Mike Long

Getting to nearly 500 lbs was a huge wake up call. I wasn’t an overweight child or teen. I played college baseball and so I was always in pretty decent shape thru my mid 20’s. I met my wife at the tail end of college and didn’t really begin to gain weight until a few years before we got married. I went from being active and not eating to far out of bounds to getting a desk job, stopped being active and ate horribly. In about 15 years, I went from 250ish to almost 500 lbs. I’m tall and proportional but that excuse Would no longer work for me. I developed high blood pressure some years ago and started taking meds. I also had a sleep test and found out I had fairly bad sleep apnea. I got on the CPAP as a result. Luckily for me, all of my other “health stats” are in normal, healthy ranges. But as a severely overweight person knows, just because something doesn’t show up in blood work, it doesn’t mean you’re fine. The anxiety of flying, going places and having to sit with chairs with no arms, can’t go to sporting events unless I stand, sexual complications, and worst of all, not being able to play very long with my two boys without getting tired. My family was not that supportive of such a drastic measure. And don’t kid yourself, it is a drastic measure to have a major surgery where almost your entire stomach gets removed. 
 
I’m a little over 2 weeks post op at this writing and I can honestly say that the mental anguish is the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with. I’m regretting it at this point but I’m trying to take it a day at a time and Keeping the big picture in mind.