In late 2020 I noticed the beginning of what seemed to be swelling or possibly weight gain (weirdly less likely, which I’ll cover). I was definitely thin until December of that year. I’d gained some muscle during that time, and was overall eating rather sparsely (sensitive stomach). At around that time, I’d been having strange medical episodes that had a lot of features in common with dying. My organs would go cold, for instance, or an organ would feel especially light inside my body somehow.
In late 2020 and early 2021 I realize that there were signs that I had extra air accumulating in my body, under the skin. My thyroid numbers appeared normal when this started happening. By March of 2021 I was looking quite large, up from being a noticeably small-bodied person two or three months before.
When my neck started looking larger than it ever had before (very strange for me, as I generally do not gain much weight in my neck) with my body seemingly bloated but not very much bigger yet, I started thinking it was very unlikely I was dealing with normal weight gain. It was very rapid, and each enlargement coincided with the episodes that seemed to have strange things in common with dying. I’d been quite lean when the episodes started happening, and I was having trouble off and on keeping up with eating.
Now it’s early 2022. I am still very bloated and swollen to a much larger size than I’m used to. I weigh less than I look. There is strange distortion in some of the lines my body makes. It’s been going down slowly, but there’s a weird pattern where I bloat up and then go down noticeably while staying about the same size. It’s easiest to see the change in my face, perhaps. It is fair to wonder whether I’ve gained extra fat, yes, but I don’t think I ate so much in the span of six months or so (I was probably at my biggest point six months in) that I’d end up twice my size in such a short time (which is what I looked like at my most swollen).
There are telltale signs that I might have actually lost both muscle and some of what fat I had on me in the last year, and am much, much leaner than I appear: I can easily feel the sharp edge of my radius bone in my arm through the swelling, and my shoulder feels delicate inside a swollen shell. My fingers have those bony bumps that very thin people sometimes get above their knuckles; they look a little like mosquito bites, and they indicate low overall body fat. So do the tendons visible just under a thin layer of skin on both my thumb knuckles.
Extreme amounts of air sometimes issue from my pores, and I can feel the air rushing out in a stream. At many times it’s whooshed out my eyes and ears, poured from my palms, etc. I do look strange and uncanny this way. I persist in thinking this is temporary.
It’s okay if I think I’m pretty either way, right?
──── by Lync Dalton ────
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