From Fat to Thin and Back Again (and again...and again)

It was just after 8 pm on a rainy evening some time in January. My Father was upstairs getting ready for bed and my mother was tucked into her hospital bed in the dining room.

I was freaking out, although being all of 14 years old I didn't know what in the hell was going on with me. See the previous few months were riddled with confusion. There had been an unending stream of terrible news.

Dad was in for a quadruple bypass which was scheduled two days after the blockage was found - his condition was serious so as to move him up to the front of the line of a six month waiting list. Dad was healing nicely but not without first scaring the crap out of me.

And, Mom. Well, she was finally diagnosed with RA. She was starting an unending surgery race to replace or fix joints that were being deteriorated faster than she could heal from the surgeries.
And me, well, nothing was wrong with me expect that with the terrible health of my parents no one really noticed. Anything.

That evening I was looking for something, what I was looking for I wasn't sure but I was looking for something. Maybe I was looking for someone to notice. Maybe I looking for a way to stop feeling so damn much. Maybe my controlling personality just wanted something it could control in my spiraling life. I am really not sure what I was after.

What I found was in the third drawer down to the left of the oven, behind the popcorn kernels and underneath my Mother's romance novels. I found what I never knew I was looking for.

The box was unforgettable - it was average size and bright red so as to attract your attention to the promise the words on the package held.

Staring back at me in bright yellow letters was the word Dexatrim.