The Way I See It...

Publisher's Letter 

Robin Rogers, Ed.D.

October 2025

Sometimes, I worry about being too forthright in my editorial, about embarrassing my mom, my children, or my friends. I usually try to toe the line between professional and relatable: real but not too real. This month, compelled by the stories in this issue, I write with a little less reserve.

I got boobs in fifth grade—and not the training-bra kind. I started my period that same year. I was the tallest girl in school and felt like André the Giant. As an athlete, I soared, plowing down smaller girls to the whispers of their parents: Why do they let that big girl go against our petite princesses? Body dysmorphia started young for me, and I knew that, if I could ever “fix” myself, I would.

By early high school, everyone in my neighborhood had a moped. My best friend and I would ride to the E-Z Mart on Kings Highway for sodas and popcorn. That’s where I first saw Dexatrim on the shelves near the pain relievers. There must have been an age requirement, but I bought it with the confidence of an adult. For a couple of years, I popped those little pills that supposedly curbed appetite. Though I still towered over the boys, I slimmed down. When Dexatrim moved off the grocery store shelves, I regained the weight I’d lost.

By then, the “it thing” was to find your way to Natchez, Mississippi, to the so-called “fat doctor.” His name was Dr. Comatsas, and his specialty was prescribing a concoction of pills. My mom and her friends flew private to see him, and I begged to go along. Somehow, she agreed. The prescriptions included speed pills, thyroid pills, Lasix pills—you name it. That doctor had the Southern market cornered on desperate girls and women, me included.

By the 1990s, I found Phen-Fen, a drug approved by the FDA and later yanked from the market for causing heart attacks.

When I started having children, I settled into what my grandmother called “big-boned.” Whoever coined that phrase should have had their bones broken. My metabolism was wrecked from years of diets: frozen meals, plain baked potatoes, sunflower seeds only. Realistically, I knew I had to keep up with toddlers, so I tried not to fixate on my size, but the models of my youth were so tiny. They lived off cigarettes, cocaine, and Diet Coke. That lifestyle was truly unattainable.

In 2001, after the birth of my third child, I decided it was time to get thin “once and for all.” The FDA had just approved a surgery that placed a little band around your stomach to “prevent overeating.” If you ate “too much,” vomiting was the result. Sounded great to me, but I was 20 pounds too light to qualify for the surgery. The doctor’s advice? Try to gain some weight and come back. But when eating entire pizzas by myself didn’t result in rapid weight gain? Well, she said, if I wore ankle weights, wrist weights, and my heaviest boots full of quarters, nobody would ask me to take them off before I stepped on the scale pre-op.

In my head, I needed this surgery to be “normal.” So I did it.

Fast forward a decade. I was thin. If I ate more than a bite or two of solid food, I vomited; I had to be close to a toilet for every meal. To survive, I drank milkshakes and broth. For ten years, I destroyed my body in this medically sanctioned way.

As time went on, I was able to keep down less and less food. As a result, I lost even more weight. By 2010, I could barely swallow water. I was no longer skinny; I was frail. I wrote a will.

When I met Dr. Laura Balmain, I hadn’t eaten or had a glass of water in weeks. She didn’t talk to me like I’d ruined my life. She spoke to me as a human being who had done desperate things out of pain. She prayed over me before surgery, assuring me she would remove the Lap-Band and stretch my closed-up esophagus with a balloon.

When I woke up, I was excited to see my children and to finally eat again. But the look on my oldest daughter’s face said otherwise. “Mom, your esophagus was so tight that they couldn’t use the regular balloon; they’ll have to order a neonatal balloon and repeat the procedure several times.” I cried. 

A lifetime of self-abuse had landed me there.

After months of procedures, I regained the ability to swallow, but the years of vomiting had destroyed my esophageal lining. I had Barrett’s esophagus—a precancerous condition caused by chronic exposure to stomach acid. The Lap-Band was gone, but the damage remained.

For a while, I hoped I was out of the woods.

Last month, I went in for my check-up endoscopy and, since I’m over 50, bundled in a colonoscopy. My favorite gastroenterologist had retired, and my new one didn’t seem sympathetic about my history. From the start, I didn’t feel great about it. Still, I told myself good anesthesia would get me through.

When I woke up suddenly, feeling the scope in my bum, I panicked. “I feel it! It hurts!” I yelled. The CRNA said he’d push more meds. The doctor told me to breathe. I heard the nurse say, “The IV blew.” They kept urging me to breathe deeply, but I was very much awake—and not in the funny, wisdom-teeth-video kind of way. It was horrible and traumatic.

The only good thing that came out of that nightmare? My colon looks fine, and I don’t have to repeat that joy for another 10 years.

The endoscopy was a different story. Abusing your body has consequences. The esophageal damage has progressed. My next step is radiofrequency ablation of my esophagus, to prevent cancer.

We are each given only one body. I wish I had realized mine was perfect before I hurt it. If I could teach anybody anything about life today, it would be to eat, drink, laugh, and love yourself. Photos in fashion magazines aren’t real, Instagram isn’t real, and we are all perfect just the way we came.

Despite the terrible fluke of waking up during the procedure, I am so grateful I went in for those GI scopes; they provided the information needed to get ahead of cells progressing toward cancer.

For most of my life, I was willing to trade health for thinness. Now, I’ll do whatever it takes to care for my body and live a long, vibrant life. I know that the cancer survivors featured in this issue feel the same way. I hope you do, too. As always, thanks for reading FSLM.