I really got scared....well excited and scared.

I just realized that yesterday was my ½ birthday, and a good friends birthday! It was also 9 years to the day that I checked into Southcrest Hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma tipping the scales at 525 lbs. I had the gastric bypass and changed my life.

Just a little back story, almost a year before I had gone to the doctor for a check up and he said that if I didn’t do something with my weight I would be dead by the time I was 30. I was 26. This scared the shit out of me, so I tried one more diet. This was nothing new to me. I had been dieting since I was in the 5th grade, the first time I went to Weight Watchers with my mom, that was also the same summer I did “fat camp” which was an outpatient “treatment” for the fat kids. That was also when I started Diet Coke. Every fad diet that came out I did. Some of the highlights include a six week stint at an inpatient rehab center in Tulsa, Oklahoma which was a real eye-opener (more to come on that topic in upcoming entries). My ALL TIME FAVORITE was my Senior year at college when I was on both Pondomin and Redux at the same time. I like to call those few months “Chasing the Phen-Phen Dragon”. I seriously didn’t sleep but maybe an hour a night.

With these diets, I would loose a few pound and then plateau out. So I would get frustrated and stop, except for “chasing the phen-phen dragon” that I stayed on because I liked the rush. I continued those medications until my Doctor said “No More, this stuff isn’t as good for you as we thought”. So I came off of it. And that was really the last diet I remembered. I REALLY put on the weight in those next few years.  I had given up. Nothing worked. So, I just dealt with it and ate all of my feelings of being who I was, where I lived that I would never be able to accomplish what I wanted to in life, because I was morbidly obese.

So, by the time I was 26 I was seriously wearing a size 54 waist and at least a 6X shirt, and let me tell you that shit is expensive and not pretty. I joked that they might as well have everything in Red and White Stripes with the Ringling Brother’s Barnum and Bailey Circus logo on the ass, because it was as big as circus tent. By this time I the only things I was doing was going to work and then home, I couldn’t do anything else, going out in public was causing panic attacks. One day, in the middle of the Oklahoma heat I was walking across the parking lot work and had to stop three times before I got to the door, because I was out of breathe. By the time I reached the building I was dripping wet. On one of my breaks I called my doctor to make an appointment for a check up and to see what we could do.

I will say, at this point Carnie Wilson had just had the gastric by-pass, and being the loyal Wilson Phillips fan and HUGE (literally) Carnie Wilson lover, my interest in the procedure had been sparked. I talked to my doctor wasn’t to receptive about this at all. He wanted to try one diet, an all natural diet over the counter thing. Which he just so happened to sell. So, I did. For several months I pumped my body full of these “vitamins”, they didn’t work. The only thing they did was make my urine smell REALLY BAD. After about three months of this, he finally agreed to writing a letter of “medical necessity” , which was something my insurance company required before they would approve it. 

The letter was filed and we played the “waiting game”, let me tell you that was the LONGEST 9 months of my life. I jumped through all of their hoops and played their games and by the time I finally got the approval in February of 2002 I was TIRED. Tired of fighting, tired of not being able to live. So, to get the approval letter in the mail was having all of my prayers answered. Once I got it, I immediately called the surgeon I had been referred to in Tulsa to schedule my appointment. It should be noted that by this time, the surgeon had a waiting list of 4 months, so the first opening he had was June 4. I said, I’ll take it!

The next four months were spent having all of the evaluations, the trip to the shrink was my favorite. I remember her saying “I want you to remember these next few things, because I’m going to ask you at the end of your session,  red, balloon and dog”. She never asked me at the end of the session. It kind of makes me crazy to this day that she never did, and I still remember it.

When June 4th finally rolled around, I was so excited and scared. I was terrified of going under general anesthesia, but so ready to get on with life and everything that I had missed out on over the last few years. I remember crying out of fear as the wheeled me down the hallway to the operating room, and then being put to ease that the surgical techs in the operating room were listening to The Steve Miller Band. One of my all time favorites.

The recovery was rough, and I don’t think I would have made it had it not been for my mother. She stayed with me the four days that I was in hospital, and then next week and half at home recovering. I started calling her Nurse Ratched. She, followed the doctor’s instructions. I will never forget the first time I got to have solid foods, she was SO nervous  as to what my reaction was going to be to it. She watched me like a hawk. Making sure that I ate what I was supposed to, when I was supposed to.

So, here I am. 9 years later and  250 lbs lighter. My goal, that I had set for myself was to be ½ the man I used to be. I’m almost there. I consider myself SO lucky that I lost the weight and it had stayed off. Because, yes I’ve gotten a little lax with the diet and exercise. I have about 10 lbs that I gain and loose. I’ll take it.

The good times, the bad times I've seen them all and my dear....

I'm Still Here! Just trying to figure some stuff out.


Here are some clips to occupy your time while I figure it out.

Not a fan of the lyric changes, but love the movie and Shirley. 


I didn't know this one existed...


Love Polly Bergen



Yvonne DeCarlo, makes the lyrics "First you're another sloe eyed vamp / Then someone's mother, then you're camp" so much more poignant.



and then of course. The mother of them all. The one where she DOESN'T GO UP ON THE LYRICS.