On August 11, 2015, twelve days after my 38th birthday, I am having gastric bypass surgery. To be very honest with myself, with my fiancée, with my friends and family, with the world, I am scared. Scared shitless. How does a man who has led a great life, been fairly successful professionally, has wonderful family and friends, who is soon to be married, get to this point? The simple answer? By letting myself get really fat. Morbidly obese in medical terms, as I have heard about one thousand times in the last three months. Words that do not make you proud. Words that make you feel worthless, disgusted and pitiful. It is not easy to write these words down. But it's a helluva a lot easier than saying them out loud.
I am scared. Scared of surgery, scared of the shitty liquid diet I'm on, scared of what everyone will think, scared of not eating what ever I want. The list goes on and on. Scared of the truth. I am fat. If changes are not made I will die. TRUTH.
For my own sanity, I need to explore how I got to this point. Reflect on my choices. Good and bad. Writing a blog never occurred to me until recently. Will anyone read it? Who knows? Who cares? This is mostly for myself. If one person reads it and it helps them, that's great. If another reads it and thinks, 'what a fucking loser', so be it. I need this for my own sanity. For my own clarity going forward. The first three paragraphs here are all over the place. This blog, for however long it lasts, will be all over the place. Random thoughts and observations about myself, about my life, about gastric bypass and big changes in my body.
Like most things I delve into, I want everything completed in ten minutes, one hour, two days. As quickly as possible. I guess the first question to ask myself is, how did I get to this point? Here's the synopsis for 1995-2010. Went to college, drank too much, ate too much, played too many video games, quit exercising and being active. Started my professional life in 2000, drank and ate even more, worked workaholic hours and got even less active and less exercise. By 2008 I had high blood pressure, fought a case of gout, was seriously overweight and generally felt like shit. In 2009 I developed venus ulcers on both of my legs. How do you get venus ulcers??? From poor circulation that you got from high blood pressure that you got from too much beer and food and no exercise.
While being treated by the wonderful nurses at UW Hospital Burn Center (this is were you get sent for non-healing wounds) I got on a scale for the first time in a long time. Let me back up. No sarcasm about the wonderful nurses. They are the best. Donna, I hope you read this. Anyway, back to the scale. I'm fat and I know it. I'm thinking 330 lbs. and I'll consider that a small victory. I've been lying about my weight on my driver's license and to people for so long I'm fucking clueless as to what the reality was.
408 lbs. 408 FUCKING LBS. 6', 408 lbs and looking for a hole to crawl into. Hard to believe your blood pressure is at deadly levels when you are double what you weighed in high school. What does a guy do when he finds out he weighs 408 lbs? He eats of course. Lots. Pizza, ribs, fast food, tavern food, beer, pop, Chinese take-out. My excuses: legs are in horrible shape from ulcers, don't sleep well, no girlfriend, loneliness, job I hated, trouble paying my bills. The list goes on and on. Sounds like a sad country song. Thank God for my dog, my sister and my cousin Danny. Without those three, at that time in my life, I know how this story would have ended.
Back to the present for a moment. Actually, three days ago. My liquid diet (more on the contents of this later) started 07/28/15. Two days before my 38th birthday. I figured I better weigh myself and keep semi-track of how this all goes. This before I decided to start the blog. My weight has hovered at the 350 mark since I decided to go down the gastric bypass road. Not really losing anything, but maintaining. Which is a big thing when you are in self-denial about your problem. Not losing, but hey I'm not gaining either. I should reward myself with pizza and Mt. Dew! Anyways, I got on the scale and it read 348 lbs. I started the diet, which sucks, and weighed myself again on my birthday. 344 lbs. 342 lbs. this morning. So the 900 calorie liquid diet of crappy protein shakes (4 per day) and even crappier protein bars (2 per day) are doing the job of getting me ready for surgery. Throw in a banana for potassium and it's quite the diet for a guy used to pounding out a 1,200 calorie snack or 2,000 calorie meal.
So, as I go along here, I will post my weight (not every day) and associated pictures. The picture part scares the shit out of me. I will happily parade around my own home naked, but am the first to admit I am mortified about what others think of my physical appearance. I'd like to lie and say I don't care. But that would be bullshit. Most people are nice and have good intentions when calling you "big guy", "big boy", "big man", etc.... but I have heard people call me fat or move to the side to let me by, or my favorite, the look of disgust when they find out they are in seat 28B next to me on the flight to O'Hare. It sucks and it hurts like hell. But they're telling the truth...
So, I will post my weight. I will post my pictures. Hopefully I will report huge losses and will learn to love myself. The love part might take awhile. Back to my 408 lb. nightmare...
What are the ramifications of being 408 lbs.? Besides extremely poor health and self-esteem? Size 48 pants, 4XL shirts, 5XL coats, huffing and puffing your way up and down stairs, getting winded taking your dog for a walk or mowing the yard. You get to the point where you don't want to get out of bed. And I didn't. I was depressed. Undiagnosed, as any doctor I mentioned it to changed the subject, but depressed nonetheless. Looking back now, it is easy to see. I didn't know then because guys like me don't get depressed. Raised and trained to think I was invincible. I was. Til I wasn't anymore.
