Describe your behavioral and emotional battle with weight control before learning about bariatric surgery.
I am naturally an active person. From child hood, I was always playing some type of sports in the neighborhood or on an organized team, including school, until my senior year, when I hurt my leg pretty bad and had to sit out the rest of the season.
Not being able to play sports really got me down, you know, I got depressed. It was then that I started to gain weight. Though I wasn't able to be active any more, my apetite didn't change. I continued to eat like I normally did. I had grown too big for my breeches (literally)and decided too get rid of all this fat and joined the Marine Corps. I was doing fine in the Marines. It's very physical and I lost fifty-three pounds during boot camp, and I had regained the buff body that I had lost in High Shool.
Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, I broke my right hip. Complications developed, I had to have a surgery that almost killed me and eventually was given a medical discharge. Since the injury, in 1973, I have never been able to regain my health back and my depression came back and, along with it, the weight gain, sleep apnea, breathing problems, borderline diabetic, low self esteem and the whole lot that comes with a drastic weight gain.
Several times, I would just jump right out of my depression, or so I thought, join a local gym, really watch what I eat, lose sixty or seventy pounds of fat, put some muscle mass on. Man, I couldn't tell you how great I felt, both physically, mentally and emotionally.
It never failed, though, that something very dramatic would come up in my life that I would have no control over, and my depression would return, I'd start eating, stop exercising, regain the weight I had lost plus twenty-five or thirty pounds more.
I developed degenerative arthritis in my lower back which would not let me exercise without a great deal of pain. That just fed my depression, which caused me to eat more, which caused me to gain more weight. Right now, I stand at six feet and one inch and weigh 379 pounds. It was about the year 2000 that I heard about bariatric surgery. The more I studied it, the more I realized that, if I didn't have it, I was going to die very young.
After considering all of the risks of having the surgery and all the risks of not having the surgery, there was only one decision I could make. I have been married for thirty years, have three grown children and three grand kids. My only choice was to have the surgery. I normally wouldn't voluntarily put myself under the knife, especially with the severity of this type of surgery but my odds of living were better by having the surgery, than not.
So, March 14, 2003, I will have the surgery and hope for the best. My doctor, Dr. Robert Janes of Fort Smith Arkansas, has been doing this type of surgery for more than 35 years, has never lost a patient and he is my last, best hope for me to make something out of my life.
What was (is) the worst thing about being overweight?
The worst thing about being overweight is the feeling that all eyes are on you. It seems like every move you make is scrutinized. You feel like you don't belong, like you don't fit in with the crowd, because you don't fit in. I have stopped going anywhere, because I don't want people to see me this way. I'm ashamed of the way I look. Even when I'm in a crowd, I stay to myself so I won't have to enteract with anyone. and, no one comes over to make chit-chat with me, which is fine. Even though I'm educated, well versed in my vocabulary, am very personable, I can't use these gifts because no one can see them. All they can see is the fat guy standing in the corner wishing he was somewhere else, so he wouldn't feel so uncomfortable. Sure, there are a lot of physical problems that go along with being morbidly obese, but it's the self induced isolation you put yourself in, because of the fear that swells up inside, holding you back, keeping you from doing things you can and want to do. What is the worst thing about being over weight? It's the reality of having to live in a society where fat people are not welcome, wanted or accepted.
If you have had weight loss surgery already, what things do you most enjoy doing now that you weren't able to do before?
I haven't found anything yet. I don't miss all the food I ate before. When the time comes, I'll be able to fit into my clothes again and I'll be able to be more active and I won't have to use a seat belt extension when I fly to the Carribean again.
Gary M.
