Enjoying life's simple pleasures : Weight loss journey continues as Morgan loses 230 pounds in 16 months

By ROBERT MORGAN

I had no complaints as I rang in 2008. My family lived to see another year, my wife and I had our annual toast at our favorite sports pub and my weight continued to decline at a slow - but consistent - pace since having bariatric surgery more than a year ago.

My year also got off to a painful start. I struggled to deal with a pain in my abdominal area that I could not shake for a month.

There were nights I had to sleep sitting in a chair or leaning over the side of our couch. Those were the restless nights that I cried myself to sleep because my lap-band hurt me so bad that I could no longer tolerate the pain.

Numerous calls in the night to the oncall doctor for my surgeon did not help at all. His advice: Take some Tylenol or Advil.

I was mad. This was not a headache. This was pain so excruciating that it had a grown man on his knees.

I finally broke down and chugged down the prescription pain medication I was given at surgery 14 months earlier. I didn't care that it had expired because I could no longer put up with this nightly event.

More than a week and a few sleepless nights later, I finally got through to Dr. Curtis Mosier, the Lap-Band specialist extraordinaire who performed my surgery. It turned out I had a stomach virus and the irritation caused swelling.

Since the Lap-Band's grip around the top of my stomach is firm, it caused some stretching and pressure on my stomach. The whole ordeal was more painful than having surgery, but I lived and learned from it.

That proved to be the only surgery-related challenge I faced all spring. Well, besides buying new pants every six months because of my shrinking frame.

After losing 200 pounds the first year, the weight loss has slowed dramatically. It's now down to three to five pounds a month, which is what my doctor expected from the beginning, only to see me average nearly 20 through the first 12 months.

Because of my workload at the newspaper and the activities I do in my free time with my family, my trips to the gym slipped from four times a week to two. That was just fine with my boys because we were finally doing the fun things that most kids get to do with Dad.

We took trips to the Fort Worth Zoo, Dallas Museum of Science and History and to a slew of arcades. These are things we had not done in years because I didn't want my size to embarrass my boys.

Because I have hidden from such places for many years, it made me feel like a kid again. The last time I enjoyed this kind of fun I was a kid myself, so I felt like I was also making up for lost time.

One thing about this spring I will never forget is coaching my youngest, Brad, for the first time. I have coached varsity-level girls and boys for the last 12 years but never my own out of fear of getting made fun of by innocent little six-year-olds who do not know any better.

I had a blast. It was one of the best coaching experiences I have ever had. The kids treated me like I was their own dad the whole season, and it was fun shooting the ball and running around the court with them.

The season has come and gone, but the kids have not forgotten me. When I see them at a high school game or at a local store, they waste little time coming up to me and saying, "Hi coach!"

My wife Marissa and I also did things we have not done in years. In fact, we had our first dance on New Year's Eve. We had never danced before in our six years of marriage.

It was everything I hoped it would be. I was not scared to be watched scooting along the dance floor, but rather I was proud to be seen in the arms of the greatest woman I have ever known.

Marissa had made it clear many times that she was never embarrassed to be seen with me because she never saw me as a 509-pound man. It was news to her even knowing I was more than 400 pounds.

We have danced several times since New Year's and I kind of like it. It's fun knowing I can enjoy doing things and not draw the attention of a crowd.

One thing I will never forget about this journey is getting to be a mentor. Judy Spira, the Lap-Band and support group coordinator at the hospital said she had a patient who asked to talk to me.

He was a 519-pound man who had just had surgery hours before. He wanted to meet the guy who had shattered the hospital record of 200 pounds lost in a year.

The questions ranged from what I ate each month after surgery and my exercise routine to sex life and alcohol. We talked for almost two hours, and we could have chatted all night.

I know it meant as much to him as it meant to me. In fact, I hope one day to get the chance to talk to obese children or parents as a motivational speaker.

