Half-ton man seeks life-saving surgery in Italy

[kwikdriver]

ROME - A Mexican man who at 1,200 lbs. is possibly the heaviest person in the world hopes to travel to Italy for a life-saving operation to shed weight.

Manuel Uribe, bedridden for the past five years, cannot stand on his own and will need a special flight to take him from Monterrey, Mexico to Modena, where a surgical team has offered to perform an intestinal bypass free of charge.

“I can’t walk. I’m can’t leave my bed,” the 40-year-old Uribe, who weighs the same as five baby elephants, said in a recent telephone interview.

“I’m trying to reduce my weight a bit right now so I can be in the right condition for the operation.”

Uribe made an impassioned plea for help earlier this year on Mexican television, saying he weighed a more normal 290 lbs. until aged 22 and did not know what happened to him.

The broadcast drew the attention of doctor Giancarlo De Bernardinis, who visited Mexico with a medical team to examine Uribe in March.

Bernardinis, whose biggest patient to date weighed 770 lbs., told Reuters he plans a gall bladder, intestinal bypass procedure that will allow Uribe to pass food more quickly without so many calories being absorbed.

Bernardinis planned to perform the surgery in Modena as early as this month, although a Mexican health official doubted Uribe would be ready for a trip to Europe that quickly.

Medical mystery
Uribe’s case puzzles doctors since his cholesterol and blood-sugar levels are normal, despite his extreme obesity.

“His heart works very well. He has some respiratory difficulty because of his obesity, but in strict terms, he’s well,” said Marco Anibal Rodriguez Vargas, the director of hospitals in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon.

Rodriguez Vargas said Mexican hospitals still hoped to treat Uribe themselves, but added Uribe would ultimately decide what to do.

Uribe said it was just a matter of time before he went to Italy: “Are we going? Yes. We’re going. But the doctors will decide when.”

The operation would last four to five hours and would likely require Uribe to spend one month in Italy.

“He will always be heavier than normal but certainly not like he is now ... We would be satisfied even if he weighed 330 lbs. after two years,” Bernardinis said.

No one has managed to find suitable scales for Uribe in years and estimates of his weight are made partly by tape-measure. Guinness World Records 2006 only said it was aware of living people weighing over 1,120 lbs.

The record for the heaviest man ever is held by Jon Brower Minnoch, who died in Seattle in 1983 after reaching a record 1,400 lbs. He was in his early 40s.

Uribe hopes to avoid that fate. His wife, horrified by his increasing size, feared the worst and abandoned him more than a decade ago.

“She left me because she must have thought I was dying,” Uribe said.

“Thank God, I’m still alive and hopefully will be able to take care of this problem.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12610987/

[Frogbreath]

No one could possibly get that big without an enabler. Someone is bringing vast amounts of food to him and shame on them. (Sorry, hard not to be judgmental.) I can kill myself with food but I'd never do that to someone else.

[kwikdriver]

No one could possibly get that big without an enabler. Someone is bringing vast amounts of food to him and shame on them. (Sorry, hard not to be judgmental.) I can kill myself with food but I'd never do that to someone else.


Yep. And I thank God I never had that enabler. I think about this every time I read a story like that -- just having the wrong person in my life could have led me to the exact same spot these people are in.

[ThomasCGT]

Large amounts of food, frogbreath?? Thats mainstream BS. More likely a few pounds of sugar a week. If he had only discovered this forum, he would have saved the trip. There would have been no need to be butchered by mad mainstream medicine men, mumbling 'bout calories...

[Marvin]

offcourse there was an enabler. they definitely cannot walk, so someones is giving him this massive amount of food to even maintain his weight. he must be getting 15,000 calories a day! or somethin!

[potatofree]

I watched a show about a thousand-pond man on TLC. You bet they have enablers... but you'd also be suprised at what skilled manipulators some people can be. The man's wife (okay, so she would never be a member of MENSA) was browbeaten and emotionally blackmailed to the point it was just easier to bring him the food. I'm not making excuses for her, and on a show about a woman of about 700 lbs, the roles were reversed (she would have her husband wait on her, but when he left the room to get his own food, she would yell at the dog and pretend it ate her pork chop... so he'd bring her another one... :rolleyes: ) The 750-lb housebound woman on Dr Phil actually tried to scam the staff of his show into bringing doughnuts, and she had a regular rotation of people she called on to bring her things... that way no one person knew just how much she was putting away.

