George B.
12 year update
Jul 02, 2015
Its been 12 years since sugery and I'm still maintaining a 204 lb weight loss. What a difference in my life. Its not all rosy - I am severely vitamin deficient and take D, B and iron daily - but so long as I take the vitamins I am fine. I would not trade this for the world.
More weight loss
Aug 04, 2007
Weighed myself this morning and now weigh 243, thats down 7 lbs in the last 3 weeks or so. I now eat pretty normally - in some regards I feel like the surgery has been a failure after 4 years - but I still am losing weight even though I eat 3 meals a day and eat normal sized portions. I still deal with food cravings from time to time - the mental part of my food issues has not gone away even if the physical part has.
old posts
Jul 15, 2007
I think I managed to save my old posts - here they are below....
Approval from Great West - waiting on the approval letter to arrive at the Bariatric center so they will schedule a date.
Letter arrived at the center - the Doc is reviewing all the testing now. Looks like a tentative date of 11-25-02 - YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Talked to central scheduling yesterday - pre-testing is 12-11-2002 and surgery is 12-23-2002! Wahooooo!!!
pre-op testing happened on 12-11-02, passed everything and am good to go for the 23rd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3-7-03 Well now that I have figured out how to make my profile public..... I am excited to update my page some. I was 494 at PAT's and 483 at Surgery date. As of 3-3-03 I was 430 for a loss of 64 lbs from PAT's and 53 lbs from surgery.
Everything went fine with the surgery and I went home in 4 days as was anticipated. I was fine for 3 weeks then suddenly developed at temp of 103 and my incision started swelling and leaking so I went back to the center and they opened me up to let out the pus and admitted me for 4 days. I was on IV antibiotics and IV liquids to relieve the fever and hydrate me.
They discharged me with the wound open and packed so it would heal from the inside out. I had 2 small openings, the bigger one being about 6 inches in length and 4 inches deep. I had a visiting nurse in once a day to check the wound and to clean/pack it. Eveything was going fine until 2-22-03 when I developed a fever of 101 and the wound had a foul odor, on 2-23-03 back to the center we went and they admitted me again. This time the ordered a CAT scan (ALong with a slew of other tests) and found out that there was an abcess of infection, so back to the OR I went and they opened me up to clear out the infection and let it drain. I spent 8 days in the hospital in all, on IV liquids and getting fed through the IV also (Put on 10 lbs - boy did that anger me) before being discharged on 3-3-03.
I now have an open wound about 9 inches in length, 4 inches wide and 5 inches deep that gets packed 2x a day and is starting to fill in. I know this all sounds gorey as hell - but I'd do this again in a heartbeat. Prior to surgery I was on diaretics and hypertenseion meds and could not walk from my house to the car without being out of breath. Just getting out of the car was a struggle and the grocery store was a nightmare. Today even with the open wound I no longer take any diaretics or hypertension medication and am rarely out of breath.
The folks at Bariatric center are OUTSTANDING, the surgeon is really interested in me as a person not just a patient and has worked with my place of work with disability insurance and other things. The nurses and support staff have been fabulous to me - extremely professional and competent and caring. During my 8 day stay they made sure that I was as comfortable as possible. I feel like they treated me like family as well as a patient, which really helped my attitude during my 8 day stay.
3-20-03 Saw the Doc today and he said everything is looking good. The wound is filling in and you can only see one of the sutures now. I weighed in at 416 down a total of 78lbs ! WAHOOOOOOO!!!! Doc says I can most likely go back to work on April 7th as well. I have to see him again on April 1st just to be sure everything is progressing along as he anticipates.
3-26-03 Has another nice suprise this week, my home scale that only goes up to 400lbs decided to work at 412! So now I am being obsessive and leaping on the scale in the morning and in the evening. Thats got to stop in a bit, but for right now I am enjoying being able to actually get on the scale and see numbers.
3-28-03 Finally decided to figure out how to upload pictures to my site and show them here. I dont think that the post-op picture is anything to look at yet, but I am down 78lbs in that picture from surgery.
4-1-03 Saw the Doc again today and he released me to return to work - HAPPY DAYS!!!! I have not been to work since December 20th due to this darn infection. I weighed in at 410lbs down a total of 84lbs now. Was upset at that, have only lost 6 lbs the last week and a half - listen to me upset beacuse I lost ONLY 6 lbs in a week and a half. That speaks loud to me that this disease of obesity in not only physical but also mental as well. I know in my heart that I have been following the food plan, drinking all my water and walking daily. I just have to keep doing what I am doing and push back against the stinking thinking. Oh - if anyone cares to email, my email addy is gbroadfoot at unixwizard.org, feel free to email - cant promise I'll have anything intelligent to say but I'll email you back. :)
4-8-03 Went back to work yesterday FINALLY. Boy was I tuckered out by early afternoon, came home early and took a 2 hour nap. Good news is this AM I weighed in at 399 - UNDER 400 LBS! YAH!
