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Why was I on leave from Apolyton from May 9th-31st? Recovery: on the 9th, I had surgery. It underwent a re-constructive procedure known as a panniculectomy.
As many of you are aware, I am overweight (and have been since I was ~11). However, for some years I was also obese -- morbidly so for a time. At the height of my weight (mid-2001), I tipped the scales at over 500 pounds. I have lost ~230-40 pounds since 2001, and have kept it off -- and stabilized -- for ~3 1/2 years. My waist size was once 60+ and it's now in the low 40s. I used to wear 6XL(!!) shirts and now I wear (1)L. While weight loss has been slower coming in recent years, improvements in my strength and cardiovascular endurance have fortunately not been.
As elastic as human skin can be, even at my age it's not elastic enough to "bounce back" to truly reflect my weight loss visibly. Medical intervention was required and it was some time coming: between appointment and referral from my GP (family doctor) to a specialist to the actual surgery date, it was almost 2 years. I'm still on the mend, but thanks to all the work that I had done prior to the surgery, my overall health at the time of the surgery and my age, I'm moving along extremely well. I was not certain that this was going to be the case prior to my surgery, and that is why I did not disclose this even to anyone on staff before the procedure.
There is no decent entry on Wikipedia, though there is this very general overview (link below). As far as the grading of my particular circumstance went, it was a 1.
General Web searches have left me frowning somewhat at finding just the 'right' place to refer people to for a general overview that I'm happy with, but I've settled on the following two:
http://www.parungao.com/content.cfm?id=23 (general; a "before" and "after" picture of an older male and with symptoms that I did/do not have)
http://www.drlinder.com/psarticles-pann.htm (more detailed; no pictures)
Now you know.
As many of you are aware, I am overweight (and have been since I was ~11). However, for some years I was also obese -- morbidly so for a time. At the height of my weight (mid-2001), I tipped the scales at over 500 pounds. I have lost ~230-40 pounds since 2001, and have kept it off -- and stabilized -- for ~3 1/2 years. My waist size was once 60+ and it's now in the low 40s. I used to wear 6XL(!!) shirts and now I wear (1)L. While weight loss has been slower coming in recent years, improvements in my strength and cardiovascular endurance have fortunately not been.
As elastic as human skin can be, even at my age it's not elastic enough to "bounce back" to truly reflect my weight loss visibly. Medical intervention was required and it was some time coming: between appointment and referral from my GP (family doctor) to a specialist to the actual surgery date, it was almost 2 years. I'm still on the mend, but thanks to all the work that I had done prior to the surgery, my overall health at the time of the surgery and my age, I'm moving along extremely well. I was not certain that this was going to be the case prior to my surgery, and that is why I did not disclose this even to anyone on staff before the procedure.
There is no decent entry on Wikipedia, though there is this very general overview (link below). As far as the grading of my particular circumstance went, it was a 1.
General Web searches have left me frowning somewhat at finding just the 'right' place to refer people to for a general overview that I'm happy with, but I've settled on the following two:
http://www.parungao.com/content.cfm?id=23 (general; a "before" and "after" picture of an older male and with symptoms that I did/do not have)
http://www.drlinder.com/psarticles-pann.htm (more detailed; no pictures)
Now you know.
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