There’s a Colista Flockhart joke in there somewhere.
One of my most memorable patients was a woman who weighed 783 lbs on the truck scale at the hospital loading dock. She had gained 84 lbs in the preceeding 9 months.
She was unable to bend her arms enough to reach her mouth. :eek: She couldn’t even feed herself, yet she continued to gain weight.
Her family said she had always ruled the house with an iron hand, so it never occurred to them to not obey her demands to be fed. She rarely spoke while in the hospital.
She had diabetes, requiring 50u of insulin every day. While in the hospital, she was given a 1200 cal diet. Her blood glucose remained normal without insulin the whole time.
I’d never seen anyone so large before that. I was struck by the fact that her hands and feet looked normal. It looked like she had on a “fat suit.”
She didn’t survive the hospitalization.
I used to work in a factory. We had several employee family members come by after work to use the drum scale that would measure upto 1200# accurately.
I discovered that I can’t really tell the difference between 350 and 550. At a certain point, you’re just large.
Picunurse? What caused that woman’s demise? I have heard feedees suggest that it’s the up and down that kills you, and that medically supervised weight loss is usually fatal for that reason. It seems like an unusual claim, but I’m very curious.
Well, I was gonna ask if maybe it was safer to feed them the chicken so they didn’t get eaten themselves but I digress…
I read that the first time as Why would you feed a 200 pound relative to a chicken.
Great huh?
But it’s buried under so many layers…
Obesity among power plant personnel is something I would call a sorta-epidemic. I’ve been to so many power plants it’s not even funny, and there seems to be a certain point at which a worker suddenly gains a serious amount of weight. You see the guys and gals up until they’re about 30 at BMIs of about 18-22, then suddenly something happens, and they’re over 250 pounds. Plant operators tend to be very large males, some of them easily over 350, and this is just something you expect to see.
Some power plants have tried to encourage the operators to lose weight and be healthy by purchasing such items as treadmills, ski machines, and even complete weight sets and putting them in the control room. One plant I went into had the operator walking on the treadmill, with a laptop mounted on a pedastal nearby so he could reach and respond to minor alarms without stopping. But none of it seems to work.
I’ve only been to a couple dozen power plants in Europe and South America, but I’ve noticed that this overweightness does not seem to be a problem there. I don’t know if it’s a thing about culture in general, or if it’s a thing about power plant culture. I’ve noticed in the US, every single time you enter a control room there is typically a giant-sized crate of Krispy Kreme or some other doughnut, typically several 2-liter bottles of non-diet soda, and typically some sort of dessert (cake, brownies, cookies, etc.) brought in from home. They eat all day long, even though all they do is sit in a chair. Their lunches are often huge piles of leftovers from home, or else something like a whole large pan pizza - they maybe eat 2000-3000 calories for just a lunch.
Sometimes as a contractor you are expected, even “demanded” to bring in several boxes of doughnuts as a “bribe” to make the operators happy so they’ll talk to you. At that point I feel like an enabler, but what else can I do? Many a time I’ve had to stop off at an early morning doughnut shop, pick from a bewildering array of unhealthy “foods”, and carry 10 pounds of sickly sweet death rings through the plant to the control room.
Oh Sweet Jesus. I looked this up and… how absolutely horrific. And family members just let her stay there, on the couch, without contacting a doctor or anything for more than 2 years.
I’d caution anyone who loves food about bariatric surgery. Remember, it’s permenant-- your stomach is shrunk to the size of your fist, meaning that you can never really eat a full-sized meal again. This may not sound all that bad, but it can really put a damper on your enjoyment of life.
I had a cousin who got this surgery, but somehow did not understand what the implications were. A person who loved food, she was despondant over the fact that she couldn’t eat at resturants any more (because she could only consume a tiny portion of food at once-- the rest went to waste). Once it really sunk in that this was permenant, she killed herself.
Your (assumedly morbidly obese) cousin is finally able to lose weight but decides to kill herself because she could no longer eat full meals at restaurants? I’m thinking there’s a lot more to the story than her not being able to finish her plate.
Most of the people I’ve seen talk about this surgery are told in extensive detail precisely how this will affect their lives. Did she not understand or was she not told?
