http://kateharding.net/2007/07/12/fat-hatred-kills-part-one/
So when I was about 11 years old, and Mom went to see her doctor because of some problem she was having, and he scathingly told her that her problem was she was fat, and not to come back to him until she’d lost 50 pounds? Yeah. It hurt her. It hurt her bad. But she believed in the rules. And so she tried to ignore how hurt she was and focused on trying extra-hard to get back to following those rules.
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So, having been unable to meet her doctor’s demand that she lose 50 pounds, she followed the only part of his stated rule that she could: she didn’t go back.
From that point on, whenever she got sick or injured and someone suggested she go see a doctor, she brushed them off. “Oh, they’re just going to tell me I’m too fat. Don’t worry, it’s just a cold/a sprain/a whatever. I’ll be fine.”
To be fair, that’s not to say she never went back again. She did. But only when she had to.
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So Mom made the appointment and went, but she took all her fat-shame with her, and did her best to at least mitigate the awfulness of her sin — that she hadn’t lost 50 pounds, and in fact had gained some more besides — and she was going back to the doctor anyway. So she tried not to take too much of their time. Went in with a probable diagnosis at the ready, even, thanks to her daughters’ histories of asthma. She didn’t want to bother them too much, you see, even though by then it had been two decades since her last physical. She thanked the doctor when she got the prescription for the inhaler, and never called back when it sometimes didn’t work, because she didn’t want to take up their valuable time on a rule-breaker like her.
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She spent her last two days in pain, having difficulty breathing, and not once did she call a doctor or try to get some help.
You see, she still hadn’t lost that 50 pounds.
I know people like this. I know someone diagnosed with high cholesterol
years ago, which runs in her family. She's not on medication because her doctor said something like, "Let's try diet and exercise first before we put you on statins." She was never able to modify her habits to her level of satisfaction so she never went back. She didn't want to go back as a failure. After all this time she's still hoping that someday she'll have gotten herself into a good diet and exercise routine and then she'll be able to go back to a doctor and get those statins and be able to say that, yes, she tried diet and exercise, so that's not to blame for her cholesterol problems.
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