need to vent

It's been a little while since I posted on this board. As most of you know, we lost our youngest son July 18th 2011 from an obesity related illness. Alex was 27, and morbidly obese, 6ft 3 in tall and well over 400 pounds.. and he fell and sprained both ankles and could not support his weight on two sprained ankles and so he remained in bed, except to crawl to bathroom, for 10 days.. then developed blood clots in his legs from immobility and died of a pulmonary embolism.. all of this could have been prevented had he not been so obese.
Anyway.. we travelled to Winnipeg for Thanksgiving to visit with our remaining son Ron and with Alex's widow.. and we were so sad to see that our son Ron has gained even more weight. He is only 5ft 8 inches tall and now weighs at least 400 pounds. He is still grieving the loss of his brother, and was with his brother when he died. We have encouraged our son to see a doctor and get on a diet regime and to please consider WLS, but.. he flatly refuses to "go under the knife" as he says.. even though he has seen how much better I feel and look since my RNY surgery in March. We are worried that we will lose our only remaining child (who is 33 yr old) to obesity related illness resulting in untimely death..  the chance of this happening is great..
so..what should have been a joyous holiday has become a sad visit for hubby and me as we know that despite our attempts to encourage our son to get healthier.. he continues to eat too much, too much of the wrong foods, and does not exercise.. he is so heavy that by the time he gets home from work.. he is exhausted and spends his free time watching tv and spends too much time on the computer with friends and gaming.. we are worried that we will be faced with another funeral way too soon.
Thanks for listening.. needed someone to vent to as its so sad to see our son throw his life away especially when he witnessed his brother dying from the effects of severe obesity...and our son Ron is a respiratory therapist.. he knows a fair amount about medical conditions etc and yet he is killing himself one bite at a time.
suzyq0052

I am so sorry for your loss....
It is so hard when our grown children don't listen to us or reason. It doesn't make sense after watching his brother go through all that and how it ended.
My heart goes out to you, I can't think of anything that you can do. I truly hope he gets the help he needs before it's too late.
I'm glad you can vent here, or anywhere.
xoxo

Suzy, I can't imagine what that's like.

I know everyone around me was always encouraging me to change my habits and get healthy. You can want to help someone your whole life but unless they're ready to change...they won't.

My doc always says to me "I should've referred you for surgery 10 years ago..". My reply is always the same - "I wasn't ready then. I was ready when I asked for help."

I hope your son reaches out for help soon. I regret not doing it sooner but I know this year was the year for me.

  My heart goes out to you and your son!! If he ever wants a male perspective of someone who believes the surgery saved my life just in the nick of time, and is willing to contact me I would be happy to give you my contact information, for what it is worth. If he is a online gamer, sounds like I have something else in common with him too.

Suzy, I am so sorry to hear about this.  Like others have said, it's nearly impossible to get an adult child to do something they don't want to do - or to face something they don't want to face.

Perhaps some 'tough love' is needed.  If you haven't already done so, tell him straight out that you don't want to bury another child and he needs help now.  Maybe not surgery, but Weigh****chers or some other diet plan.  Anything to get him started on the right path.  And maybe he needs to talk to a professional about his issues, both food related and the loss of his brother, to help him as well.  Maybe have Alex's widow talk to him.  That way, he's getting it directly from someone who's lost their spouse to obesity.  Anything to get him on the right path would help.

Wow, Suzy, you have had a lot on your plate for a while now.  I hope that he comes around sooner than later, until then, big hugs and sorry once again for your terrible loss.

Hi Suzy,

You have received lots of good feedback from our fellow OHers already.  I am wondering if your son Ron is still grieving and using food as his way of coping.  If he is depressed or in grief (not all guys can express themselves about their feelings), then there is no way he would be ready to look after himself.

Remember yourself, and how many years was it before you addressed your health issues and obesity.  Could someone have convinced you before you were ready?   Now that you are working on becoming healthier, you may be a bit like a reformed smoker and want to convince others of the truth and the holy grail.

I am sending you love and hugs as you worry about your living son Ron and still grieving the loss of Alex.

 

Judy

You have my utmost sympathy on your recent loss and my prayers for your surviving son.

It can be incredibly hurtful and frustrating when you want nothing more than to give someone you love the will to live. Maybe, if it is possible in any sense, you should focus on trying to turn your son not towards weight loss, but to treatment for depression. As you point out, he is headed for a reasonably foreseeable outcome and he has seen first hand what the tragic results of obesity can be. It is safe to assume then that, even before his brother's death, your son was choosing self-destruction. Layer on top of that the impact of losing a brother, it is not surprising that he has not embraced the opportunity for life that wls embodies. He may feel like he does not deserve health and happiness that his brother could not have or that to do better than his brother is to disrespect him. He may have feelings of resentment that cause your wls to be the opposite of inspiring. By this, I'm not placing blame on you, but rather pointing out that to a depressed brain, it would be easy to see how he could view a family history of obesity has left him crippled both emotionally and physically and caused the death of his brother...to see you overcome that problem for yourself can cause anger as he might feel that you have left him behind instead of seeing it from your perspective of leading him to health. Moreover, you have essentially declared war on your own obesity and in doing so have shown just how far you are willing to go to get rid of the very piece of you that he probably uses to define himself, as we know obesity wraps and smothers more than our bodies...it smothers our sense of who we are until we define ourselves by our obesity. You are imploring him to action from love, but it might be that if he is depressed, he is hearing every loving word as "I hate you".

I wish you and your family health and healing.

 So sorry all this is happening.  From what you say your son was already overweight and it seems as the passing of his brother has sent him into a depression.  And as many of us have been there can lead to eating.
I agree that he might need to see someone for his depression and that could lead to him dealing with his eating.  That would hopefully be the first step in his recovery.

Sending you HUGS

Char

Your post really touched me, in a very personal way.  My Dad, who is in a long-term care facility, and has mild dimentia recently said " I wan't you to do me a favour.  I want you to lose 100 pounds".  He never makes comments on my weight (he knows I detest it) and this really came out of left field, so to speak.  I said I would, and we dropped it.  He does not know I am hoping for WLS.

In reading your post, I now understand why he said this.  I now understand the feeling of the parent to the child in this matter, and what he feels my future is if I don't fix this.  Thanks for that understanding.  I now know it's not just how I look.

For you, all I can hope is that your son sees what is going on before it is too late.  At this point, he is still relatively young.  My motivation for WLS is not to lose weight and look better, but to get my life back.  There are so many things I can't do anymore - like hiking, shopping for fun, dancing, and on and on and on...  and I wan't my life back.

Maybe you can work on a list on what your son has had to give up in his life that he would care about, and mail it to him.  Just remind him what he is giving up.  Many of us live in denial about the possibility of death, but it's hard to deny what we can't do any more.

Best wishes and prayers.