Summary

The final part of Gay's memoir begins with her explaining why she goes to the doctor so infrequently. "There is," she remarks, "the humiliation of simply being in the doctor's office, which is, all too often, ill-equipped for the obese body, despite all the public hysteria about obesity and health" (273). She follows up this commentary on her discomfort at the doctor's office with an anecdote about falling and breaking her ankle in 2014. During her ten-day hospital stay and one surgery, Gay noticed just how many friends and family members were concerned about her or came to be by her side: "If I died," she says, "I would leave people behind who would struggle with my loss. I finally recognized that I matter to the people in my life and that I have a responsibility to matter to myself and take care of myself...