How it is, so far...

First of all, thanks.  So many people have made nice comments about this blog.  People have also said, “You’re looking good.”  Whenever I hear this, I spin around to see who’s behind me.  There is no way someone is saying that to me.  It is kind of like when a teenager calls me sir or mister.  I think they must be talking about my Dad.  But, people actually are complementing me over my weight loss.  I really appreciate it.  I’m flattered and embarrassed at the same time.

People ask me if it has been hard or if I throw-up a lot or if the ‘dumping syndrome’ is getting me down.  Some ask if I’d do it again.

Has it been hard?  No.  It’s been easier than any other diet I’ve tried.  I don’t get hungry.  I don’t crave food.  Certain foods taste better than others, and I prefer to eat certain foods, but I don’t crave them.  This is pretty remarkable considering I’d fill my car floor with drool while waiting in the drive through for my Whopper (with cheese, no tomato).  I do feel empty from time to time, but usually some liquids or a little food will take care of it.  My only indulgence is Greek Yogurt with Honey.  It’s doctor approved so I’m going with it.

Has it been hard?  Yes.  The first six weeks were difficult.  I felt very weak.  The weight was dropping off, but I didn’t have the energy to enjoy it.  I had to stick to very soft foods.  Any meat (beef, chicken, pork, even fish), no matter how thoroughly I’d chew it, would get stuck in my throat.  You know the painful feeling you get when you take too big of a swallow?  That’s how it feels; only it’s persistent.  Sometimes it would pass into my pouch, other times it would come back up.  I’d do a sort of semi-vomit (delightful, huh?), and up would come the meat.

Do I throw-up a lot?  Compared to getting the flu once in a while, I throw-up a lot.  It is a weird experience.  I get all the classic symptoms of having to throw up (watery mouth, a need to heave on a new carpet, wedding dress, polished floor, etc.), but sometimes it is just a throat clearing experience.  It isn’t that painful.  And the results are certainly less painful than having food stuck in your throat.   I had the full blown flu-type vomiting this past weekend.  I’d just eaten some food, and five milliseconds later I had my head in the kitchen sink (It was urgent, and I couldn’t find a wedding dress).  I knew there was food in the pouch, but my body did the standard vomit contractions.  Nothing came out of the pouch.  It was the driest of dry heaves.  It went on and on and on.  My son didn’t know what was going on.  He thought I was grunting to a song on my iPod.

Dumping Syndrome happens to me from time to time, but I really haven’t had major problems with it.  I try to be really careful with the types and quantities of food that I eat.  The biggest “dumping” trigger seems to be when I drink Pero with Sweet ‘N Low.  Does anyone remember Postum?  I loved Postum.  I was heartbroken when Kraft Foods discontinued it.  I guess the Utah market wasn’t enough to sustain the brand.  So, now I drink Pero as a Postum replacement. This is pretty funny considering Pero is marketed as a Coffee replacement.  If you add enough sweetener and creamer, Pero is drinkable.  Sometimes when I drink Pero, it triggers the dumping part of the ‘Dumping Syndrome.”   If you know what I mean.

Would I do it again?  Yes.  The positives outweigh the negatives.  I no longer have type-two diabetes.  I no longer have sleep apnea.  I’ve lost sixty pounds.  I’ve gone from 3x shirts to XL shirts.  I’ve gone from a forty-six inch waist to a thirty-eight.  I’ve gone from a quadruple to a triple chin.  I’ve re-grown hair (unfortunately it is in my nose, eyebrows, and ears).

I think I’m through with the worst of it.  The hospital stay was pretty miserable.  The psychological break with my comfort foods (all foods) was difficult, but I got over it after two weeks of non-stop crying.  The overall physical weakness was hard.  I’d get winded on short walks.  Climbing stairs felt like climbing Everest without oxygen.

Now I feel pretty good.  I’m used to the foods I can eat.  I don’t eat to fill emotional needs or out of boredom.  I’m gaining strength.  Sometimes I really feel like I’ve cheated the system.  Diets are supposed to be a struggle, a sacrifice.  Other than the first few weeks of adjustment, I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing anything. 

The doctor says that I’ll lose all of my excess body weight.  He also showed me statistics of how many people keep the weight off long term.  Statistically, I’ll gain some of the weight back.  But, I hope to beat the stats and keep the new me around for a while.  

My knees ache and I know why. I need a bigger car.