Enablers are certainly sick in their own way, but not to sound mean... nobody is forcing people to eat themselves to immobility. It's a sick kind of give and take.

While I'm sure there are probably cases of extreme metabolic malfunction and cases where snowballing weight hampers mobility and fights an already compromised metabolism enough to make it worse, the people I've seen in the stories were indeed taking in 10-15 thousand calories in a day.

I really, honestly don't think my Dad ate that much more than anyone else... but I wasn't around him 24/7, I guess.

[bigpeach]

My folks live in SD, where Patrick Deuel, the subject of TLC's Half-Ton Man, got his surgery.
His wife has never been interviewed alone, and every time someone would ask her what it was like cooking for him, he would snap at the reporter, claiming the reporter is trying to set his wife up to say he was a major overeater, when in fact his problem was genetics.
What I want someone to ask him is that if it is all genetic, how has he lost the 600 pounds after gastric bypass?

[fluffybear]

Does anyone know the statistics of people who have had the gastric bypass surgery and have regained weight? I know that Al Roker of the TODAY show had surgery but still stuggles a lot to keep the weight off.

[fluffybear]

I watched a show about a thousand-pond man on TLC. You bet they have enablers... but you'd also be suprised at what skilled manipulators some people can be. The man's wife (okay, so she would never be a member of MENSA) was browbeaten and emotionally blackmailed to the point it was just easier to bring him the food. I'm not making excuses for her, and on a show about a woman of about 700 lbs, the roles were reversed (she would have her husband wait on her, but when he left the room to get his own food, she would yell at the dog and pretend it ate her pork chop... so he'd bring her another one... :rolleyes: ) The 750-lb housebound woman on Dr Phil actually tried to scam the staff of his show into bringing doughnuts, and she had a regular rotation of people she called on to bring her things... that way no one person knew just how much she was putting away.

Enablers are certainly sick in their own way, but not to sound mean... nobody is forcing people to eat themselves to immobility. It's a sick kind of give and take.

While I'm sure there are probably cases of extreme metabolic malfunction and cases where snowballing weight hampers mobility and fights an already compromised metabolism enough to make it worse, the people I've seen in the stories were indeed taking in 10-15 thousand calories in a day.

I really, honestly don't think my Dad ate that much more than anyone else... but I wasn't around him 24/7, I guess.

Was that the woman who blamed being overweight on a spider-bite?

Dr. Phil didn't buy that excuse at all.

[kwikdriver]

My folks live in SD, where Patrick Deuel, the subject of TLC's Half-Ton Man, got his surgery.
His wife has never been interviewed alone, and every time someone would ask her what it was like cooking for him, he would snap at the reporter, claiming the reporter is trying to set his wife up to say he was a major overeater, when in fact his problem was genetics.
What I want someone to ask him is that if it is all genetic, how has he lost the 600 pounds after gastric bypass?

I understand where Deuel is coming from here, and think he is handling the situation, if not well, then calculatingly. The way the media work is, they are always looking for a narrative, the sensational, or both. The narrative has to play into existing prejudices the public has; in this case, that Deuel is a disgusting fat f*ck who just needed to put the fork (shovel?) down. The sensational is obvious, but in this case, they are clearly fishing for tales of enormous meals to titillate their audience. Deuel did right by denying that to them, by keeping the focus of the story on obesity and combating it, rather than on the enormous meals he ate. The only people who would gain by stories of pounds of bacon, cartons of eggs, loaves of bread are the media. Of course he ate enormous meals -- nobody gets to 1000+ (or even 400) pounds without them. Who cares?

[potatofree]

Was that the woman who blamed being overweight on a spider-bite?

Dr. Phil didn't buy that excuse at all.

