mention "my weight gain" after having explained it was healthy and necessary, are you like me and still automatically think "weight gain" = "bad"? The word association is strong.