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A Frame He Can Now Carry

Tampa Tribune staff photo/Greg Fight.

Glenn Davis, market manager for five Circle K convenience stores and five SUBWAY restaurants, interviews a prospective employee in one of the stores.

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 6, 2008

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PLANT CITY - When most people talk about major surgery they have undergone, they do so with painful cringes and relief that it's over. But when Glenn Davis talks about his gastric bypass surgery, he has enthusiasm.

You see, Davis is one-third the man he used to be. His weight dropped from a morbidly obese 540 pounds to a healthy 165 pounds.

It required painful surgeries and diet and lifestyle changes, but Davis said his weight loss is the best thing he has done.

"It has changed my life and lifted my self-esteem," he said. "My weight no longer defines me. I am able to leave the house without worrying about stares and sarcastic remarks. My health and the way I look at life are so much better. I used to be tired all the time; now I'm full of energy. I will never go back to what I was before."

But it's not for everyone, and it's not without risk.

Alfredo Fernandez, the Tampa surgeon who performed Davis' surgery, said health risks that qualify severely obese patients for gastric-bypass surgery also put them in danger of complications during and after the procedure.

Common characteristics of the severely obese - diabetes, cardiovascular disease, sleep apnea and high blood pressure - put them at risk of complications such as suture tears and leaks, blood clots, infection and stomach disruption, Fernandez said.

"Gastric bypass surgery is the last resort after a diet and exercise program," Fernandez said.

It was almost two years and 375 pounds ago that Davis checked into Town & Country Hospital in Tampa, where the surgeon created a much smaller stomach.

A Lifelong Struggle

Davis had weight problems his whole life.

At 16, he weighed 200 pounds. At 21, Davis weighed 275 pounds. By the time he was 37, his weight soared to 540 pounds aboard a 5-foot-8-inch frame.

Davis had to sit sideways at the kitchen table to reach his plate. Blocked by his belly, he couldn't get a good grip on the steering wheel of his car; the seat belts had to be extended because the original one was not long enough.

In the course of a day, Davis was eating as much as 10,000 calories, with no exercise other than getting in and out of the car.

Most alarming, he was falling asleep at red lights, a symptom of sleep apnea. Delayed no longer than the time it took a flagman to hold up a line of traffic during construction, he would nod off, awakening only when the driver behind him tooted the horn.

His weight also affected his health in other ways. He developed high blood pressure, knee and ankle problems, diabetes and varicose veins. His body mass index, or the measurement of body fat based on height and weight, was calculated at 79.5; a BMI of 30 or greater is considered morbid obesity.

At his heaviest, he wore jeans with a 72-inch waist, and a 9X shirt size.

Eddie Richter, who worked with Davis at their former place of employment, Sparky's Food Store, would take him to the local feed store where Davis would get weighed on a floor scale because conventional scales could not count up to 540.

"People looked at him and they would see one of the biggest people they've seen," Richter said. "Some people were overwhelmed, and they wanted to know: How did this human being get that fat?"

A lifetime of attempted diets didn't help.

The problem is familiar to many who are struggling to lose weight, whether 20 pounds or many times as much - no diet plan seems to work, or work for long; the pounds come back.

People play on words and joke about their "see-food" diets, and they laugh. They kid one another about their chocolate "sweet tooth" addictions. They talk about being "junk food junkies."

The truth is that some people have an addiction to food in the same way an alcoholic has an addiction to booze or a gambler has an addiction to gambling.

Food was Davis' addiction.

He thought about suicide. But what would he say in the goodbye note to his family?

Fortunately, he had a family who loved him, and that was enough to keep him going.

Time For Change

His wake-up call came one day when his frame could no longer hold up the 540 pounds it had to carry.

"At the end of the day my legs were swollen and in such pain all I wanted to do was to cut them away from my body," Davis said.

Davis decided to cross what he considered the final frontier for losing weight: gastric bypass surgery.

Gastric bypass surgery for the severely obese carries a hefty price tag. At its low end, costs run about $12,000 to $15,000 for the simplest procedure, and at the high end, surgery and postoperative fees can typically reach between $45,000 and $65,000.

Davis, 39, refinanced his home to help pay for the surgery.

He's not complaining; Davis is savoring the simple pleasures such as being able to fit in a seat at a movie theater. He is almost evangelical about the procedure and the difference it has made in his life.

"Once I quit blaming everyone, and everything, and quit making excuses, I moved forward and changed my life," Davis said.

Correspondent Jerry Lofstrom can be reached at jdlmcl@aol.com.

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