As much as I enjoyed my three-day vacation in the hospital following the lap-band surgery, I was ready to go home.

It was time to start the first day of the rest of my new life.

I made one mistake as I was being wheeled to the front of the hospital – I asked my student nurse to take me by the scales. After losing 24 pounds in the two weeks leading up to surgery, who could blame a guy for wanting to check on progress?

I was crushed when the digital display lit up. I had gained seven pounds while being poked at, cut up and banded. I was confused, mad and felt sick to my banded stomach all at the same time. Three days later I found out the weight gain was from being pumped with fluids for three days.

I felt much better. I just ended a 14-day liquid diet and had bariatric lap-band weight loss surgery on Sept. 20, so I was not ready for more worries until my next milestone – my first lap-band fill.

Most lap-band patients get their first saline fill six weeks after surgery. My doctor, Curtis Mosier, said I was going to be able to get my first fill right on schedule if my incisions healed quickly enough and my appetite returned like it did before surgery.

The lap-band tightens around the top of the stomach when saline is injected into the port. This limits the amount of found the stomach can hold. Some patients resume a liquid diet because of the severe food restriction.

There is no saline in the lap-band when its orginally placed around the stomach. The six-week wait for a fill is to allow the swollen stomach to return to its normal size.

We spent the next four days with my wife’s parents so I could sleep in a recliner. Sleeping upright was the only way I could get any sleep pain-free in those first two weeks.

I didn’t do much the first 10 days after surgery. I did a lot of thinking. I spent days thinking about what it would be like to live in a slender body.

One thought would drift on to another, all of which were good. Most of my thoughts centered on what the future will eventually hold for me. I pictured – and smiled from time to time – of living a normal life with the ability to do everything that most people take for granted.

I look forward to the day I can go out to eat with my family and we can sit in a booth. There is nothing more frustrating than telling the hostess we will wait until a table is available while I cross my fingers and I hope I don’t break the chair.

My wandering mind also pictured the day I can go without pushing the car seat as far back as possible and tilted back as well just so I can get the seat belt on.

Only those battling obesity ever think of how embarrassing those minor things can be.

I will lose 250 pounds, but I will always carry the emotional scars from this disease. Just knowing that one day I might get the chance to live a “normal” live is something I think about every day.

If I’m lucky, my battle will at least inspire one person to make a change. Do something before the next person laughs at you, or that wooden chair breaks or some teenager jokes about your size.

Since the day I left the hospital, people have asked me on a daily basis – strangers and friends – how I am doing. My wife Marissa is the real trooper in all of this because without her I would not have been able to adjust to my new life. She helps me with my day-to-day needs I can’t do on my own, and she puts up with my rotten attitude when I am depressed, but she still loves me at the end of each day.

My dietitian, Judy Spira, joked before surgery that Marissa may want to get a hotel room for the first couple of weeks. I’m sure that crossed her mind after my fourth day home. I missed my food. The second I smelled some good home cooking, my stomach pleaded its case.

Until my first follow-up appointment with Mosier – scheduled two weeks after surgery – my meals were limited to four ounces. The meals were two ounces of baby food (vegetable or fruit) and two ounces of pureed meat. I got so used to Gerber that I even developed a favorite. I highly recommend the Hawaiian Delight.

Pureed meat is a whole different story.

I learned to deal with it. After the first week I could eat pureed chicken or beef, so I made the switch. However, my stomach could not take vegetables or fruit, so I stuck with my Gerber. You quickly learn what the band will tolerate. Food either gets stuck where the stomach is banded or you simply throw up.

I was most surprised that four ounces of food made me feel stuffed for hours. My energy level was rock bottom, but my appetite was gone. In fact, there were some days I had to force myself to eat.

My appetite slowly increased as my two-week appointment got closer.

I returned to work a week before I was supposed to because I needed to get out of the house. I needed to give my wife some space, I needed to stay busy and I needed my sports back.

I worried my appetite would return because I started getting hunger pangs, and I didn’t have any saline in my band yet. My first lap-band fill could not be done until six weeks after surgery.

Returning to work made a big difference. The best medicine came from my valued readers. I received e-mails, letters and cards from readers who are battling obesity or have a relative who faced the same problems. I had more than three dozen letters from as far away as Chicago.

That was simply amazing. I never imaged my story would affect so many people in different ways. Dozens of people told me they felt as if my story was about them.

The encouragement made me more determined to be a success story. For all those who said they can’t lose weight, I promise I will. And knowing there are thousands following my story and watching my progress, I know I can’t fail now. I would fail those lives I have touched. I would fail my family. Most of all, I would fail myself.

I received my first compliment about an hour before kickoff at Eagle Stadium. I heard a voice yelling, “Hey skinny!” I didn’t look. I knew it couldn’t be me. Then my wife poked me and said that David Park, cross country coach at DHS, was calling me. Sure enough, he was trying to see how I had been doing and to tell me he could tell I had lost weight.

That’s 10 seconds I’ll never forget.

My first visit with Mosier arrived and I was nervous. I was afraid that my port had flipped or that my band had slipped. Because of my large frame, getting out of bed is a challenge. I worried every morning that the strain of getting up may have pulled something inside.

My appointment could not have been better. First, I jumped on the scale. In two weeks since my surgery, I had lost 16 pounds – a total of 40 pounds in a month as I went from 509 on Sept. 6 to 469 on Oct. 5.

Mosier was equally excited. I was his first patient to lose 40 pounds in the first month. That helped ease the pain of hearing I was his heaviest lap-band patient at 509 pounds.

I felt as if I was one of the luckiest guys on earth. I had no health problems except my weight. I had lost 40 pounds in four weeks and my first follow-up appointment was perfect. I was eating 4 ounces at mealtime and was full. What more could a fat guy ask for?

Just as I thought I was on my way to having the most perfect weight-loss surgery ever, I hit a brick wall. The scariest moment of this entire journey came one week after I saw Mosier. I woke up one Wednesday morning in a pool of blood. The large incision that would not heal had completely opened and bled all night.

I called my doctor. He told me to go straight to the emergency room where he would meet me. I was scared that my lap-band had ripped.