The busiest part of my job was quickly approaching as regional and state competition in track, golf, baseball and softball are in April. Despite my weight problems the last few years, this has always been my favorite time of year because of all the excitement and non-stop sports action.

I made my annual trip to Odessa with photographer Joe Duty for the Class 3A regional track meet. Two years ago it took me nearly 30 minutes to climb the flight of stairs leading to the pressbox. In three days I only tackled the task once.

Last year I was 100 pounds lighter on my feet and made the same climb several times and only paused to pull up my britches. This year was even better as I not only took on that hike at least every hour, but I also did it with a lot of acceleration.

Sure, the task of keeping my shorts up and avoiding a full moon in the middle of the afternoon was a chore, but it was also fun. Joe and I even got up a little early one morning and he had me climb both sides of the stadium in search of the perfect photo (we all know Joe).

I think I walked a dozen miles in three days in Odessa. The best part was that I was still full of energy and wanted to stay busy even when there was no track work to be done. One night, I even toured the town while Joe was back at the hotel sleeping.

Good times.

My eating habits have not changed in more than a year which made eating on the road somewhat easy. I'm still unable to eat eggs or steak as they both get lodged in the small opening of my Lap-Band and usually come back up as a mess.

I still do not eat breads or pastas as both will most likely have the same reaction as eggs and steak. I tried two bites of rice and it was painful so I had to force it back up the pipes.

The quantity of food I can eat at a sitting has almost doubled but it's still significantly less than most people consume. I eat approximately two cups of food at mealtime - one cup of vegetables and one cup of chicken or ground beef.

It can get expensive when Marissa and I eat out and we're not together. We usually share a meal and don't have to buy two.

Just two weeks after getting back from Odessa, we hit the road one more time for the biggest event of the sports school year - the UIL state championships. This year we had two kids advance in golf and a whole bunch in track, so Joe and I had our hands full.

It was a cinch. State championship week started with golf and this was the first year I did not get to the course at 4 a.m. to hopefully be close enough in line to get a golf cart. In fact, we arrived at Roy Kizer Golf Course about 30 minutes into the first round, so we had to walk the course to find our Wise County connections.

That was the best part of the day. I walked several miles that day following our golfer and watching her tackle all 18 holes.

I was even dumb enough to wear jeans because we had driven straight in from Decatur and it was a cool morning. I got a tad hot, but I was never winded - not one time.

This work thing was starting to get too easy. I returned for the final round the next day and then moved on to track on Friday and Saturday. The week could not have played out any better. I got around like I was 21 again, and I kind of liked it. No, I loved it.

I feel 21 when Marissa and I get chances to go out alone as well. I think she can tell I act younger than I am sometimes but it's hard not to. Sometimes I don't even feel like Robert Morgan because I'm nothing like I was a year ago - physically, mentally or emotionally.

It wasn't long ago that I rarely left the house except for work. That's when the couch was my best friend and the confines of my house were the one place I could hide and not be afraid of what people thought about me.

It's been 16 months since I worried about what other people thought. Knowing that I have worked hard while learning how to eat again has been more than enough to overcome the few stares I still receive.

That was until I got a piece of fan mail from a Boyd resident that changed my opinion of sharing my story with thousands of people I don't know and never will. I have received more than 200 letters since I had surgery that ranged from support of my decisions to get Lap-Band and well-wishes to some that ask personal questions about the surgery and if I could help them get set up for surgery after reading my series.

One May morning I got a letter from a gentleman in Boyd who rambled on and on about how tiresome my Losing Battle series had become. He went on to tell me that people were sick of my bragging about my success on pages that should be filled with real news.

He concluded by asking me to stop writing about my challenge to overcome obesity. He claimed to have already canceled his subscription and that he knew several others who were dropping the paper simply because we wasted space.

The last thing I ever wanted to do was bore people with my story of overcoming a disease that most of this country is battling. All the enthusiasm I had about writing each follow-up story was gone. I promised to keep my successes and struggles to myself and make this the last story.