Adventures in Looking Back

I had my gallbladder taken out when I was sixteen years old.

I had gallstones. Gallstones are crystal-like deposits that occur in the gallbladder. They can be small—the size of a grain of sand—or large—the size of a golf ball. The longer they stay and the larger they get, the more likely they are to cause inflammation, infection, and pain. Women are two times more likely to get gallstones than men. They are also common in the obese, people have lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time, or people with diabetes, among other causes.

I started feeling pain months before I told anyone. The pain woke me in the middle of the night, and I would spend hours pacing my floor and rubbing my side to try and soothe my angry body. When the pain started to come every night, I finally told my parents.

After the surgery, I spent two nights in the hospital for an outpatient surgery because the gallstones that were meant to leave my body with the organ were so big they actually got caught in the opening that connected my gallbladder to my liver. It took me weeks to recover. Afterward, I was meant to go on a low-fat diet to keep more stones from forming.

My first discovery: soda doesn't have any fat in it.

So, with a promise to a doctor that I would never see again, I resumed my old eating habits and didn't look back until I was much older.

Now, much older, I am a little shocked that I cared so little about my health...but more not shocked. See, I didn't have a family that cared much about what or how much they ate. We lived on Hamburger Helper and Hot Pockets, Pizza and McDonald's. For birthdays, we would get enough cake to feed three times the amount of people at the celebration, and I could eat that (and only that) for lunch for days. Our family of four had to make two boxes of Hamburger Helper plus extra noodles to feed us all.

My eating habits have never been ideal, and I never had anyone in my life who cared about their own health to set an example from which I could learn. It wasn't that my parents didn't love me, didn't care for me, didn't want the best for me—it was that they did. They wanted me to have everything I could ever want, to have the things they didn't or couldn't have. So they didn't put limitations on what I ate because they thought it made me happy to eat what I wanted.

And it did, in those moments of pure gluttony found in my Japanese classroom as I consumed enough chocolate-mousse-filled chocolate cake for three people as my lunch.

But I do regret not having been shown better eating habits at a young age, so I have made a pledge to myself that my children will never know what it is to have an unhealthy diet. (Sorry, future spouse, you have no choice!) They will also not be picky, but that's another story.

I've had in interesting time learning to eat better and how to take care of myself better, most of which I learned after I left the nest. I am always thrilled to discuss and learn more about eating healthy. Everyone's got an opinion, though most people agree that diets high in processed sugar and fat can have major consequences down the road.

Resources:
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