I don't recall anything about a spider-bite. I looked it up, and her name is Joell.

http://drphil.com/shows/show/254/

[fluffybear]

I don't recall anything about a spider-bite. I looked it up, and her name is Joell.

http://drphil.com/shows/show/254/

No that is not the same one.

The one I saw was on the Dr. Phil show last week. She was so large that she set up "headquarters" in her bedroom where she practically live 24/7. She blamed her condition on a spider bite, but Dr. Phil saw right through that. He said that he knew her history and that she weighed over 300 lbs. BEFORE getting bit by the spider. Her two teenage children were her enablers--esp. her son who was at her beck and call. Her daughter tried not to bring her food all the time, but she gave both of them guilt trips. However, she did promise Dr. Phil that she would stay on the plan he devised for her. He made the kids promise also to not enable their mom. We'll see.

[bigpeach]

I understand where Deuel is coming from here, and think he is handling the situation, if not well, then calculatingly. The way the media work is, they are always looking for a narrative, the sensational, or both. The narrative has to play into existing prejudices the public has; in this case, that Deuel is a disgusting fat f*ck who just needed to put the fork (shovel?) down. The sensational is obvious, but in this case, they are clearly fishing for tales of enormous meals to titillate their audience. Deuel did right by denying that to them, by keeping the focus of the story on obesity and combating it, rather than on the enormous meals he ate. The only people who would gain by stories of pounds of bacon, cartons of eggs, loaves of bread are the media. Of course he ate enormous meals -- nobody gets to 1000+ (or even 400) pounds without them. Who cares?

I can understand his desire to protect his wife from being labeled an enabler. Luckily his parents were interviewed on the special and were able to speak without Patrick censoring them. They said that even as a little kid, Patrick never got full. While there may be some underlying genetic issue with that, it doesn't change the fact that he ate his way to his 1,072 pounds. Frankly, I care, because I hate being grouped with fatties that think it is just something they were born with. I know better. I could say I have a big problem with carbs, but the fact of the matter is that I never had the discipline to eat one or two pieces of pizza instead of the whole thing, washed down by a liter of soda or a 12-pack of beer. I can't realistically blame the carbs because I was the one shoveling them into my mouth. Only when I committed myself to removing that crap from my diet did I learn about satiety and lose my first 53 pounds and get back on track to my goal.

[ItsTheWooo]

When I read these stories, my first thought is this: how is this man different than Melissa De Hart, the 59 pound anorexic?
To eat the way this man is eating, he must have a severe eating disorder.

Yes, I know the hypothalamus regulates hunger, and it's possible that part of it is physiological. Then again, is it not true that there is a physiological basis for anorexia? Serotonin overload (from genetic defects, from stress, etc) is responsible for the loss of appetite, for the obsessiveness, the depression, the reduced ability to feel, and for the superhuman ability to ignore their bodies and do the unsavory tasks of exercising ragged and starving themselves. There is a real physiological reason anorexics and underweight people act the way they do. Yet no one doubts the psychological nature of anorexia and anorexia is still primarily a psychiatric disorder.

Why, then, do people not consider this man in the same camp as a severe anorexic?
People see Melissa De hart and their first thought is "wow, that poor mad woman, she is insane".
People see this guy and they think about the food, and how people are feeding him... as if he were just another extreme manifestation of an obese person. Comparing him to a normal over eating obese person is like comparing an obsessive dieter to Melissa dehart. I look at him and I see someone just as profoundly sick as the most emaciated anorexic. Imagine what it must take to eat to be over 1000 pounds. Imagine the disordered thought process. I just don't understand why the psychology doesn't interest people as much as the physicality. I suppose it is because we naturally relate to the desire to eat and eat and eat, so we are less likely to admit these people are just as crazy as anorexics (since that would be associating with mental illness and that is not a comfortable thought).

[potatofree]

It didn't look to me like he was trying to protect his WIFE one bit...

[potatofree]

Wooo- a lot of people WOULD agree with you. It takes a powerful lot of "something wrong" to keep eating until you can't get out of bed under your own power...or to restrict eating until you can't get out of bed under your own power.

