I was at loose ends. I work as a PCA, or personal care assistant. I've got lots of additional certifications and training. I'm a CNA - certified nursing assistant. I'm even ventilator trained. My specialty is bariatric care.
My last assignment had been working for the Millers, who were both old, fat, and unhealthy. Mr Miller was barely mobile, and Mrs Miller had been bed confined for ten years. I'd worked for them for two years, and I'd loved it. But to be honest, it hadn't been healthy for me long term.
I was a live in aide, and the two years I was there I basically breathed second hand smoke and ate pizza every day. I'm a smoker too, and being able to smoke at work wasn't a good habit for me to get into. The job ended when Mr Miller passed away and their children decided to move their mother into a long term care facility.
It was probably for the best in honesty. I'd put on weight, giving myself cellulite, a plump pot belly, and it had made my breasts start to sag. Most of my weight gain had gone to my hips and thighs. I went from just being another chubby CNA in scrubs to a pear shaped BBW. I cut back on my smoking too, but the two years of tobacco abuse, first and second hand, gave me chronic asthma, exacerbating the exercise induced asthma I'd had since I was a kid.
I was staying in a half decent long term occupancy motel. I'd woken up and stepped outside for a morning cigarette. I tell myself that the damage to my health won't be too bad if I work out a little and keep it to 5 cigarettes a day. I have a hangover. I told myself that going out last night, eating junk food, and getting drunk is just a one time thing. I'll behave myself from now on. That was when the text came through.
Someone needed a PCA. I was told to meet with them at the Specialty Care Unit at the local hospital.
SCU is for people with special needs. Whether that's bariatrics, or they have some kind of disability, or even overflow from other specialty units, the SCU is where people who don't need the ICU but need something special wind up. I made my way down the hall, feeling a little out of breath from the long walk across the campus. "Hey Maggie." I greeted the nurse who'd sent me a text.
I like Maggie. She's bubbly and cheerful. She's also significantly fatter then I am so she makes me feel better about myself. "Hey!" She greeted me in return. "Great to see you again. I've got a possible client for you."
Galena was a bed confined bariatric woman, who weighed nearly 800lbs. "She's 28!?" I exclaimed, incredulously. Two years younger then me, and three times my weight Maggie nodded, and continued. The ambulance had been called to her home for blood sugar issues. Her blood sugar had been very high, her kidney function poor, and she had several different infections, the worst being in her left thigh. "Wait till you see it." Maggie said. It had taken 5 firefighters and 4 paramedics to get her out of her house and into the ambulance. Since then she'd been in touch with a social worker, who'd insisted she get a professional caregiver. Maggie had recommended me.
I knocked on the door of the room and then moved around the curtain and felt my breath catch. There was a nurse or CNA in there cleaning up, and I could smell the characteristic odor of a recent BM. I was used to that. I was also certainly used to obese people, but Galena was a completely new experience. She was wearing a hospital gown over her torso and looking at her face alone it was completely normal looking other then the nasal cannula delivering her oxygen. But from there down it was completely different. Her biceps were two piles of sagging flesh, and under the gown her body seemed to be melting towards her hips which flowed out, and nearly touched the side of the bariatric bed. Her legs were uncovered and they were massive. Her left thigh was bigger around then my waist, and bandaged tightly. As I smiled, and stepped closer, my eyes realized her belly wasn't small by any means, and it sagged down onto her thighs. "Hi Galena" I said, and introduced myself.
Galena was panting like me after a couple flights of stairs. But I knew that all she'd done is rolled over. She used her wrist to gesture me to a chair on her left. I passed around the front of the bed and sat down in the chair. This close I could hear the faint wheeze on her breath. I could smell the unmistakable odor of an obese person who's been getting bedbaths for a long time. I could see the cath bag hanging off the side of the bed, half full of lightly brownish urine, indicating the kidneys were still recovering. "They're not letting me go home without someone there who knows what they're doing." She opened with. "I think it's a load of crap." I was to learn she never used profanity. "I had a girlfriend and my parents." She said. "And as soon as Bonni dumped me my health went bad." She smiled at me, showing me yellowed teeth. "You don't need to hear about my problems. I got questions, but I need you to understand something. I'm not going to eat healthy. I'm not going to loose weight. Actually, I'll probably gain it. It's not a rebellion, it doesn't turn me on, I'm just eating myself to death. I'm not suicidal I'm just an addict. Like a junkie, but food. I'm not going to change so don't try." She ran out of breath and paused. The wheeze had gotten a little louder and I raised an eyebrow at her.