I bought a Ford Focus in 2003.  It was a great deal, and it has been a great car.  My son drives it now.  He wishes it was a Chevy Camaro.  When I turned the car over to him, I thought he’d be thrilled.  He told me the other day that it is a ‘good’ car, but he hates the body style and is a little embarrassed to drive it.  The ignorance of a parent.

The Focus was fun to drive, got decent mileage, and had fog lights.  You can’t get any cooler than fog lights.  As I grew bigger and bigger I noticed I liked the Focus less and less.  It came to the point that even the fog lights couldn’t make me happy. 

In a previous life, I would go to the convenience store every morning for a few gallons of diet cola and a donut or two.  I’d pull up in my Ford Focus and see my reflection in the window; a two-pound marshmallow in a one-pound bag.  The seat had worn flat; the driver’s side suspension was sagging.  My body filled half of the car.  The seat was still comfortable.  The leg room was great.  I was having a problem with the width room.  The space between the door and the center console had shrunk. 

When I would sit, I couldn’t comfortably cross my legs.  I couldn’t comfortably keep my knees less than three feet apart.  I looked like I was preparing to give birth to a cow.  A full-grown cow.  Oh, I know it is sexy to sit all spread out, and it is all the rage at state dinners, meeting with the Queen, etc.  But, I really didn’t like to sit with my legs splayed.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe it’s all the mooing.

So, to fix my sprawled leg problem, I went shopping for a new car.  My only criterion was seating comfort.  That’s what I told each salesperson.

I was shopping for a new Honda.  I was sitting in a new Accord.  I liked the car, but my left knee was smashed up against door.  The center console was digging in to my right knee.  There’s forty yards of open space between my knees.  I asked the salesperson if he likes beef.

It’s no on the Honda.  Also, no on the Ford Mustang.  During my non-cow-bearing years, I’d rented a Mustang on a business trip and really liked it.  I’d test driven one a year or two after the rental and almost bought it.  At that time, my wife said no.  She went on and on about the fact that we have three kids and the back seat of the Mustang only had two seatbelts.  I really didn’t see a problem, but the law is the law.  This time around, I thought I’d try out the Mustang again.  I did.  Stripped bare and two tubes of multi-purpose grease later, I'd slid into the driver's seat and was ready for the test drive.  It was a little embarrassing driving a car naked.  I did have soft skin for a few weeks.

I searched off and on for several weeks to find a new car.  I’d call dealerships and ask them about leg room.  They’d all reply, “This here car has the best leg room of any car in its class.”  Each dealer was ready to outdo the other.  I think they were up to eight feet of leg room when I finally quit calling.

I finally settled on a Nissan Altima.  I wanted a Maxima, but it only had 7 ½ feet of leg room.  When I first sat in the Altima, I knew it was the car for me because my knees didn’t hit the console or the door.  I could comfortably give birth to twin cows while driving I-15 during rush hour.  I didn’t care if the car was built with cardboard and had a two hamster engine (one for forward, one for reverse).  This car fit me.  I could sprawl to splitting and still be comfortable.

I bought the Altima almost two years ago.

The other night I was sitting on the living room floor cross legged.  I wasn’t doing Yoga.  I was playing some mind-numbing game on my Android Pad.  The game was so completely mind-numbing that I didn’t even realize I was sitting cross legged.  When I realized what I was doing, I took deep cleansing breaths and began to meditate.

I'm amazed.  I can sit cross legged.  I can put my leg on my knee (not the same leg).  I can sit comfortably with eight inches of space between my knees (I just measured).  I don’t have to sit like I’m giving birth to someone’s yearly supply of beef.  Now I can sit like I’m birthing a smaller mammal, like a badger.

Eating In My Sleep

I'm on my back on the kitchen floor.  I’m asking my wife if I need to go to the hospital.  She says no.  I ask her again.  She says no, again.  My big toe on my right foot looks really bad.  Like I’d stuck my bare foot under the lawn mower or tried to kick an angry badger. 

I take Ambien.  It’s for insomnia.  The coolest part about Ambien is when you don’t take it; you get to stay up all night.  If I have to work all night, I don’t take Ambien.  It’s better than an energy drink, or having the neighbor’s house burn down.  New slogan, “On those nights you just don’t want to sleep, forget your Ambien.”

