23 days later

A note to my family: If you are reading this now, please consider before continuing: you will remember that in July of 2003, I disappeared for a while. When I returned, I told you that I had been on a last-minute, emergency charity trip to Burma to help out some orphans. This was not true, but for a long time, I would rather you continued believing this lie than knowing the truth. Thank you.

There is a show on the air that you may or may not know of. It is called “South Park” and it is an animated series that airs on the Comedy Central cable network. It is known for its outlandish and crude humor, but I have found that it often treats current issues with a surprising amount of thought and insight, if you manage to look past the potty humor.

One episode, however, went way too far, in my mind. I believe in freedom of speech. I’m all for protecting the rights of artists to follow their vision and not be prevented in doing so by the government, BUT, along with this right comes a responsibility. The responsibility to own up to the consequences of the art you create.

Do I feel celebrities should get a free pass and be protected from criticism or satire? No, of course not. Paris Hilton is a public figure. She has chosen this path and courted her own celebrity status. The issue is not whether it’s ok to make fun of her because she’s a celebrity. The issue is whether it’s ok to make fun of anyone who has befallen tragedy.

It’s not wrong to make fun of Magic Johnson and his AIDS because he’s a celebrity; it’s wrong because AIDS is a horrible thing. You shouldn’t make fun of anyone for having AIDS or cancer or whatever. It’s not the law, but it should be.

And just like it’s not ok to make fun of people with AIDS, it’s not ok to make fun of people who have befallen Paris Hilton’s fate, either.

In season 8, episode 12, Comedy Central aired an episode entitled “Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset” in which Miss Hilton comes to South Park and exerts her influence over the town’s young girls, to disastrous results. I see the need to satirize a situation in which a young woman of questionable morals, famous only for being rich and spoiled, becomes a role model to the youth of today. Believe me, I understand.

But how do the creators of South Park dispense of the villain in this episode? By having a naked gay man jump on her head, inserting her whole body into his anal cavity.

I am not making this up; this is actually what happened in this episode.

If someone could explain to me how this is funny in any way, shape or form, I would appreciate it, because I am clueless.

Perhaps I’m biased, due to my own experiences, but this is just plain gross. Nobody should have to endure that kind of punishment, no matter how awful a person they are.

Trust me, when I say this is a fate worse than death.

July 17, 2003: Alicia Jane Stevenson, certified by the Guinness Book as the world’s fattest woman, is flying from her home in Texas to the (unfortunately named) Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota to undergo emergency gastric bypass in a last-ditch attempt to save her life.

Miss Stevenson is grossly obese and suffering from numerous medical problems related to her enormous weight.

As the custom-retrofitted C 27 cargo plane chartered by the Oprah Winfrey Show for the sole purpose of bringing Miss Stevenson to the weight loss clinic is passing over Des Moines, Iowa, it encounters severe turbulence, causing the plane to rock back and forth. As it does so, its cargo breaks free from its tether and begins rolling around. This, in turn, causes the plane to pitch violently from side to side, setting off a disastrous chain reaction.

The pilots, unable to control the plane and steady its 1200 pound passenger, had only one option. I don’t blame them for lowering the cargo ramp and going into a steep climb. They did what they thought was their only option. Are three deaths better than one?

Meanwhile, 23,000 feet below all of this, a lone man spies a black spot emerging from an airplane. He notices it getting slightly larger as it falls to earth. He cranes his head upwards, unable to discern what it is. By the time he realizes what it is and where it is headed, it is too late to run.

You may remember the story of Alicia Jane Stevenson: her courageous journey, her terrible fall and her miraculous survival. It was all over the media how this poor woman had been jettisoned from the very airplane that had been trying to save her. How she had fallen from that height, reaching such speeds and yet walked away from the incident without a scratch. It was the lead story for days.

Doctors wanted to examine this miracle woman and make sure that all her bones and internal organs were intact. The problem is, there isn’t an x-ray, cat scan or MRI machine in the world that is large enough to contain her.

I am sad that we live in a world where the almighty dollar dictates who gets medical treatment and who doesn’t, because if they had been able to stuff that fat bitch into an x-ray machine, they would have seen the grown man stuck inside of her vaginal cavity.