Denial can and does run deep in both camps. There are enablers on both sides too. How many people are starving themselves right under the noses of their families?

[fluffybear]

I can understand his desire to protect his wife from being labeled an enabler. Luckily his parents were interviewed on the special and were able to speak without Patrick censoring them. They said that even as a little kid, Patrick never got full. While there may be some underlying genetic issue with that, it doesn't change the fact that he ate his way to his 1,072 pounds. Frankly, I care, because I hate being grouped with fatties that think it is just something they were born with. I know better. I could say I have a big problem with carbs, but the fact of the matter is that I never had the discipline to eat one or two pieces of pizza instead of the whole thing, washed down by a liter of soda or a 12-pack of beer. I can't realistically blame the carbs because I was the one shoveling them into my mouth. Only when I committed myself to removing that crap from my diet did I learn about satiety and lose my first 53 pounds and get back on track to my goal.

Well I sometimes wonder if children who are fed wrong as infants get off to such a bad start it makes it difficult for them to stay a normal weight. I was browsing through my baby book after I grew up and my mom had stuck in the recipe for the baby formula she fed me. The recipe called for canned Carnation milk and (get this) white KAYRO syrup!! I was a very fat baby. Fortunately I was very active as a child and ran around a lot and was a normal weight until later in life when I became a lot more sedentary. But I have often wondered if giving a baby that kind of high-sugar baby formula might enlarge their fat cells.

[dearmommy]

Is it possible he has something such as prader-willi syndrome?

[ThomasCGT]

Strange that people on this low carb forum still mumble about large quantities of food and calories. Apart from a few pounds of low calorie sugar a week, think soya. Soya can totally mess up the thyroid function and could well be the other enabler. Obviously the mad mainstream medicine men in his home country had to follow their proper guidelines, so while he cut his calories, and maybe quaffed down soya drinks, he still grew. Similar story as the overweights in UK who were put into hospital for observation, as they were thought to be cheating on their lo-cal diet. The calories were then reduced to 600 a day, and they still failed to lose. Several died from undernutrition, so the exercise ceased. . The conclusion of the MMMM was that they could not figure out why.

[foxgluvs]

http://kellygrafx.com/1000lbs.jpg

I feel sorry that anyone could get to this state. where were his Drs in all this?? I mean, the man must suffer a miriad of health problems associated with this terrible weight, so what exactly were they doing to help him at say 900lbs or more?
I feel sorry for him, and for his stupid wife for letting it get to this point, she must be of very little brain to alow this to happen. No amount of mind games would alow me to let my DH get to that stage without getting serious help.

Thank god he has some help with it now, but let's face it, that kind of weight for that long will have done some irreversible damage.

[Frogbreath]

Large amounts of food, frogbreath?? Thats mainstream BS. More likely a few pounds of sugar a week. If he had only discovered this forum, he would have saved the trip. There would have been no need to be butchered by mad mainstream medicine men, mumbling 'bout calories...

Not really BS - based on the 1000+ pound man story I saw recently on television. I think it must have been a different guy. What he ate was impressive in a gross sort of way. Calories do count at some point and the amound of carbs in 5 lbs of potatoes absolutely count. This is not caused by some doctor giving bad advice. He obviously has an extreme problem - a more extreme version of the metabolic problem many of us have. Nevertheless, if this guy is like the other one of his size, he is eating mountains of food and still feels hungry. The thing is...he can't get up and get it himself.

[Rheneas]

Sorry jumped a page there, in response to Deuel protecting his wife I say protect her my ass, isn't that the guy who when his wife was asked what would happen if she didn't wait on him hand and foot said "I'll rip her to pieces!". I found Deuel to be a rather unpleasant character and his wife seemed increasingly nervous the more weight he lost. Maybe keeping him immobile was a self preservation move on her part.

[kwikdriver]

Sorry jumped a page there, in response to Deuel protecting his wife I say protect her my ass, isn't that the guy who when his wife was asked what would happen if she didn't wait on him hand and foot said "I'll rip her to pieces!". I found Deuel to be a rather unpleasant character and his wife seemed increasingly nervous the more weight he lost. Maybe keeping him immobile was a self preservation move on her part.

