ObesityHelp

by Bo McCoy
ObesityHelp.com National Sales Manager


It was 1986 and as I remember it, I was sitting in a crowded lunchroom with about 250 – 300 students. The high school lunchroom was about ten rows of tables, all lined up, end to end, and I was sitting in the third row right in the middle. On this particular day, I was enjoying my own comedy antics by making fun of someone nearby me. Just when my comedy routine neared its apex, I threw my head back in laughter and my back followed the motion. The next thing I remember, I was laying flat on my back on the ground with a perfect  view of everyone’s legs under the table. The lunchroom went silent. I quickly jumped up from the floor to the eruption of laughter. I looked down at the shattered memory of what was once my chair. The chair was broken. The laughter continued. How was it that I was suddenly all alone in the room? I reach down, picked up the chair pieces, one in each hand, and I raised them above my head Rocky Balboa style and yelled at the top of my lungs “Yeah!” The crowd responded with near riotous applause and encouragement. I laid the pieces down on the table and left the lunchroom. By the time I went around the corner to the bathroom, I was already in tears. My hands were shaking and my ego bruised. While in the bathroom, before I could allow my emotions to run away, the school principal appeared and asked me if I was alright. Apparently he had witnessed the entire incident. What the principal knew that I didn’t, was that there was blood streaming down the back of my head and neck. He sent me to the nurse – I was fine, but not really.
 

Years would go by and the 350 pound teenager that broke the chair in high school would go on to become a 450 pound twenty-something year old man who was trying to make it in the workforce. I was working as a crisis and intervention counselor for the State of Georgia. Once, when walking into a client’s home, I tripped forward on the steps and I injured my leg. The injury was minor and I completed the visit. Within 48 hours of that incident, I was at home and unable to walk. Infection had set into my right leg and I developed Phlebitis which, in turn, spread infection to my prostate and kidneys. I was in real danger for a period of about six days. I recovered, but not really. 
 

After this incident, I was forced to accept the fact that I was disabled and that I could no longer hold down a job. It was a mentally challenging time for me. You might say I fell into depression because, for the first time in my life, I knew (realized and mentally ascended) to the fact that I was morbidly obese. My emotions were all over the place. I made it through, but not really.
 

By 2002 I had reached the height of my weight-626 lbs-and the bottom of my emotional descent.  Obesity had robbed me of my childhood, my teenage years, my ability to take part in many high school experiences, my college years, and now, my adulthood. I was nearing the point in which I wanted to either “get busy living or get busy dying”. I reached out in total faith and underwent RNY surgery. It was a risk. I was a high risk case. The odds were against me. I was afraid and  I felt like nobody understood. The surgery came and went. The surgery worked and I was on my way to becoming 385 lbs lighter, but not really.
 

I lost weight so fast that I can barely imagine it now. Losing 200 lbs in six months is nothing short of a miracle. I felt amazing. I felt like I could run over a brick wall. I was excited. I was on-top-of-the-world. I was getting so much attention that it was like no drug I had ever taken and no high I had ever imagined. I was restarting my life all over again and I felt that nothing and nobody could ever take me back to the way I was at 626 pounds. I was cured, the obesity was over.

But not really.
 

My mind devised a plan to keep the “high” going. I began to seek out plastic surgery and it worked. The feeling of being “on top” again came back and I was getting the “ooos” and “ahh’s” from people like never before. I would stand in front of crowds and feed on the attention like my very existence required it. I bought smaller clothes. I wore fancy designer clothes with Calvin Klein, Nautica and Polo labels, amongst others. I felt sexy and desirable. My career was taking off  and I was finally able to feel that people could see ME instead of my weight. I thought the wave of endorphins would never end and I would forever be 241 pounds. Life was but a dream, but not really.
 

When I wasn’t looking and when I was not paying attention,  the numbers on the scale begin to climb again. I went from 241 to 275, then from 275 to 325, then from 325 to 375. In just two years, from 2005 to 2007, I gained 136 pounds. I couldn’t believe it. My Calvin Klein pants didn’t fit anymore. My thin pictures mocked me. My memories of being “him” were fading already.  Like, Charlie Gordon, in “Flowers for Algernon”, I was remembering the days of my “operation”.   I was looking at pictures and video with disdain because they only showed me how far I had fallen yet again. I gave up, but not really.

I avoided some circles of friends because I knew they would look at me and think of me as a “failure”. I had met thousands of patients and I now was having to face them with nearly 140 pounds more on my body than when I met them. It was humiliating. I would be lying if I told you everyone was supportive and nice. They weren’t. You see, there is a disease that is an unfortunate side-effect of weight loss surgery. Some people develop “short-memory syndrome”. Of course, I am being factitious, but it seems that when people are in the honeymoon phase of the weight loss process, they are a bit more judgmental than they would want to admit. It is only after they have to fight the scale again that they truly understand.   I suppose according to the GQ Magazines of the world and some people in the WLS community, I am a failure.

But not really.

I have learned something about myself during these past few years. I began this journey at 626 pounds, and I am eight years out and I weigh 375 pounds. I may not be “him”, the guy that was 241, but I have always been me. I have always been on the journey to find “me”. I am not sure when exactly that I began to accept “me” for who I am, but I have to say I am more comfortable with myself today at 375 than I was at 241. I feel I am now living an honest life. At 241, I was living on the attention of those around me.   Today, I live on giving attention to others who need it. I don’t feel “fat” anymore. I realize that to the world being 375 is “HUGE” but, to me, it is quite spry! Imagine going from 626 down to 375!  Do you think I still feel fat? Umm, no! Not really.

 

As I close this story of falling, I reflect on my lessons learned.  In 2009, I was in Houston and  having dinner with Dr. Garth Davis, Dr. John LoMonaco, and Mary Jo Rapini L.P.C., not mention a few other office staffers and friends. It was a great dinner and I was having so much fun. At some point in the middle of a story, I was laughing and the chair I was sitting in slipped out from under me and hit the floor. I stood up, grabbed the chair and sat back down again. Within 10 seconds, the chair had slipped out from under me again and I was right back on the floor. Unlike the 17-year old that fell in the lunchroom, I held my composure and reached for a sturdier chair, and kept talking and laughing. To their credit the doctors and other guests were most gracious and didn’t laugh (although I wouldn’t have blamed them if they had). I didn’t think about it at that moment, but later that night, as I reflected on the evening’s “floor show", I realized something. It’s not about how many times you fall. Instead, it is about how many times you get up that defines who you are. If you are going to fall, fall forward and fall in good company, because good company is hard to find. But not really, you just have to look.