4-11-03 Still obsessed with the scale, getting on it daily. Down to 397 this am. Thats a loss of 13 lbs in 10 days. Trying to work on not weighing daily. Managing to make it through work now, 1st couple days I left early and was extremely tired, but seem to be making it now. Am damn glad its Friday though and I can relax over the weekend.
4-16-03 Yes still obsessed with the scale, got on it this morning and weighed 394. THATS DOWN 100 LBS FROM MY PAT'S!!!!! Now I did lose 11 lbs between PAT's and surgery, so BTC marks my weight as 483 - but I mark it at 494 from PAT's. Guess this makes me a member of the century club now :).
5-2-03 Weighed in at 386 this morning thats down 8 lbs in the the last 16 days. As you can see I am still scale/weight obsessed although its starting to wear off a bit. My goal is to get to where I weigh myself 1X a week. Weighing every day is just not a great mentality as it is keeping me weight obsessed. When I was dieting I rarely lost 8 lbs in 1/2 a month, I need to keep remembering that. Additional information is that since I have gone back to work I have not been walking, I have plenty of excuses not too - not the least of which is that I am tired by the time I get home. I need to start walking after I eat my lunch, even 2 turns around our parking lot would be great.
5-8-03 had a great treat yesterday. I went for my semi annual dental cleaning and actually fit in the dental chair without having to leave the one arm up and being uncomfortable as hell for an hour!
5-27-03 Weighed in at 374 this am, have been stuck there for a week or so. Still not walking enough as my back has been bugging me - still need to walk more.......
6-13-03 Not much new to report. Just making an effort to keep posting. Weighed in at 360 this morning, thats 14 lbs lost since 5-27-03. It hit me this morning that another 10 lbs or so and I'll be able to get on a "normal" scale (I think of the oddest things). Am at the end of the old smaller size clothes that I had packed away for years and years now, looks like soon I'll ahve to break down and go clothes shopping. Thats a good thing and a bad thing - excited about buying new clothes that fit but not excited about spending money.
6-20-03 HOLY HANNA, I received the determination of benefits notice from my insurance company yeterday for my 8 day stay in the hospital, about $74,000 dollars - DAMN. Almost $10,000 dollars a day, maybe I am out of it - but that strikes me as just plain WRONG. I am stunned by the amount. Fortunatly the insurance company paid 100% of it, so it looks like I will have to pay nothing. For that I am very gratefull. Weighed in at 356 this morning, still slowly plodding along - thats 4 lbs last week. My back is starting to feel better and I have been actually thinking about walking some before lunch at work.
7-18-03 Well its been almost a month since I updated. Have been stuck at 355 and not happy at all. Of course I have not increased my excercise much, yes I know that will help. The scale is moving again now slowly, was down to 353 this morning. I ahve been focusing on work related crap the last 6 weeks too, it looks like they are going to close our office within the next 90 days and I will be without a job for the 1st time in over 22 years. thats really scarey and has been stressing me lots. I did claim back some of my power recently, completed a resume (1st one in like 15 years) and have that going out to some firends who might have contacts. I have also been hording money in anticipation of having to pay COBRA and child support out of pocket. My wound is almost healed now, its about 3 inches long and maybe 1/4 of an inch deep. I am tempted to stop packing it so it will close up - tempted.... we will see what happens.
8-6-03 Have been focusing on the "work thing", have my resume out on all the sites and am working connections. Its really baren out there in IT-land right now. I heard someone say the other day "Tech workers, the next textile workers". Well I just keep doing the footwork and let God do the rest, thats all I can do. Got on the scale this morning and weighed in at 349, I have not been under 350 in at least 6 years! Its still slow and I am pissy about that - but not pissy enough to actually start excercizing. My wound is all but healed now, I did decide to stop packing it so it would heal faster now. I could not even get a 4 x 4 in it anymore anyways.
9-10-03 weighed in at 341 this morning. ALl my whining and I have lost 8 lbs last month. Not 25 lbs but still respectable.... Well I spent another 5 day stint in the hospital, ended up getting cellulitis (SP) in the open wound and needed IV Antibiotics. Have an appointment with the wound care center now to heal it closed. Its VERY small now, can't even get a 2 X 2 into it to pack it. Live is starting to take hold again and I am not focused everyday on the wls, the wls gave me the shot at life. I am loving it more and more every week.
7-08-07 Well after a long hiatis from this website I am back. Waiting on a new pic to be posted. I now weigh 250lbs and am still losing about 4 to 6 lbs a month. Most if not all of my health issues have gone away now and I really enjoy life. I eat normally (If that exists) and still REALLY limit my refined sugars as they make me sick still and that gets ugly really fast. I will attempt to post more next week about how much I am loving life now.