They would have seen me.

The fact that one person could have survived such a fall is beyond explanation. The fact that two people could survive such an impact is beyond belief.

What I have been told is that thanks to a one-in-a-million shot, I entered this woman in the exact right location. Her body absorbed the shock of our contact, as if one of those giant air bags that people jump from a building and land on had landed on me, instead of the other way around… I don’t really know, it doesn’t make much sense to me.

All I know is, I was now trapped in a living hell that would eventually last for 23 days.

On South Park, Paris Hilton crawls around and interacts with mythical characters. In reality, you are in complete darkness, breathing in foul air, unable to move.

I screamed, but nobody could hear me. I tried to make noise by tapping on the walls of this woman’s internal organs, but that only made horrible, horrible things happen. This was easily one of the worst things that ever happened to me and I wouldn’t wish it on all but the most evil of men.

Her body recognized me as a foreign entity and her immune system reacted by trying to destroy me. I was covered in goo, which I was forced to eat to survive. I began to hallucinate. I imagined I was an olde tyme miner and I had been trapped in a cave-in. At one point, I believed I was an astronaut, set adrift in his space capsule, unable to contact earth.

As the weeks went by, eventually, I gave up all hope. I looked for a means to hasten my demise, but finding none, accepted the fact that I would probably starve to death.

Then, it happened. The literal light at the end of the tunnel. Hands. Reaching in and grabbing me.

Had I indeed died, then been reincarnated as a newborn baby? What was happening? I reached out to steady myself, the sensation of falling was overwhelming.

I was lying on the floor of a large, white room. I was wet and cold. There were doctors everywhere.

“Ga ga goo goo,” I said, trying my best to adapt to my new situation.

The room erupted in laughter. “Well he’s still got a sense of humor, that’s a good sign!” said one of the doctors. I looked behind me and saw the most enormous person I had ever seen. There was a gaping chasm… I followed the slime trail from it to my present location… everything clicked… and I lost consciousness.

For 23 days, the state of Iowa had been unable to locate a freight scale that was mobile, yet could handle a 1200 pound load. At last, a cattle farmer in Altoona was located who had the equipment to handle those specifications.

The first sign that something wasn’t right came when this 1200 pound woman was rolled onto the scale and it gave her weight as 1400 pounds. Even someone on a 20,000 calorie diet can’t gain that much weight in such a short time.

The scale had to be wrong. It was quickly recalibrated and again, the same result came up.

The doctors were mystified, but luckily for me, a young intern named Sandra Chopak had a hunch. The best OB/GYNs in the state were brought in and an ultrasound of Miss Stevenson’s uterus was ordered. That’s when they saw it, or rather heard it: another heart beat.

Naturally, they jumped to the wrong conclusion. What are you going to believe? That some fatass had a 200 pound baby in her or that she fell on a grown man when she was ejected from a cargo plane? Don’t be an idiot.

Well, further tests revealed what was really going on and I was quickly removed from my vaginal hell.

I could have cleaned up, financially, with a lawsuit, but the last thing I wanted was more publicity; to relieve this experience over and over on national TV. I was embarrassed. I told Oprah and her producers that if she wanted to make this all go away, she had my word I wouldn’t seek a dime from her.

And I haven’t. I have not spoken to anyone about this until just now. The medical staff, bound by the laws and oaths of their profession, were forbidden from repeating anything they had seen.

Through the ordeal, a large number of high-powered people had been put in rather embarrassing positions by all that had taken place, so they were more than happy to keep silent.

As was I. Until I realized I needed to get my alcohol and drug dependence under control. With the help of several 12-step programs and a newfound belief in my higher power, I have come to terms with my past, part of which is letting people know the truth about the awful events of those 3+ weeks.

Thank you to those doctors; especially Sandra Chopak. Thank you Oprah and thank you Miss Alicia Jane Stevenson. To my family, let me say that I am sorry I hid the truth from you for so long. I was ashamed of who I was and that had nothing to do with me or any of you or the fact that I had been inside an enormous woman’s vagina for over 3 weeks.

I leave you now with the words that inspired me to accept myself for who I was and all I had been through. I wish you the same.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.