Well, I'll start with my name. It's Craig, I was 29yrs old and 500lbs when I had my Roux en-y. I'm from Dayton OH and there were a lot of things leading up to my surgery. I was born with a hip disease called leg perthissess. My parents & Dr. caught that at around the second grade. That is probably where I had my biggest weight gain. I was pretty much forced to strict bed rest by my Dr. & my parents... So while all my friends were outside playing I was inside watching reruns of Mr. Belvedere & eating comfort food. I was in a exercise restrictive leg brace until the 6th grade. After I finally got my hip back to 100% or as close to that as possible for me. Then life seemed to be getting back on track for me. I started playing hockey competitively and was very good at it but not good enough in Dayton OH, to get paid for it. Had I lived in more of hockey town, who knows. At any rate I started a real job. At 19 years old I started working in a factory, 3rd shift and making decent money. At this time in my life most of my friends were out partying & trying to get laid, maybe working part-time job. I was busy paying on a brand new truck I had bought before I realized that the insurance was gonna cost me as much I was paying on the truck! Working 3rd shift really messed with my eating schedule. I started gaining a big amount of weight. I would eat with my parents through out the day & then eat again. at night with my friends. I worked at the factory for a few years and then began a career as a professional Body Piercer. Now, the factory was hot, and it was physically demanding. Being a Body Piercer was not! My body was still out of wack due to a extreme lack of exercise and sleep depravation. I am a firm believer that you never get to catch up on lost sleep. That being said I also believe that your eating schedule and sleep schedule should kind of be balanced. Mine were no where near balanced. At around the age of 21 I started dating a girl that I got very serious with. I thought I was around 300lbs. Later that year I got sick with phenomena... I eventually had to have lung surgery. I was put in ICU and weighted to find out that I actually was about 380lbs. At this point I started looking into Gastrick Bypass Surgery. I had no health insurance at this time(still don't by the way lol). So I figured I'd just diet. I had a very hard break-up and moved to Columbus for a year. When I moved back to Dayton I had no
choice but to live with my parents for while. This is when they really saw how out of control my health had become. I talked with my mom about the procedure and she offered to pay out of pocket for it. I went to Dayton Bariatric and saw Dr. David Bruce who in my opinion saved my life on 1-7-09. On the day of pre-surgery testing I weighed 498lbs I couldn't believe that I weighed that much. The first day I could walk afterwards they weighed me and I had already lost close to 30lbs. From that point I started losing weight rapidly. In 3 years now I have lost a total of 260lbs. It was after my weight loss seemed to be on-track that my "other problems" , started! I began to replace comfort food with other comfort coping tools. I start popping Vicodon like candy. At one point up to 20 a day. Keep in mind up to this point in my life I had never done a drug let alone start to abuse them. I did Vicodone regularity for about 2.5 years. For the last 6 months I have struggled with staying strong to keep away from Vicodone and any other pain meds. It's been hard on me and life partner. I feel like I gave up my food addiction for a pain pill addiction. I know I never did these things before when I was 500lbs. I am trying but everyday is a struggle. I would really appreciate some feedback. I'd love to hear some of your experiences other than my own. I can't be the only 1 out here that this has happened to. Thanks for reading I know I'm long winded sorry again and remember that there is answer you just have to ask the right question.
Craigs Story
Thank you Katie for your support through all of this I love u and U are my everything!!!