I've been following the Deuel thing from the start, and I've never seen anything like this. His wife had WLS surgery recently herself, in fact. She's pretty hefty in her own right. How could someone who can't even roll over in bed rip someone to pieces? Even now, down 600 pounds, he can't walk without a walker.

BTW, I have no idea if he was "protecting his wife" or not, but I do know how the media work, and I know Deuel has been crusading for obesity-related issues since the start. By not allowing the focus to shift to something trivial and titillating, he did the smart thing.

[JandLsMom]

The wife being afraid of him is such a cop out. The man couldnt even move from his bed. He couldnt do anything to her! She should have got him help many hundreds of pounds ago! It amazes me the article said his cholesterol and insulin were ok at that weight! i can not believe he doesnt have diabetes..amazing!
I sure hope they can get him to a normal weight and do the surgery to take all that extra skin off..for free..thats a medical issue!

[ItsTheWooo]

To present the other side:
THe nature of abuse is insidious and it's hard to understand it since it's not rational. It can make one terrified even when there is no valid threat... especially if you are of the type of personality that is unsure and lacking in confidence to begin with, a skilled abuser can have you terrified and believing you are incompetent even if any normal person can see how ridiculous your beliefs are.

Someone can't meet a person from their bed, so I'm assuming there was a time when this man was mobile, thus, a potential threat and force. For all we know through out the years he has systematically brainwashed this woman to be so scared of him that even now that he is incapacitated she is still afraid. And, helping him get to that point might have been self preservation like someone else said.

I've witnessed this with my own parents - my father's "style" is not to beat with fists, but words, posturing, intimidating, threats all the time, etc. Even though I can count the number of times he went to the point where he hit her, my mom is still terrified of my father. I can understand how this can happen, because I feel afraid of him for some reason too, even though I am far less "brainwashed" than she is since I was not the target of abuse.

Not making any statements about this man or his wife, just pointing out that it is not necessarily a cop out or an excuse...

[Hellistile]

To present the other side:
I've witnessed this with my own parents - my father's "style" is not to beat with fists, but words, posturing, intimidating, threats all the time, etc. Even though I can count the number of times he went to the point where he hit her, my mom is still terrified of my father. I can understand how this can happen, because I feel afraid of him for some reason too, even though I am far less "brainwashed" than she is since I was not the target of abuse.
I agree with ItsTheWoo because this is exactly how it was at home when I was growing up. My father never once hit us but we were constantly terrified whenever he was around. We could never second guess what action would bring down the full force of his wrath.

[potatofree]

It's awfully easy to say what she "should have" done and call her stupid, but until you have walked in her shoes, you have no right to judge.

As Wooo said, abusive relationships are NOT rational. Sometimes black is white and the shades of grey are always changing. The victim can learn not to function "normally", to do as she's told, to NOT THINK FOR HERSELF... because the options are too ugly to imagine.

Sure, he can't get out of his bed and LITERALLY "rip her to pieces" but if the wife has already been brainwashed to have no identity other than his caretaker, living for his approval, the threat of the emotional pain he could inflict and her own belief that she HAS no other function can very literally make her feel like she has no other choice.

[Angeline]

It looks to me like it might be a classic case of codependancy

The term codependency refers to a relationship where one or both parties enable the other to act in certain maladaptive ways. Many times, the act of enabling satisfies a need for the codependent person because his or her actions foster a dependency from the other person or persons in the relationship. Codependency is reinforced by a person's need to be needed. The enabler thinks irrationally by believing he can maintain healthy relationships through manipulation and control.

[LilaCotton]

Is it possible he has something such as prader-willi syndrome?
I thought of that too. I feel so sorry for anyone with this disorder.

The recipe called for canned Carnation milk and (get this) white KAYRO syrup!!
That was a normal mixture for the day. It's believed the syrup kept the baby regular. I had this discussion with a friend of mine the other day whose grandson is drinking that mix. I told them that if the baby had proper formula, there wouldn't be a problem with constipation.