Approval from Great West - waiting on the approval letter to arrive at the Bariatric center so they will schedule a date.
Letter arrived at the center - the Doc is reviewing all the testing now. Looks like a tentative date of 11-25-02 - YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Talked to central scheduling yesterday - pre-testing is 12-11-2002 and surgery is 12-23-2002! Wahooooo!!!
pre-op testing happened on 12-11-02, passed everything and am good to go for the 23rd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3-7-03 Well now that I have figured out how to make my profile public..... I am excited to update my page some. I was 494 at PAT's and 483 at Surgery date. As of 3-3-03 I was 430 for a loss of 64 lbs from PAT's and 53 lbs from surgery.
Everything went fine with the surgery and I went home in 4 days as was anticipated. I was fine for 3 weeks then suddenly developed at temp of 103 and my incision started swelling and leaking so I went back to the center and they opened me up to let out the pus and admitted me for 4 days. I was on IV antibiotics and IV liquids to relieve the fever and hydrate me.
They discharged me with the wound open and packed so it would heal from the inside out. I had 2 small openings, the bigger one being about 6 inches in length and 4 inches deep. I had a visiting nurse in once a day to check the wound and to clean/pack it. Eveything was going fine until 2-22-03 when I developed a fever of 101 and the wound had a foul odor, on 2-23-03 back to the center we went and they admitted me again. This time the ordered a CAT scan (ALong with a slew of other tests) and found out that there was an abcess of infection, so back to the OR I went and they opened me up to clear out the infection and let it drain. I spent 8 days in the hospital in all, on IV liquids and getting fed through the IV also (Put on 10 lbs - boy did that anger me) before being discharged on 3-3-03.
I now have an open wound about 9 inches in length, 4 inches wide and 5 inches deep that gets packed 2x a day and is starting to fill in. I know this all sounds gorey as hell - but I'd do this again in a heartbeat. Prior to surgery I was on diaretics and hypertenseion meds and could not walk from my house to the car without being out of breath. Just getting out of the car was a struggle and the grocery store was a nightmare. Today even with the open wound I no longer take any diaretics or hypertension medication and am rarely out of breath.
The folks at Bariatric center are OUTSTANDING, the surgeon is really interested in me as a person not just a patient and has worked with my place of work with disability insurance and other things. The nurses and support staff have been fabulous to me - extremely professional and competent and caring. During my 8 day stay they made sure that I was as comfortable as possible. I feel like they treated me like family as well as a patient, which really helped my attitude during my 8 day stay.
3-20-03 Saw the Doc today and he said everything is looking good. The wound is filling in and you can only see one of the sutures now. I weighed in at 416 down a total of 78lbs ! WAHOOOOOOO!!!! Doc says I can most likely go back to work on April 7th as well. I have to see him again on April 1st just to be sure everything is progressing along as he anticipates.
3-26-03 Has another nice suprise this week, my home scale that only goes up to 400lbs decided to work at 412! So now I am being obsessive and leaping on the scale in the morning and in the evening. Thats got to stop in a bit, but for right now I am enjoying being able to actually get on the scale and see numbers.
3-28-03 Finally decided to figure out how to upload pictures to my site and show them here. I dont think that the post-op picture is anything to look at yet, but I am down 78lbs in that picture from surgery.
4-1-03 Saw the Doc again today and he released me to return to work - HAPPY DAYS!!!! I have not been to work since December 20th due to this darn infection. I weighed in at 410lbs down a total of 84lbs now. Was upset at that, have only lost 6 lbs the last week and a half - listen to me upset beacuse I lost ONLY 6 lbs in a week and a half. That speaks loud to me that this disease of obesity in not only physical but also mental as well. I know in my heart that I have been following the food plan, drinking all my water and walking daily. I just have to keep doing what I am doing and push back against the stinking thinking. Oh - if anyone cares to email, my email addy is gbroadfoot at unixwizard.org, feel free to email - cant promise I'll have anything intelligent to say but I'll email you back. :)
4-8-03 Went back to work yesterday FINALLY. Boy was I tuckered out by early afternoon, came home early and took a 2 hour nap. Good news is this AM I weighed in at 399 - UNDER 400 LBS! YAH!
4-11-03 Still obsessed with the scale, getting on it daily. Down to 397 this am. Thats a loss of 13 lbs in 10 days. Trying to work on not weighing daily. Managing to make it through work now, 1st couple days I left early and was extremely tired, but seem to be making it now. Am damn glad its Friday though and I can relax over the weekend.
