120 and still going!

I know I was planning on talking about forgiveness but it’s taking me longer than I wanted to get the research together (I mean, I’m trying to get a job at the same time, y’know?) and I’m going to go ahead and keep posting because posting is good.

Today, as it happens, I have something pretty good to post about. It’s going to require some back story in order to have an appreciable context. Unfortunately the back story is not pretty. To wit:

Way, way back around 2010, I had a bit of a health crisis. I had been feeling sluggish and getting tired quickly for a number of months but hadn’t really recognized this. In my ignornace I assumed it was approaching middle age. I was soon to find out otherwise. The serious problems started on Christmas Day of 2009. My wife, who is a wise and lovely woman, had asked me to panel the linen closet in cedar and I was doing so on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, I am 6'3" tall which makes paneling the inside of a linen closet a bit of a contortionist act. The next day we went out for breakfast as was our custom on Christmas. Later that day I became extremely ill with what I thought was food poisoning. This was the first of a number of bouts of what I assumed was flu or food poisoning or what-have-you. My fatigue continued to increase. I put on weight. Finally, kind of disgusted with myself, I joined a gym the week after Memorial Day. I went in and got down to business stationary biking. That evening (Saturday), I started to feel ill again accompanied by an inability to sleep.

Sunday I woke up (technically I woke up several times, but in each case I was asleep for about 20 minutes for a total of about an hour’s rest that night) feeling bad, running a slight fever, headachy and tired. It got worse all day. By Sunday night I was running a full degree and a half of fever, I was having chills, nausea and an inescapable dull pain in my abdomen. I told my wife that if it was not better in the morning, I would go to the emergency room. I did not sleep or eat Sunday.

Monday, I was worse. I told my wife to go to work (she was teaching at the time and it wasn’t really an option for her not to do so, although she wanted to) and took a taxi to the hospital. There I began a long, long day. They examined me. They poked, they prodded. They didn’t come up with anything. Kidney stone? Flu? Gastroenteritis? Who knows? My fever was now around 102, and the only thing keeping me from being massively dehydrated was a steady supply of lactated Ringer’s solution. They did an MRI. They didn’t learn much, so they did another one with contrast. Finally they found the problem. It was my appendix. Not to worry, they told me. This is a minor thing and you’ll be home tomorrow morning.

It was not a minor thing and I did not go home the next morning.

Normally, an appendectomy takes around 40 minutes. I was in surgery Monday evening for 3.5 hours. I had a brilliant surgeon, Dr. Karim Trad. It’s my sincere belief that his perceptive abilities and skill saved my life because what he found when he opened me up was not the standard appendicitis he was expecting to see. Instead, we found that my appendix had died from an infection some time earlier (in this case at least six months earlier, probably closer to a year). My body had tried to deal with this by enclosing the corrupted tissue in a kind of membrane sack which proceeded to fill up with waste products from the bacteria merrily chewing on dead Gary parts. I have pictures of it, but nobody needs to see that–it looked like John Carmack’s fever dreams.

What had happened for the past year is that whenever I put too much stress on my abdomen (folding myself double in the bottom of a linen closet, avidly biking, &c.) those poisons had leaked out along with a nice dose of bacterial culture. I would become sick, resulting in a period of inactivity in which the sack would heal back up. The technical name for this condition is “wet gangrene” and it’s as pleasant as that sounds. Had the appendix ever fully ruptured rather than simply leaking a bit here and there I would not be writing this now. The chances of my getting to a hospital before dying from septic shock would have been low enough on their own, but even if I had, they would have needed to open me up from groin to neck and try to clean out the mess. I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t make anyone angry enough to punch me in the gut that year (or any other year, though that may be less to my credit than theirs).

I was in the hospital for most of a week. My fever peaked at around 103-104. It got high enough that first night that I heard the nurse discussing whether or not they would need to physically intervene to lower my body temperature. Fortunately my fever started to come down very early Tuesday morning. I know that because, aside from the time I spent anaesthetized, I didn’t sleep on Monday either. In the end I went 4 days and a smidge without food or any natural sleep. By the end of that time I was an absolute wreck of a human being.

I was discharged from the hospital after four nights and I went home. In all I was out of work for 2 weeks and honestly, my health improved quite a bit. I lost the 20 lbs or so I’d put on and I genuinely felt better than I had in ages. But the damage was lasting. I was still more sedentary than I had been and I started gaining weight again. By Christmas Day 2017, I was pretty unhappy. The scale was reading 360-365 lbs, my knees hurt constantly, and I began to have real problems getting winded. and I finally took a hard look at that and found it unacceptable. I made a difficult decision: I would explore surgical options for weight loss. I had good help. Virginia Bariatric Surgery Center is fantastic and I am their #1 fan. My wife took a year off work to support me (the recovery process is a beast and you will likely need help). Without both of those factors, I don’t know how I’d have done it.

Unsurprisingly, enforcing a lifestyle change by means of a radical body modification has worked. As of this morning, I am really pleased to report that I have lost over 120 lbs. I feel better, I do more, and I have reserves of energy that I wasn’t previously aware of. If you want to simulate being me, circa 2017, here’s all you have to do:

1. Buy 3 x 40# sacks of dog food.
2. Hang two over your shoulders, one in front, one in the back.
3. Put the other one across your shoulders.
4. Walk around (a little).

Not easy, huh? Believe me, I know. I’ve got more to say about that little brush with death, but I’ll save it for later. Suffice for now to say that if I hadn’t had that experience and undergone the change in perspective it forced on me, I don’t know if I’d have ever been able to make the decision to have the weight loss procedure. As it is, there’s a third less of me and I don’t miss it. If you’re curious about weight loss procedures feel free to message me. I’m always happy to talk about the experience with people who are considering it or simply curious.

Be well, stay safe, and wear your friggin' mask.