I've known an awful lot of babies that were raised on milk and Karo syrup who grew up to be quite thin adults. In fact, the fattest babies I knew grew up to be the thinnest adults.

[fluffybear]

I thought of that too. I feel so sorry for anyone with this disorder.


That was a normal mixture for the day. It's believed the syrup kept the baby regular. I had this discussion with a friend of mine the other day whose grandson is drinking that mix. I told them that if the baby had proper formula, there wouldn't be a problem with constipation.

I've known an awful lot of babies that were raised on milk and Karo syrup who grew up to be quite thin adults. In fact, the fattest babies I knew grew up to be the thinnest adults.

Yes, that was me, I grew up very skinny. In college I was 5 ft. 10 inches tall and weighed only 125 lbs. However I became overweight later on. I always wondered if maybe the formula I was given as an infant created a lot more or larger fat cells and that they were "starving" all the time I was growing up. I am not a biologist, so I don't know if that is possible or not. Just a thought.

[kwikdriver]

Here's a video of Deuel, for those of you want to see it.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/99065/800_lb_man/


Now, someone tell me how anyone could get like that and not have some kind of mental disorder.

[Angeline]

Scary. He looks like a human turtle

[fluffybear]

Here's a video of Deuel, for those of you want to see it.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/99065/800_lb_man/


Now, someone tell me how anyone could get like that and not have some kind of mental disorder.

Well it happens all the time. I have seen 600 lb. and 700 lb. people on the Dr. Phil show and one also who wrote to Richard Simmons to help him. There are probably a LOT more out there like that who we never know about because they can't get out of their houses. I read that the funeral industry is now manufacturing larger coffins on an assembly line basis including one that is 6' by 6'. One thing about it ---the more I hear about such people, the more motivated I am to lose weight.

[ThomasCGT]

How about the enabler being unfermanted soya products, that destroy normal thyroid function. Add that to the few pound of sugar consumed a week and you get well, a baby elephant. . I am surprised to see mention of large 'quantities' of food and calories, on such a forum as this.

[foxgluvs]

Here's a video of Deuel, for those of you want to see it.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/99065/800_lb_man/


Now, someone tell me how anyone could get like that and not have some kind of mental disorder.

Jeeze!!!! Did you read some of the comments on that video??? How anyone can be so hateful to this man and his condition is beyond me, I don't agree with the fact that he got to this size in the first place, but hurling insults of such a vicous nature (like saying he should be shot to help save the health service money) is totally out of order. It's what makes overweight peoples lives a misery every day. I could hardly believe my eyes at some of those comments!

[kwikdriver]

Jeeze!!!! Did you read some of the comments on that video??? How anyone can be so hateful to this man and his condition is beyond me, I don't agree with the fact that he got to this size in the first place, but hurling insults of such a vicous nature (like saying he should be shot to help save the health service money) is totally out of order. It's what makes overweight peoples lives a misery every day. I could hardly believe my eyes at some of those comments!


I've been reading comments like those for a long time now. Lots of people here have been hearing comments like those. There are too many people in the world who are as ugly on the inside as Deuel was fat on the outside.

[Bat Spit]

I could say I have a big problem with carbs, but the fact of the matter is that I never had the discipline to eat one or two pieces of pizza instead of the whole thing,

Now see, I don't accept this at all. I don't know about you, but one or two slices of pizza left me still physically hungry. I will not accept 100% of the blame for feeling that physically I needed more food to stop a rumbling belly.

I do accept the blame for poor food choices, but the government approved choices didn't do me any favors either.

I hate to see any of us fall in the 'its all my own fault' cycle. I really think the physical inability to reach satiety eating large amounts of food pyramid approved carbs is a very big part of how most of us TDCers get to be this big.

[kyrasdad]

Now, someone tell me how anyone could get like that and not have some kind of mental disorder.