I went with my son on a Boy Scout overnighter.  At eleven PM, I realized I’d forgotten my Ambien.  I was about eight miles from home.  I didn’t want to bother driving home and driving back again.  Plus I was worried that the campground gate might be closed, or I’d have to deal with angry campground hosts.  To become a campground host you have to have a degree in hostility with a minor in aggression.  I wanted to be a campground host, but I made the mistake of majoring in hospitality.  After graduation, the Forest Service turned me down.  I ended up working in a hospital.

Spending the night in a tent with a thirteen year-old boy can be a lot of fun.  The fun part is when you fall asleep right after crawling in your sleeping bag and sleep the whole night.  That way you’re only conscious of what you’re doing for about ten minutes.  I was able to enjoy the whole ninety seven hours.  I went to bed at eleven, and crawled out of the tent three years later at five AM.  Really, my son isn’t bad to share a tent with.  There were minimal strange odors.  Kids don’t really mean what they say when they talk in their sleep, right?  Just to be safe, I slept with a hatchet for a few weeks.

I was determined to get off Ambien when I went in for surgery, so I didn't ask for it in the hospital.  I was loaded up on Morphine for my first twenty four hours.  I didn’t sleep.  The next day I was loaded up on liquid Lortab, I didn’t sleep.  I didn’t sleep for four days.  I could get close to sleep.  We could almost hold hands, and then sleep, being the jerk that it is, would run away laughing.  So, back to the Ambien.  I’m not proud of it.  Don’t judge me.

Before surgery, I was told that my metabolism would change and that change would be a contributing factor in curing type II diabetes.  I didn’t realize how the metabolism change would affect me in other ways.

I’m just plugging along, taking my Ambien at bedtime, and sleeping.  One night I take an Ambien.  I don’t fall asleep for a few minutes, so I get up to get a drink.  It’s all a blur from there.  I fell off a stool.  My toe gets shredded so bad that the only hope is amputation.  My wife is trying to stop me from ripping off my toenail and (what I thought was) dead skin.  I vaguely remember hydrogen peroxide and bandages.

The next morning I'm limping around, hurting.  I’m ready to eat some leftover sirloin tips for breakfast.  I open the fridge, and they’re mostly gone.  I’m angry.  “Who ate my food?  Was it one of the kids?”  My son walks in and says, “You ate your food.  I came upstairs last night and you were sitting there eating them.  You told me about how you’d hurt your toe and then you visited with me for about twenty minutes.”

I'm wondering how I fit several sirloin tips inside of me?  Maybe I stuffed them in my cheeks and chewed on them through the night. And, what did I say to my son?

The next night, I take my Ambien, and wander out to the kitchen to eat a few beans from a can of pork and beans.  The next morning, I awake with this vague feeling that my wife was mad at me last night.  I think she even yelled at me.  Later that day, my wife tells me that the night before, I’d eaten the entire can of pork and beans.  When she caught me, she yelled at me and took the bowl away.  Our first fight.

A few months ago, I could put away a plate of sirloin tips and a can of pork and beans and still have room for cheesecake.  Now, my pouch (stomach) will hold about three air molecules.  How I packed away so much food without heaving is still a mystery.

And, I still don't know how I messed up my toe.  Maybe it was a badger.  Maybe he wanted my sirloin.  I don't know.

My wife and I have worked out a system.   I only take an Ambien when I’m in bed.  Right after I take it, she bolts me down with metal straps.  Then she locks all the doors and sets the motion alarm.  I guess it keeps me safe. It is inconvenient. I’m grateful for bedpans.

Seriously, I’ve cut back to a half dose of Ambien.  My wife gets very nervous if I get out of bed for any reason.  After waking up in St George a couple of times, she’s taken away the car keys.

The Last Emotional Connection

Vietnam Wall - Washington DC

November 2003

I’m wearing the pants I wore on a trip to Washington DC back in 2003. At least I think they’re the same pants.  They look the same as what's in the photo. I’m going to say they are.  I wore them on a trip to DC with my younger brother. He was interviewing for medical school. I was there to annoy him and split the costs. He’s now a PharmD, and I’m still annoying.

