email to a friend
printer-friendly version|
Small World by Earl Curry Oh my! What have they done? Jeremy told me I can write about anything I want and they would publish it on Obesity Help. America really is a wonderful country. One of my favorite things to do on a hot summer morning is walk around flea markets and garage sales. It?s great exercise and allows me to get some sun and fresh air. Last Saturday, I stumbled upon the holy grail of garage sales?the community garage sale. A hundred garage sales all in one neighborhood. A nice high class neighborhood too. Somehow their junk is just better than my junk, kind of a different standard of junk. Anyway, I walked up to this one sale. There was a nice lady, sitting in the shade under a tree, surrounded by racks of plus size clothes and hand bags?lots of hand bags. In front of her on the table sat a small pizza box from my favorite local pizza joint. (Yes, I can still eat pizza. Thin crust pepperoni. Sue me.) She was munching on it while we chatted. I asked if she had tried the boneless BBQ wings?they?re the bomb. (Yes, I can still eat BBQ boneless Wings. Sue me.) She asked me if had tried their Chicken Garlic Supreme Pizza with Garlic White Sauce topped with Provolone, Cheddar & Parmesan Cheese, marinated Chicken Strips, Diced Tomatoes and Red Onions. I just laughed and told her it sounded great, but it would probably kill me because I had gastric bypass surgery. That opened the flood gate of questions. It turned out she was planning on having Gastric Bypass surgery?at the same hospital I had my surgery?by the same surgeon. We had a mutual friend (Hi Vicky) that had RNY at the same hospital. The plus size clothes she was selling where from a friend of hers that had lost over 100 pounds after WLS. We talked for a good while and I showed her my before and after picture that I keep laminated in my wallet to prove to the cashiers at Wal-Mart that I?m really the fat guy in the driver?s license picture. I gave her some pointers and told her about the support group meetings and naturally, the ObesityHelp Website. I?ve been thinking about how many people I meet all the time that have had or planning to have or know someone that?s had WLS. An article in the paper today stated there were 170,000 bariatric surgeries last year. It?s getting to be more common everyday. Our world is getting smaller every day and our WLS community is expanding. Hopefully with the growth in numbers we?ll see a growth in understanding of what we have achieved. Maybe soon, we won?t have to hear someone tells us we took the easy road. |