"Can I say something?" She nodded, still working on her wheeze. "I have a duty of care." I explained. "I can't force you to do something, but I can't in good conscience do something that will hurt you. Now, if you order a pizza for dinner I'm not going to toss it out, but it would make everything a lot smoother if you take your prescriptions, and let me try to take care of your health issues."
Her breathing had returned to the unhealthy sort of pant with the gentle wheeze at the back of it, which I was to learn was her normal. "I always try to take my pills. I just forget. When Bonni left I was trying to manage them myself, but I'm no good at it. I'd get confused and forget to take them." She got conspiratorial. "I really need something substantial. They got me on this diet and the foods not bad, but it's not... like good. I really like good food, ya know. You're a fellow big girl, you know what I mean. I'm getting desperate here, I feel like I'm being starved to death, I haven't been full in ages." She winked again. It was a helluva speech for someone who can barely gasp out more then a handful of words at a time.
"Tell you what." I said, my voice also low. "If you stick with it till discharge day, you can order the biggest feast of your life for all I care once they get you home."
I arrived at her place an hour before the ambulance crew. Galena's Dad wasn't home, he was off working, I got the impression he was some sort of big shot. Galena's Mom was a pleasant vague person, the sort of person who makes for the best kind of unintentional enabler. Galena's room was in the basement of the house. which was built into an artificial hill. Access could be gotten around the side down a wide concrete path. Her room had probably been a family room that had been converted to it's current purpose. It had clearly been modified by a professional contractor, with large sliding glass doors to a sort of patio, and a wide doorway into the bathroom, complete with bariatric toilet, and a big shower. I'd been given a room on the second floor, Galena's old room I found out later. As I spread chux pads on the bed Galena's mom said "Oh I don't think she needs all of those since she has the catheter, and she's really good at letting me know when she needs the bedpan."
I smiled politely at her. "I'm going to have to give her a bath when she's back, and she'll need an ointment. This will take care of some of the mess."
I was outside smoking a cigarette when I heard the ambulance backing in. There were four paramedics and they navigated the stretcher down the sidewalk carefully. Galena overflowed the gurney, making it top heavy, but they kept her from tipping over. We got her in bed. They had a sort of air mattress under her that you could blow up and then it blew air through tiny holes, essentially turning Galena into an inverted air hockey table when we slid her over. We had to roll her to get the hospital linens out from under her, sit her up, and generally get her settled. Galena was exhausted by the ordeal, lying there gasping, her constant wheeze almost a rattle. Her mom patted her hand. "You must be hungry." She said. "I'll get you a snack."
Galena looked at me. "So... you're a fellow junkie?"
I blinked. "Sorry?"
"You reek like cigarettes."
I felt my face get red. I started to stammer but Galena shook her head. "Don't bother. I don't care what you do. I'm eating myself to death, you're smoking yourself to death, I can't judge you, the important thing is we're happy." She broke off to gasp, wheeze, and then cough breathlessly. As she took a few desperate rattling breaths I thought she didn't look very happy, but I didn't say anything. She said "Just don't smoke in here because of the oxygen. Otherwise, it's us versus the world junkie babe." And she patted my gloved hand with one of her's.
After the "snack" which turned out to be a massive slab of cheesecake, I got Galena settled better. Then the "feast" catered by a local pizza place arrived and with grunts of glee Galena dove in. Immediately afterwards, I got the medicated ointment on, and I helped her have a bowel movement with the bedpan. She must have really had to go, because she really filled the bedpan. It was a healthy, regular BM, there was just a lot of it. As I cleaned her I noticed something. Her FUPA, which was a pile of flesh squeezed between two massive thighs, was wet, odd since she had a cath in place. Then I recognized the consistency and realized Galena had lied to me. She may not be suicidal, she might quite possibly be an addict, but eating and being this big was absolutely a fetish for her.