It was on that trip that we crashed the rental car. We needed a rental car so we could pay the $10/day fee to let it sit in the hotel garage while we used the subway. Driving in thick traffic from the Baltimore airport to our luxurious Day’s Inn near Embassy Circle, a Pakistani man turned right into our lane and our car. We were very lucky. We were lucky we weren’t hurt, which is pretty hard to do when you’re hit in the fender by a car going ½ mile per hour. We were also lucky because the man didn’t speak English, didn’t have a driver’s license, and the car he was driving was borrowed from a friend. I'm fairly certain he didn't have insurance either. Somehow we managed to exchange information. I notified the rental car company. When we drove the car back to the rental lot at the end of our trip, the lot attendant told us we shouldn’t have bothered reporting it. He said, “It’s barely noticeable,” as he smeared some dirt over the dent. I appreciated his dedication to customer service.  A month or so later the rental car company called to tell me that I wasn’t liable for the accident. Accident? What accident?

I’m sorry to reminisce over old clothes again. I really don’t have this emotional co-dependency with clothing. My wife left several boxes and bags of my old clothes on the porch for the Multiple Sclerosis Society to pick up this morning. It really didn't bother me.  It only took my son, my wife, and the two drivers of the MS truck to pry me free of a box of old clothes. I was sobbing and screaming, “How can you do this to me?!?!” My son went inside the house; my wife followed and shut the door behind her. The MS drivers hopped in their truck and left me sitting there, alone, without my memories. Does anyone know what happens to clothes collected by the MS Soceity?

I’m down to my last pair of saved jeans. The Washington DC jeans. The ones I’m wearing today. I guess I’ll have to start hitting the thrift stores again.

No You're Not, You're Fat!

WARNING: This blog post is full of whining, self-loathing, and self-justification, as well as my opinion on breast implants. Also, I frequently use the words, “Skinny,” and “Fat.” Read at your own risk.

A couple of years ago, I was teaching a bunch of eight year-olds in church. I was joking with them about how I am such a skinny, fit person. One kid looked at me through squinted eyes, and said, “No you’re not. You’re fat!!” The brutal honesty of a child.

A neighbor stopped by one day to borrow something. I was riding our exercise bike. I stopped my workout and answered the door. I apologized for being sweaty and explained that I was in the middle of riding. He looked me up and down and said, “You need to keep riding.”

A while ago, my office was about as far as it could be from the printer. I was printing a lot of documents, and I was making routine trips to the printer. I told my manager that I was getting a lot of exercise going back and forth. He mumbled under his breath, “Yeah, you NEED the exercise.”

I ran into an old friend that I hadn’t seen in over twenty years. After exchanging pleasantries, he said, “You really need to do something… You’re huge!”

I have empathy for anyone who’s struggled with their weight. I’m not talking about the people who can exercise an extra minute a day to burn off those few pounds they gained over Christmas. I love you people, but you make me sick. It isn’t fair. It really isn’t. For those of you who say, “But life isn’t fair!” I say, “SHUT UP!” Life is never unfair in ways that I want it. For example, life should be unfair to celebrities, and Engineers should be Rock Stars. I should be able to demonstrate a simple asynchronous transfer protocol on stage and people should pay $200 per person to see it. I’m married, so I’d prefer if you women don’t throw underwear.

I look at photos of me when I was younger, really younger. My kindergarten photo shows this skinny kid. By my fifth grade photo, I look chubby. I slid in and out of chubby until I was twenty-nine. Then, I plunged head-first into the chubby barrel. I think it was bigger than a barrel, maybe an Olympic sized swimming pool. Through my twenties, I worked at a warehouse. I was lifting and running and eating and my body seemed to like it. I was able to maintain a reasonable weight. During the summer before my senior year in college, I got an engineering internship. It was the best thing for my career, and the worst thing for my body. I kept eating just like I did when I was running and lifting, but now I was sitting, and sitting. My weight skyrocketed over the summer. When I returned to school in the fall, my friends asked me if I’d swallowed a horse. I told them that I’d eaten it a bite at a time.

The next thing I know, it is fifteen years later, and I’m one hundred pounds heavier.

I know how I look. I know that I’m in bad shape. I know that I have diabetes and sleep apnea and high triglycerides and borderline high cholesterol. I know that I’d rather sit or lie down rather than go for a walk or play with my kids. I know that I hate going out in public because of what people think. OK, not so much what they think, but what they’ll say or how they’ll treat me. I’m not Brad. I’m not a human being. I’m the fat guy, or the very fat guy.

People will say, “What are you worried about? Nobody cares. No one notices.” Let me laugh a deep sarcastic laugh. Now I’m laughing a little more. Still laughing. Laughing. OK, I’m done. Admit it, we all do it. We judge people on their appearance. It’s wrong. We know it’s wrong. But we still do it.

