It all falls down

I needed more and more creative motivation to push through my growing pain and depression and continue my grueling workout schedule. I devised an "adventure vacation" to Colorado with the intention of doing all of the adventurous physical activities and challenges that  my weight purportedly had keep me from doing in my life. I was successful at asking a loyal, if not weary, friend to join me on this trip to the Rocky Mountains and she even agreed to my outrageous schedule of switchback mountain biking, horseback trail riding, white water rafting, and hiking. Even as I planned for this trip, and all of the glory that I hoped it would bring, I continued to increasingly binge on fatty, sugar-filled foods and push my body to new limits to punish myself for such disgusting gluttony and self-sabotage. I have such sadness now as I look back at how unaware, confused, sad, and angry I was at a time when I was desperate to have the world see me as a successful young person reaching to grab my thin-girl destiny.

The vacation came in the summer of 1997, nearly a year after my Oprah debut. It was indeed a mostly beautiful, fun, activity filled trip which my friend dutifully survived, and quite possibly enjoyed. It wasn't until the last few days of the trip that my destiny came crashing into focus, even if it wasn't visible at the time. There was nothing particularly special about the day or our decision to spontaneously enter a recreational indoor rock climbing facility to add to our growing list of conquered adventures. I recall climbing to the top of the wall with a fair amount of ease and feeling quite confident about my unforeseen skills at scaling. It wasn't until the young man at the other end of the rope holding me up let go of that rope as I was repelling back down the wall and sent me crashing nearly 20 feet to the ground on my back that the experience took a turn. It all happened very fast and my memories of that day have become a flashback of moments in time. I checked all of my extremities and made a quick scan to see if I was bleeding once I was splayed out on the ground and everyone in the facility came rushing to see if I was okay. I determined that I was perfectly fine as I could move unencumbered, there was no sign of blood or brusing, and I wasn't experiencing any acute pain. I even went white water rafting later that afternoon, and horesback riding the next day and was attempting to laugh off the experience as a minor bump in the road in an otherwise amazing, life-changing trip. Funny what we can push through with sheer determination and a keen ability to ignore our bodies.

As luck would have it, I got yet another call from an Oprah producer about a month after my adventure vacation. You guessed it...I agreed to once again be on the show to share my increasing success at trimming my waistline and my "spiritual awakening" about my relationship with my body. More Oprah hugs (I fantasized that we were becoming friends by this point), lots of high-fives, and even a photo montage of from my adventure vacation rounded out my latest, and what would be my last, television spotlight. I particularly recall the photos of myself at the top of the rock climbing wall. I didn't mention my fall and somehow completely forgot to share that I'd become dangerously depressed and was now binging on a weekly basis. I honestly think that I was able to buy the hype that I was an inspiration to myself and now for the dozens of other overweight people following my progress and working towards their own personal renovation.

A few weeks later, I collapsed on a step machine at the gym and could barely get myself to my car and drive home...my right leg and foot felt totally numb and wouldn't bear my weight. I had no idea what the problem could be and initially thought I had pulled a muscle. That same day I went to see a doctor who told me that I was having back spasms and prescribed a muscle relaxer. I scheduled an appointment with a chiropractor, because that's what you do when you have back pain. After a couple of days of chiropractric treatments, and more trips to doctors and a neurologist my MRI revealed two extremely herniated discs in my low back. Four months of extreme pain and a series of medical procedures and medications to avoid back surgery began. Once a doctor told me that back surgery would take away my ability to run or bike for any sizeable distance I was determined to do whatever I could to not let that happen. My overexercising was the only thing keeping me from ballooning up to my former size and I could not live with that humiliation.