I work at a large animal hospital, and we get more than a few calls from local hospitals wanting to use our “large animal CAT scan” because regular ones only support up to 350 pounds. Also some call for other large animal sized equipment to deal with very large human patients. We’ve had to regretfully inform them that there is no such thing.
We’re going to get a special table so that we can put the extremities of 1,000 pound horses through the machine while they’re at the same height as the scanner. It has occured to me that we might do a decent side business on humans over 350# who could use the service.
Seems like a fair trade off as we now sneak dogs into the local human hospital for their MRI’s.
We perform this surgery at the hospital where I work. There is extensive counseling involved before the surgery is done.
First of all, I’m very sorry about your cousin.
But as for restaurant food going to waste because of the large portions, that’s just wrong. I lost about 80 pounds over the last two years (through dieting), and cannot eat the large portions at restaurants anymore, either. I take the leftovers home with me and eat the rest the next day.
And the treadmill was connected to the grid! 
I think there’s a Clean Your Plate mentality at play here. I’ve started cutting back on portions and discover I can eat about half and still feel full. Plus, that “stuffed to the gills” feeling is gone. I heard on the radio that a Kids Meal order today is what used to be offered as an adult serving about 10-20 years ago. For some reason, Americans don’t feel they’re getting their money’s worth at a restaurant unless they have to undo their belt button as they pay the bill.
Dude, with the effort they typically put out…I doubt if they covered the microwave power to heat the nacho cheese they put on their breakfast chimchanga…
Nobody should jump into any kind of surgery (except emergency, of course) without considering the ramifications. Close to a dozen of my close friends and family have had gastric bypass surgery and every last one is glad they did it, even the ones who had trouble at first, like my mom. It was for some, literally a life-saving procedure, for others it was a new life, free from all that obesity entails.
Were all of them perfectly prepared? No. They were all sent to psychiatrists to be cleared for the surgery and then participated in educational workshops with GBS patients and surgeons, as well as given extensive reading materials. Even then they were surprised by the reality of the GBS. My friend said something like ‘I knew my stomach was going to be the size of an egg, but I didn’t know it was going to be the size of an egg!’
Every one of the people I know has had to make adjustments, that’s the point of the surgery. I sincerely hope your cousin’s surgeon learned that he or she needs to attend to their patients before, during, and *after * this life-changing surgery. I wish I could have had your cousin and my mom have a talk about how there’s a wonderful life to be lived, even when you can’t eat as much as you once did. Just two words, really: doggy bag!
I’m not here to crap all over bed-ridden fat people, but I honestly and truly wonder who takes care of their hygene and how. I saw a guy this morning in a scooter (the medicade will pay for it infomercial kind) that was literally too wide to get on the bus without rubbing against both wheel wells (in the front, where they aren’t dualies). Obviously, he wasn’t bedridden, but he didn’t look like he could get out of his scooter either, maybe he is scooter-ridden. He couldn’t even get his hands close enough together to hand himself his morning soda. He set it down, moved the scooter, and picked it up with his other hand. There’s no way he can thoroughly clean himself.
Now, you know that if someone is eating 20pc chicken meals, they are going to have to take a dump. And pass urine at some point. And there will be sweat, skin cells, dust, etc. that need to be cleaned off. Does a family member give them a sponge bath? Do they dump in their pants all day and try to clean it up all at once? Are they all wearing massive Depends? If so, and they are bedridden, how do they change them? How do they not get bedsores and other skin lesions? I have this concept of urine and feces coverered sweaty, dusty morbidly obese people rotting alive and slowly oozing into their sofas, scooters, and mattresses.
Please tell me this isn’t so.
And, if it isn’t so, are the people cleaning up the mess the same people enabling the obese person? Are there really that many people out there who enjoy scrubbing feces out of fat folds?
Aaand, if you are feeding a bed-ridden person a 20pc chicken meal, couldn’t you be charged with some sort of crime? I mean, you are making an ill person more ill. I realize that it is their choice to eat the fried chicken you brought, but you still brought it.
I don’t get it at all.
I have no idea how it works for the super obese bedridden person, but there are companies that make sponges on handles for mobility impaired, “scooter fat” people that can’t reach behind themselves.
Ah, so “Ah warsh mahself with a raig on a stick!” wasn’t merely a Simpsons invention!