20 Years Post-Op...and I'm still here!

Sep 06, 2024

Wow.  It is hard to believe that TWENTY YEARS have passed since that life-changing day.  I'm not the poster child for surgery by no means.  I'm about 30 pounds over my "comfortable" weight.  I'm also about 40 pounds over my lowest.  That's a hard pill to swallow, sometimes, honestly.  You think back to all of the struggles prior to the surgery, the surgery itself, and then all of the challenges afterwards only to eventually find yourself big again.  Don't get me wrong...I do not regret the surgery.  I believe I would have died LONG ago without it.  I do regret my treatment of it.  I never beat my food demons..they still haunt me.  It is still my source of comfort, boredom relief, and anxiety medicine.  I wish the surgery would have been on my big fat head to fix it.

Personal challenges have been plentiful for a now old man writing to you.  Beyond the weight, the personal ups and downs have been many.  I have found someone that I have been with for over 16 years now.  She is the total opposite of me...caring, considerate, and thin.  Ha.  Why she has stuck by me, I really don't know.  We are so very different as people.  I guess that is what makes it work.

On the flip side, I have lost all of my family.  I lost the closest family to me in 2016, my mom, to cancer.  That was the hardest thing I ever had to witness.  She fought the fight for 3 years but it won in the end.  She is buried with my step-dad in Bushnell VA cemetary.  He passed in 2009.

I had an aunt I was close to.  She passed in 2022.  My step-sister that lived near me passed last year to a brain infection.  She was such a help to me and mom during her struggles.

The only other family I speak to is a nephew, but that is only occassionally due to us both being so busy.  It is really sad.

My word of advise to you:  don't let your shortcomings shortcut your life.  Find the love of your life.  Have a family.  Go do things.  Have hobbies.  Make friends.  Don't let the doubt in your head dictate your future.  You are bigger than it.  Heck, in my hey-day I was bigger than everything! ;)

Here's to another 10 years, old friends!  Godspeed, and take care of yourselves!

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