Losing Weight Saved her Life

I belong to a professional society, East TN Healthcare Executives and we meet quarterly. Our last meeting was in March and I was unable to attend because it was the night before I had Reese. Last night was my first meeting back and even though I am still off work, I figured I better attend since I am the President. Which brings me to the first reason for this post. Not to toot my own horn but I am the youngest president ever for this group and the room is filled with people that are all more professionally advanced than me. They are all executives...I just want to be an executive someday. Why is it that I feel so driven, so motivated and able to accomplish almost anything I have ever wanted; whether it be at work, or at home or with my business but when it comes to losing weight I just haven't been able to do it. It is so frustrating to me. I am really hoping to do this though as I know it will help me in all the other aspects of my life. While we would hope people aren't prejudice toward obese people, they are (even I am sometimes). As I looked around the room last night at all the executives, there was not one that was obese and only a few that are overweight.

Anyway..none of that was the true reason for my post. The reason for my post is that I was talking to another colleague at the meeting and noticed that she had lost weight. I never had noticed that she was really overweight at all, she always seemed to be normal weight and in shape, she just has a petite frame. She said that she had recently trained to run a marathon and had joined weight watchers. She had lost 50 pounds. My mouth hit the floor because I never would of guessed that she even had 50 to lose. While talking with her I noticed that she had a bandage on her chest and I knew that she had recently had surgery. Feeling comfortable with our friendship, I asked her what was going on. She told me that she was diagnosed with severe breast cancer and had recently had a port put in (a port is something that is surgically implanted for chemotherapy, that way they dont have to stick you with an IV every time you come in). She told me that she was scheduled for a double mastectomy and would begin chemotherapy today; after the meeting she was going home to shave her head. I was in shock; especially knowing that she was under the age of 40. I asked her how she had found it. Had she had a mammogram, did it run in her family, etc. She said that after losing all the weight, she did a regular breast exam and found a mass the size of an egg. She then looked at me and said, "Losing weight saved my life". She has a great attitude. She was so funny. She said that people have asked her if she has lost weight due to the cancer. Her response was, "Hell no, don't take that away from me, I trained hard, I dieted hard, I deserve every pound that I lost...don't you dare try to give credit to cancer".

This entire conversation was hard for me to swallow. A young colleague that I would have never thought even needed to lose weight, to hear her make that kind of statement. So powerful. I told her that I had joined Weight Watchers and she was very encouraging and said that it will work if you stick to it. I am going to pray for my friend and I ask that you would to. She has a tough road ahead. Just another reason to brand into my mind how important this really is.