I was born August 9, 1967 in Riverside, California. According to my mother, I would drink bottle after bottle and never get sated. I was a "husky" youngster and a pleasantly plump teen. I played baseball in high school and that kept my weight from getting out of control (I fluctuated between 215 and 250 in high school and I'm 6' tall).

After high school I attended U.C. Riverside on a baseball scholarship and was able to keep my weight in the 220 range for two years before injuring my shoulder. The shoulder injury put an end to my aspirations of a professional baseball career and, despondent and depressed, I dropped out of college and got married to a woman I had known for only a few months.

We had a child a year later and that's when my weight started to climb steadily upward. I reached my peak weight of 325 a few months ago and made the final decision that I would get surgery (after thinking about it for a couple years). I vascillated between RNY and Vertical Sleeve for the last couple months, but have decided that the sleeve is the right surgery for me, mainly due to the fact that I need NSAIDs to control back pain.

My surgery date is tomorrow, October 8, 2008 at UCLA Medical Center. Dr. Amir Mehran will perform the surgery.

I'm very excited.