I think self-esteem can be compartmentalized. I feel secure and self-assured in all aspects of my life except my appearance. I know that I can’t be myself without scaring people. I don’t have to dress up for Halloween. I open the door, and the kiddies scream and run away. I guess it doesn’t help that I’m dressed like an authentic Sumo.

I think of myself as jolly. I like to laugh. I like to make (what I think are) humorous comments about every-day situations. I’m easy-going and for the most part outgoing. I try to be the guy that introduces himself first. I worked in retail for several years, and I know how people can be rude to a waitress or a cashier or sales associate. I know that I hated being treated like that, so unless retail help is blatantly combative, I really try to be friendly to them. I generally leave good tips.

I've found that people don’t want a middle-aged fat man to be friendly with them. They want the fat man to be quiet. They want the fat man to stay out of their store. They don’t want to see the fat man. They want the fat man to stay home and order everything, including toothpaste, online. That’s why the UPS driver drops the package on the doorstep, rings the bell, and sprints to his truck. Oh, he’ll tell you it’s to keep on a tight schedule. But, I know it’s so he doesn’t run the risk of having a fat man open the door

There’s a big philosophical divide between the fats and skinnys. The skinnys think, “Why don’t you just lose weight. Go on a diet and exercise.” The fats are thinking, “Why don’t you just shut up and let me enjoy this cheesecake!”

When I attended my first seminar at RMAP, they talked about the contributing factors to overall body weight. Diet and exercise (or the lack thereof) is only one contributing factor to obesity. There are other factors such as genetics, body type, and hormone production. They’re finding that obese people produce more “hunger” hormones. Obese people are literally fighting against their body. Not only to lose weight, but to even maintain their current weight. Eventually the body wins.

People will say, “If you’re really committed and if you really want to make a change, you can do it.” I agree. I was completely committed to several diets. I swore several blood oaths that this time; I would stick to a diet and exercise and get back in shape. So, why did I end up at 304.7 pounds before I let a doctor cut up my organs?

I relate it to being shot with an arrow, in the leg, in the middle of the wilderness. It hurts. It really, really hurts. And I can see the arrow and I think if I pull it out I will feel better. People are telling me just leave it alone and they’ll get me out of this wilderness and to a doctor. So, I know I’ll be better off waiting for the doctor to treat me, but when I look at the arrow I think, if I pull it out now I’ll be able to relieve a lot of pain.

Diet and exercise are like waiting to see the Doctor, and food is like the arrow in your leg. You can always see food. You see it on TV, on billboards, when the good-hearted office worker brings in donuts, or when you stand at the front counter of the Burger King.  You want to pull the arrow out to relieve the pain.  You want to eat food because a diet means physical and emotional pain.  Eventually the emotional cravings and the physical hunger are so painful that you want to pull the arrow out. Pull it out RIGHT NOW! Finally you pull out the arrow, and you eat it (it tastes like chicken)!

There’s an article in the Saturday, March 13, 2010 St. Petersburg Times that states, “The latest obesity statistics tell us that more than 64 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. It's also still true that 90 percent of dieting attempts fail.” The author of the article goes on to give dieting tips. The article also gives information on how to purchase the author’s book. I’m sure she wrote the dieting article out of the goodness of her heart.

So, I’m fat. I'm a fataholic. I'm a recovering fataholic. Even though I've lost about fifty pounds, my body will always want to be fat.  It is my lifelong struggle.  In some ways I feel like I cheated by having bariatric surgery. I really thought this until I received the second catheter. It hasn’t been easy with the surgery. But, the emotional food cravings and the physical hunger aren’t there. I can easily control what I eat without feeling like I’m a cat desperately clinging to the greased wall of food cravings, holding on by sheer will. The difficulty is chewing each micro-morsel of food four-hundred times. It is very painful when I don’t and food gets stuck in my throat. I’m supposed to drink sixty-four ounces of water per day. It’s hard to drink that much when every swallow is a tiny sip. Too much water going down in one swallow is very painful too. There are times that I feel weak. There are times that I feel like I have a low-grade flu.

I had the surgery to help my health, to feel better, and, let’s be honest, to look better. I used to think it was silly when women would have cosmetic surgery. Now I fully understand why they do. We have a desire to look good to others. We have that emotional desire, even when we can't physically meet it.