By: Clare Pattison

One of the most amazing aspects of this weight-loss journey is the improvement in the quality of my life.  As a super obese person, there were so many things that I just couldn’t do that my world gradually but definitely got smaller and smaller.  Loss of quality of life isn’t about not being able to go white water rafting or jump out of a plane.  Loss of quality of life is about not being able to reach around my own body to keep myself clean or fit behind the wheel of our truck.  Loss of quality of life is having someone else put my socks on my feet every morning.  Loss of quality of life is not being able to lift my hands over my head without passing out.  The long-anticipated holiday to see the polar bears and beluga whales at Churchill Manitoba was almost spoiled, not by anything big or important, but by the discovery that I couldn’t fit into the bathroom in our cabin on the train.  Loss of quality of life is when I watched everyone else doing everything and always just held the coats and waved from the sidelines.  Loss of quality of life was sitting in the car while someone else went into the store to pick up the groceries with a list I had made.  I stopped being a Girl Guide leader because I couldn’t camp any more.  I stopped being a CPR instructor because I couldn’t get down on the floor any more.  I stopped being a car seat inspector because I couldn’t fit into the back seat of cars to tighten the tether straps and check that the seats were safe any more.  The list of things that I couldn’t do was getting much much longer than the list I could do. 

With the help of my lap band and the support of the BandedLiving community, I have now lost over 150 pounds.  Pound by pound, I have regained my quality of life.  And although there have been some big things, it is the small, seemingly insignificant achievements that have made the biggest difference.  One happened today.

I don't do ladders.  I haven't climbed a ladder since I was a kid.  Even then, I was terrified of them.  I was heavier than the other kids.  A friend had a fort up in the rafters of their carport with a rope ladder to climb up to it.  I always just stayed on the ground and wished I could be up there with everyone else.  Try though I certainly did, I just could not climb that ladder.

A few years ago we were renovating our house and our contractor wanted me to see something in the attic.  He had the ladder right underneath the access hole in the laundry room.  I told him that I didn't climb ladders but he said he really needed me to look and that he would hold the ladder for me.  So reluctantly, I climbed up.  Well I didn't fit through the access hole far enough to see what he wanted me to look at so I just pretended that I could see it.  As I started to come down, the ladder buckled under my weight and started to collapse.  True to his word, he held that disintegrating ladder and got me safely to the floor.  His eyes were really wide as he said, "I get it.  You don't do ladders."

Today we were insulating the ceiling in our new garage and my husband needed help holding up the plastic vapour barrier as he stapled it.  I looked at that ladder and thought, "I don't do ladders." I saw him wrestling with that plastic as I was wrestling with myself.  Why couldn’t I climb that ladder now?  It is rated for 200 pounds (I checked) and I weigh almost 50 pounds less than that.  It isn't going to collapse.  I'm not going to fall.  I'm not going to be humiliated.  People climb ladders every single day and live to tell about it.  IT IS ONLY A 5-FOOT STEP LADDER for heaven's sake, not the Empire State Building! 

So I put my selfishness aside and started up the ladder - two steps up - and stopped.  It wasn't high enough to reach the rafters.  I went up another step, let go of the ladder, reached over my head, grabbed the plastic and held it up while my husband stapled.  For the rest of the afternoon I was up and down that ladder like a mountain goat.  I now do ladders. 

It wasn’t bungy jumping, parasailing, scuba diving, rock climbing, or marathoning.  It wasn’t exciting or exhilarating.  It was just an every-day, ordinary activity that most people take for granted.  It was one more step in regaining my quality of life.  Today I put on my own socks, drove the truck, reached my hands over my head, and climbed up a step ladder.  All small steps taking me back to the top of the ladder of my life.