I don't think you could, and that's coming from someone who thinks he had at least the beginnings of a mental disorder to get to 350 pounds. I certainly mitigated the physical cravings with low carb, but once in a while, I still feel this intense, nearly undeniable appetite. It doesn't matter at those times if I just ate a 16 ounce t-bone, I want to EAT. It's hunger I feel in my mouth and oddly, even in my chest and throat. At those times, I'd eat a twinkie covered with bugs if that was all I could find.

These days, I try to pacify it with fatty cheese and meats. I'll eat roast beef or cheese, something very heavy. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. It very definitely seems to want carbs, especially crunchy, salty ones like chips or crackers that turn to goo in your mouth.

I can't explain it, and I can't deny it when it's at its strongest. I have it much less often now than I did pre-low-carb, but it still hits me at time. It is stronger than any rational desire. If a person who can get that large has whatever that is, and it's stronger or more prevalent than mine was, it wouldn't be hard to get to 700 or a thousand pounds given an enabler and the right circumstances.

It isn't a rational or normal thing, something that strong. I just wonder if I got a mild case of it, and these people got something much stronger...

[potatofree]

I think, at a certain point, depression or apathy kicks in and people feel like giving up. My Dad fought debilitating effects of his obesity, and was quickly heading for becoming bedridden because of the weight.

I think, at the end when he made the decision to attempt the stomach stapling, he was at a kind of crossroads deciding if he wanted to live if it meant turning into someone like Deuel.
He was already at the point where his legs could barely hold him for even short distances... his life was becoming a routine of struggling to get out of the bed, making it as far as the couch. He would spend the day lying there, and we brought his meals to him, and put them on a kitchen chair in front of him.

Could we have "made" him get help? Were we supposed to just say "Daddy, Mommy says you're a Lardo, so we won't bring you food anymore." and let him sink or swim? He just didn't CARE anymore, and just the struggle to breathe was enough that he finally decided to take the chance of dying in surgery (which he did) rather than hold us hostage caring for him. He didn't make unfair demands, he didn't make us bring him tons of crap food... he ate what WE ate (carb-heavy "poor food" as it was) or even less. How do I know he wasn't sneaking food? Frankly, we didn't HAVE a lot of food in the house because he couldn't work, and I think we might have heard a 600+ pound man trying to raid the fridge for what WAS in there.

Sorry for the ramble. I'm just having a lot of memories of a pretty unhappy time, and all the talk about blaming the families is hitting a nerve.

[Frogbreath]

I shouldn't have passed judgment on his wife or him. My attitude comes from a 700 lb woman and her husband who weighed about the same. I remember my jaw dropping to the floor when I personally witnessed how much they ate. Five pounds of potatoes mashed for one meal is pretty astounding. Even I've never managed that much. They loved each other dearly and were great people, but they died much too soon.

[bigpeach]

Well it happens all the time. I have seen 600 lb. and 700 lb. people on the Dr. Phil show and one also who wrote to Richard Simmons to help him. There are probably a LOT more out there like that who we never know about because they can't get out of their houses. I read that the funeral industry is now manufacturing larger coffins on an assembly line basis including one that is 6' by 6'. One thing about it ---the more I hear about such people, the more motivated I am to lose weight.

That is very true. A few years ago, I sold surgical equipment for a living and met a surgeon in Ohio that wanted supersize retractors that we would have to custom-build for him. I asked him if the hospital would be willing to buy them for him since it would be very expensive and he replied that he was operating on the biggest of the obese every week (so the hospital would get use out of the investment) and that his practice was known as the "700 Club." He was willing to work with patients that other surgeons shunned out of fear of complications and malpractice claims. He said there are a lot more 700 pounders out there but we never see them.

[Scars]

Not really BS - based on the 1000+ pound man story I saw recently on television. I think it must have been a different guy. What he ate was impressive in a gross sort of way. Calories do count at some point and the amound of carbs in 5 lbs of potatoes absolutely count. This is not caused by some doctor giving bad advice. He obviously has an extreme problem - a more extreme version of the metabolic problem many of us have. Nevertheless, if this guy is like the other one of his size, he is eating mountains of food and still feels hungry. The thing is...he can't get up and get it himself.

Well said, frogbreath - at some point, putting back truckloads of calories will affect your weight/health.