At this point the story starts going in the right direction. Really fucking slowly. First, I was diagnosed with sleep Apnea. The diagnosis isn't like receiving a gold medal, but the ability to sleep at night without waking up feeling like you spent the night being beaten with a baseball bat is a major victory. The doc put me on a myriad of bp meds, some of which worked, some didn't. The ulcers were also healing with the help of the miracle workers at UW. The point is medically, I started moving in the right direction. The big downside to all this? Co-pays and prescriptions were killing me - cutting into a shitty salary and world class drinking and pizza delivery budget.
The big turning point, which I did not realize at the time, was losing my job in Wisconsin and having a friend, and my former boss, bail me out. Big time. He offered a job 800 miles from home. Somewhat of a fresh start. Lots of travel. Good pay. The chance to come home to WI and see my family now and again. The major sticking point was not being able to take my dog with. She eventually made the permanent trip out here, but the first year and a third sucked without her. She's the only being in my life always happy to see me, no matter how alone she felt while I was out getting fucked up with my buddies. Love you Daisy.
Anyway, I moved to Northern Virginia, fell into a pretty good routine and on my next trip to the doctor found out I had lost 55 lbs. Amazing what cutting back on boozing and a lot of walking will do for you. I knew I was losing weight, but had no idea how much. My shirt size and Levi size went down, but I avoided the scale like the plague.
I have maintained that weight for about three years. I have gotten down into the 330's by doing low carb diets. I have, for the most part, quit drinking. For all the shitty habits I have, dope and cigarettes are two I never picked up. I am lucky. The way I eat and the way I drank, I'm sure drugs would have killed me. Food is my drug. So I have maintained, but not without a whole bunch of problems. Low carbing was great, except that it brought horrible gout. Knock you on your ass, not be able to walk without a cane gout. Which I mistook for tendinitis and limped around for a fucking month before going to a doctor. Nothing says in-shape, healthy 36 yearold like walking with a cane! My bp has been a problem regardless of weight loss. I have also added diabetic issues to the list. Not hard to believe.
My fiancée has been incredibly supportive through all this. By the Kevin Smith line of thinking, she must be a chubby chaser. Without going into great detail, we met on EHarmony, fell in love, moved in together (along with her terrific son and my lab), got engaged and will be married in October 2016. She is the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I've never met someone who genuinely seems to like an ornery, fat, glass is half empty, unhealthy, sarcastic prick. She qualifies as an insane Angel. Amongst all this relationship bliss is the reality that if I didn't get my shit together health wise, our time together would be short. Maybe 10 years, but way too fucking short.
My current primary care physician, who is a matter of fact ball buster, and would generally like to kick my ass, encouraged me to go to a bariatric seminar. I mentioned it to my fiancée and she was incredibly supportive of the idea. I thought it was a terrible fucking idea. A joke. What fat people who can't control their health and lives resorted to. Oh wait, that's me. Look in the mirror dick head.
So we went in May and the rest is history. As part of the process, I've been poked, prodded, scanned, x-rayed, scoped, weighed, lectured and all kinds of other stuff I've already forgotten about. I've also met great doctors, techs, nurses, insurance specialists and even a shrink I didn't want to pyscho analyze.
I also realized that this is process isn't a joke. And it's not easy. You don't have the surgery and lose weight. Not without exercise, emotional support, vitamins, protein supplements, proper diet, the support and love of those around you. And the love of yourself. The last one is the hardest for me. Oh, and not eating and drinking garbage.
I never really talked about love until the last year or so. It was off-limits for me. I was in love when I was a younger guy and I got my heart broke. Not a big deal in the whole scheme of things, but I'm an all or nothing guy. So the solution was not to find love again. Much easier to go into a shell and eat and drink your life away. I did that for about 15 years. Lots of trips and hunting and football games and carnal pleasures involved, but no real love. Love of the inanimate and pepperoni pizza and Coca-Cola and Mexican food is not real love it turns out. Love of your family and your future wife is what really counts. And those are wonderful things.
That's why I have to break up with food. I love food. Mexican, Chinese, sushi, pizza, steaks, seafood, Greek, pop. You name, I love it. Diners, drive-ins and dives. Love'em. Most fond of dives and taco shacks. Food Network, Cooking Channel, food festivals, bbq cook-offs. All my favorite things. I'm addicted. And that's a problem.
I follow the speed limit and traffic laws because I don't want to die in a wreck. I work safe because I know the dangers of my job. I worry about the health of my loved ones all the time. So why the fuck can't I stop eating? Why would I eat myself to death? Can I stop? Can gastric bypass and a complete change in lifestyle, behavior modification the doc would like to say, fix this walking train wreck?
Time to find out.
