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I
am pleased to bring you Gary Kent’s success story.
We sometimes lose awareness that 20% of weight loss surgery
patients are men who I am sure feel left out of the support loop at
times. Thank you, Gary, for sharing and offering inspiration to your
brothers traveling the weight loss surgery journey.
Let
me introduce myself, my name is Gary Kent, and I had Open RNY weight
loss surgery on March 23, 2001, at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas
City, Mo. At the time of surgery, I weighed 409 pounds, which
was down from an all time high weight of 552 pounds in 1996. I
had several health problems that mandated the surgery. I will
try to relate all of them here in whatever order I can recall
them.
First there was my age of 53 years, at which in able to attain good
health, the weight simply had to come off as soon as possible.
I had been under doctors’ care for weight loss for over a decade,
and was only able to lose 141 pounds. That averaged 14.1
pounds per year. Carrying the weight I was at the time of
surgery, my doctors had only given me a few years left to live.
I wanted many more than they said I had left!
Second, I have had epileptic seizures for most of my life, and the
added weight was becoming a death sentence to me, unless I could get
the weight off and keep it off. Anyone who has ever had
seizures will know what I am saying, when I say, the weight was
killing me. A seizure is hard on a normal weight person, but
to be morbidly obese, which I had been described as being in my
medical records for several years, made it all the more traumatic
for me.
Third, in 1994, I developed a blood clot in my lower left leg, which
put me in the hospital for 28 days.
I had to beg the doctors not to remove my leg. The
doctors agreed, but the next year I developed leg ulcers, which did
not heal until the spring of 1996. These open ulcers were very
painful, and caused me to be hospitalized three more times. I
went through extensive treatments, whirlpool baths, and leg
bandaging, and every time I got up on the leg it would swell, and
hurt like someone pulling a piece of barbed wire along the bone.
That is the only way I had to describe it to the doctors so they
would know what I was feeling. Their recommendation was still
to remove the leg, but with my weight problem, I would never have
walked again. I was just too stubborn to let them have their
way.
Fourth, I was diagnosed with sleep-apnea in 1977. At that time
the only solution was to have a hole cut into my throat in
order to breathe. I refused to do that, as it would not have allowed
me to make a living on my farm, because of the dust and pollen.
This condition got worse over time, and actually required me to use
a bi-pap at night to breathe. A c-pap was not strong enough. I have always hated this
machine, and traveling with it was a real nightmare. My
pressure settings were very high, only one notch below the maximum
output.
Fifth, for Christmas in 1998, my doctor's office called to inform me
that me that I was type 2, diabetic. It was not a great shock
for me, as I had been slowly healing for several years, which is one
of the symptoms. I lost most of the weight, down to my
pre-surgery weight, by adhering strictly to a diabetic lifestyle.
But I had stopped losing and could not lose any more.
Finally, the last of my major health issues that lead me to this
surgery, was the discovery in 1999, that my thyroid was not
producing any testosterone, and would not allow my body to function
as it should. It seems that it took a special test to find
this, by a specialist, of course.
With the total combined conditions that I have described, I opted
for the surgery, and have never looked back with regret.
As for my life style before the surgery, I was a very big eater,
often eating two or more breakfast meals at one sitting. I ate
at buffets as often as I could, and never left until I was stuffed.
When you combine this with a sedentary lifestyle that did not
include any exercise, I simply was eating for the heck of it, as my
body could not have burned all of the calories in a week that I was
consuming in a single day. I ate because I liked it, not that
I needed it, but simply because I wanted it.
I would like to share with you my post surgery results, and my
opinion and outlook for the future. As you can guess, the
weight has begun to fall off, and I am more like I used to be many
years ago. My outlook on life centers on returning to a
productive healthy life style. Would I do it again? My
answer is this: I will never overeat again, as I can't.
Would I have the surgery again? Absolutely! This surgery saved
my life, and restored me to my old self of my teen years. My
outlook on life has changed 100%, and I actually look forward to
every new morning.
I no longer crave large meals, and since my surgery it is very easy
not to overeat, when you consider it in a more realistic fashion.
Think of your body as a car. The tank only holds so much fuel,
and it can't be overfilled, or else it will spill out wasted.
Well your new stomach is the same way, and if you overeat, you will
give it up as wasted food. Not a pleasant thought! You learn
to completely chew every bite and you get full quickly. Stop
eating when you feel full, and you will do just fine. You must
eat three meals everyday, since you can only hold a small amount at
a time.
The hardest part for me, still is, that I was raised on steak and
potatoes, and sandwiches. These are basically a no-no.
You will learn to eat healthy foods, and leave the beef alone, as it
is very hard to digest, and will only cause you extreme pain in the
first months after surgery. It does take some getting used to,
but once you understand why, it is not so bad at all.
I know you are asking yourself, does he ever cheat?
Yes, I do, and usually pay the price. This is getting more
infrequent with time, but there are still human urges that have to
be addressed within each of us. What I am saying is that it is
not hard to follow the diet that will keep you on the right path,
and make you feel great at the same time.
Now for my results! As of this writing, I have lost 105
pounds. This is
equivalent to another person whose weight I was carrying around
everywhere I went. I feel great, and actually physically moved
myself (physical address) twice in June of this year. I had
been on doctor’s orders for several years not to walk over 200
feet without taking a break. I could never have followed those
orders and moved too. The first move was from Kansas to South
West Missouri, and the second move was to within 35 miles of
Branson, Mo. I am now able to walk well beyond the ordered 200
feet, and feel great doing it. But here is my real
inspiration: "my diabetes is gone, along with my
sleep-apnea." I spoke with my doctor in Springfield, and
was informed that my A1C test was 5.2, well within the normal range,
after not taking any medication for my diabetes since my surgery.
Also, I have been taken off my bi-pap, as my breathing problem has
faded along with my weight!
This week, as I considered what I was going to write, my wife and I
picked up two pickup truck loads of walnuts in three days. I
could never have done that before. I couldn't even have bent over to
do it. Also for those of you who would like to know, at the
time of surgery, my pants were a size 84 waist. Now I am
wearing a size 50 waist and wearing a belt to keep them in place.
Quite a change since March and I'm not finished yet. I intend
to get down to a 38 inch waist at the very most if not even smaller.
But I'm very proud of my 34 inches that have gone away.
Gary
Kent |