4-16-03 Yes still obsessed with the scale, got on it this morning and weighed 394. THATS DOWN 100 LBS FROM MY PAT'S!!!!! Now I did lose 11 lbs between PAT's and surgery, so BTC marks my weight as 483 - but I mark it at 494 from PAT's. Guess this makes me a member of the century club now :).
5-2-03 Weighed in at 386 this morning thats down 8 lbs in the the last 16 days. As you can see I am still scale/weight obsessed although its starting to wear off a bit. My goal is to get to where I weigh myself 1X a week. Weighing every day is just not a great mentality as it is keeping me weight obsessed. When I was dieting I rarely lost 8 lbs in 1/2 a month, I need to keep remembering that. Additional information is that since I have gone back to work I have not been walking, I have plenty of excuses not too - not the least of which is that I am tired by the time I get home. I need to start walking after I eat my lunch, even 2 turns around our parking lot would be great.
5-8-03 had a great treat yesterday. I went for my semi annual dental cleaning and actually fit in the dental chair without having to leave the one arm up and being uncomfortable as hell for an hour!
5-27-03 Weighed in at 374 this am, have been stuck there for a week or so. Still not walking enough as my back has been bugging me - still need to walk more.......
6-13-03 Not much new to report. Just making an effort to keep posting. Weighed in at 360 this morning, thats 14 lbs lost since 5-27-03. It hit me this morning that another 10 lbs or so and I'll be able to get on a "normal" scale (I think of the oddest things). Am at the end of the old smaller size clothes that I had packed away for years and years now, looks like soon I'll ahve to break down and go clothes shopping. Thats a good thing and a bad thing - excited about buying new clothes that fit but not excited about spending money.
6-20-03 HOLY HANNA, I received the determination of benefits notice from my insurance company yeterday for my 8 day stay in the hospital, about $74,000 dollars - DAMN. Almost $10,000 dollars a day, maybe I am out of it - but that strikes me as just plain WRONG. I am stunned by the amount. Fortunatly the insurance company paid 100% of it, so it looks like I will have to pay nothing. For that I am very gratefull. Weighed in at 356 this morning, still slowly plodding along - thats 4 lbs last week. My back is starting to feel better and I have been actually thinking about walking some before lunch at work.
7-18-03 Well its been almost a month since I updated. Have been stuck at 355 and not happy at all. Of course I have not increased my excercise much, yes I know that will help. The scale is moving again now slowly, was down to 353 this morning. I ahve been focusing on work related crap the last 6 weeks too, it looks like they are going to close our office within the next 90 days and I will be without a job for the 1st time in over 22 years. thats really scarey and has been stressing me lots. I did claim back some of my power recently, completed a resume (1st one in like 15 years) and have that going out to some firends who might have contacts. I have also been hording money in anticipation of having to pay COBRA and child support out of pocket. My wound is almost healed now, its about 3 inches long and maybe 1/4 of an inch deep. I am tempted to stop packing it so it will close up - tempted.... we will see what happens.
8-6-03 Have been focusing on the "work thing", have my resume out on all the sites and am working connections. Its really baren out there in IT-land right now. I heard someone say the other day "Tech workers, the next textile workers". Well I just keep doing the footwork and let God do the rest, thats all I can do. Got on the scale this morning and weighed in at 349, I have not been under 350 in at least 6 years! Its still slow and I am pissy about that - but not pissy enough to actually start excercizing. My wound is all but healed now, I did decide to stop packing it so it would heal faster now. I could not even get a 4 x 4 in it anymore anyways.
9-10-03 weighed in at 341 this morning. ALl my whining and I have lost 8 lbs last month. Not 25 lbs but still respectable.... Well I spent another 5 day stint in the hospital, ended up getting cellulitis (SP) in the open wound and needed IV Antibiotics. Have an appointment with the wound care center now to heal it closed. Its VERY small now, can't even get a 2 X 2 into it to pack it. Live is starting to take hold again and I am not focused everyday on the wls, the wls gave me the shot at life. I am loving it more and more every week.
7-08-07 Well after a long hiatis from this website I am back. Waiting on a new pic to be posted. I now weigh 250lbs and am still losing about 4 to 6 lbs a month. Most if not all of my health issues have gone away now and I really enjoy life. I eat normally (If that exists) and still REALLY limit my refined sugars as they make me sick still and that gets ugly really fast. I will attempt to post more next week about how much I am loving life now.
New start
Jul 08, 2007
Coverted my profile to new style and uploaded my currect pic. Hopefully I did not lose all that I had put in before.
About Me
reading, PA
Location
33.2
BMI
Surgery
12/23/2002
Surgery Date
Oct 03, 2002
Member Since
Before & After
rollover to see after photo
Last night Pre-op. I was MISERABLE!
494lbs
22 years post
164lbs