I didn’t want my wife or kids to watch me when I injected Zepbound into my thigh for the first time last night, so I retreated to my office in the back of the house.
It was time. Three-hundred and fifty pounds is not a functional body weight, and years of diets, fasting, and 12 step work had convinced me I was powerless over my eating. The injector pen in my hand was the result of a year of working with doctors to get the drug prescribed and covered by insurance. Getting the script was easy, but the insurance wouldn’t pay. So we decided to bite the bullet and cash flow the so-called miracle drug, cost be damned. The pharmacy called it self-pay. My wife called it an investment in our future. Despite the rebates, the medicine is still half of a mortgage payment for a month’s supply.
No doubt that part of the reason I am hiding in my back office to take my medicine is because of the shame of costing my family so much money. From what I know about my compulsive eating, that same shame is a big part of what got me into this mess in the first place. If only I was better at reigning in my eating, if only I had more willpower, if only I was more spiritual or less scatterbrained, I could manage the matter without expensive medical assistance. I know those thoughts are lies, to a degree, and I wonder if the miracle medicine will lower the volume of those thoughts like it lowers the so-called “food noise” that also defines my mental life.
It wasn’t just the financial shame that sent me into a quiet corner to take my medicine. Part of it was the dread of needles. My own father, between his diabetes and Multiple Sclerosis, was a pro at self-injections. He had been injecting his own insulin since I was a pre-teen. His used pop bottles became his impromptu sharps containers, and he’d regularly have three or four bottles full of syringes on the floor around his arm chair that we weren’t allowed to touch. They stacked up there until he could go to a medical facility and dispose of them properly. He’s now in his early 70s and only mobile in his hoveround scooter chair. MS, if you didn’t know, is a bitch.
As a teen, I prayed I would never have to inject medicine into my own body to stay healthy. My teenage self may have been overoptimistic. It doesn’t seem like I’m doing a great job of breaking family cycles of obesity, malnutrition, diabetes, and the other illnesses of prosperity. Who hasn’t experienced the shame of declaring they would be better than their parents and failing at that task?
All this was running through my mind as I was sitting in my desk chair with the instructions to my left and the injection pen in my right hand. Priming the pen for the injection was like that old 90’s game Bop-It — flick this, twist that, press this, spin that — which was interesting until the time came for the actual shot. Three and four times, I held the needle to my thigh, and three and four times, I laid the pen back down on my desk, breathing heavily. Something about the whole enterprise sent me into a state of panic and fear. It was a lot harder to give myself the shot than I expected.
In a wider conversation about humility and pride with the church in Corinth, St. Paul writes about a thorn in his flesh. His writing is uniquely squirmy on the matter. He believes one-upsmanship is a losing task, the sort of boasting that is antithetical to the gospel. Still, until his readers have been properly one-upped and put in their place, he doesn’t think they’ll listen to him. “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven…” says Paul, before admitting two sentences later that he himself was the man who had such an ecstatic experience and vision. His insecurity is equal parts frustrating and endearing.
It’s here that Paul introduces this idea that he has a thorn in his flesh, some malady that God has given him to keep him from “becoming conceited.” He calls it a “messenger from Satan,” which sounds quite unpleasant. What is this metaphorical thorn? Nobody knows, and anyone who suggests an answer is a liar. Paul keeps it vague intentionally, holding the specifics close to his chest. But God’s word to him was that this thorn was to be an object lesson of humility and divine dependence. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” In the divine economy on this side of the resurrection, everything is upside down. Power is submission. Suffering is proof of God’s favor. Weakness is strength. This is why boasting is anathema to the Christian. It’s why taking a GLP-1 is so humbling.
This reflection, and a prayer of “Lord Jesus, help me,” made my fifth attempt at taking my medicine successful. Paul had a thorn in his flesh. I have, for the foreseeable future, a thorn in my thigh that I get out of the refrigerator and prick myself with once a week. It is a testimony to my weakness, the kind of weakness that I’m banking upon God using to display his perfect power. It’s as humbling as any other spiritual lesson I’ve experienced, and it’s a new front in the fight against the shame I eat to silence.
If weakness is where God does his best work, then I guess it’s OK that I’m not better at managing my health than my dad. It’s OK to “invest” in my health. Whatever shame I feel in getting help is clearly not inspired by heavenly wisdom. I still don’t think my kids need to watch me inject myself with a needle on a weekly basis. But next time, I might be able to jab myself on the second or third try. And maybe next time, I won’t feel so compelled to hide myself.
