As many of you know, I have been heavy for the vast majority of my life, from the early teens to present time. I have very few conscious memories of being thin and healthy. I have tried all kinds of diets, physical workout programs, etc. without much success. Some of you know of my two herniated discs in my back, which when agitated, are effected by my weight. Some of you also know of the high blood pressure that I have had for 6-8 years now, and some of you know that I have developed type II diabetes in the last 2 years or so. I want to be able to play with my kids, to watch them grow up, and to be a pain in their asses when I am old and senile. I want to be able to run alongside of them as I teach them to ride a 2-wheeler without training wheels- just this past February when it was super nice out, I was teaching Cody to ride his- and getting winded after 20 yards. I want to be able to do simple things like cutting the grass or yard work without being exhausted after an hour. I want to be able to do work on the house, or the car, or the fire truck. I want to be able to drive my fire truck without my belly rubbing the steering wheel. I want to be able to put on an air pack and go interior once again, and to maybe eventually become a P/T instructor for interior firefighters. Most of all though, I want to be able to be there for my wife and my children- physically fit, healthy and ready to go. Therefore, back in November of 2011, I started down the long road of entering St Luke’s Hospital’s (Allentown Pa.) Bariatric Surgery Program. Since then I have been going to a gauntlet of Doctors Appointments, assessments, evaluations, and classes. Today was the last day, an all-day marathon of classes and final appointments with the surgeon and anesthetist, and I am proud to report to you all that on May 30 I will be under the knife getting RNY Gastric Bypass surgery. My life will change drastically (for the better) as I will never again be able to eat the quantities that I am used to now; as my stomach will be altered to become smaller. I will also have to take vitamin supplements for the rest of my life as I will no longer be able to absorb the quantity of vitamins that I will need to stay healthy. If all goes according to plan and my experience parallels others in the same program, I will lose close to 125 pounds within 10-16 months, depending exactly how my body reacts to everything. Some of you out there know about this, but for the most part I sat on it until tonight, so that I would know more after all the appointments today. It will be a long, strange journey, but I will be in a much better position a year from now. For those of you who knew, and have been cheerleading me on, I just wanted to say thanks for your support; I could have not made this decision without you. You know who you are. Most of all, I need to thank my wife, who has been by my side through this whole thing- forcing me to make appointments, obtain referrals, make phone calls, picking up my prescriptions, etc….She is my “everything.” The above is an email sent to some individuals as well as a facebook post that I tossed up on my facebook a few weeks ago. I had a nice long blog post to go with it, however this new blogger format has me all screwy and butterfingers somehow deleted it. I'm not typing all that again. In the meantime, I had the surgery 8 days ago on May 8, 2012. If you are interested in the explicit details, google "RNY Gastric Bypass." This is the procedure that I had done. It was a complete success, which were the Doctor's exact words at my first post surgery follow-up today. Thus begins a new life for me. Some have commented (out of ignorance, really) that my life is ending, and I can never eat any good food again. WRONG. I can eat normal foods, just not in the quantities that I WANT to (see thats the difference- what I WANT to eat and what I CAN/NEED to eat.....) It will just take a while to get there as the new plumbing needs to adjust. I'll give you all more details later, like I said I had a good one banged out but it went bye byes. In other news, Casey Joseph just turned one year old!!!! Where does the time go??? It's well into 2012 Car/Truck show season, and I have not had the FWD out to anything this year yet; gas prices were insanely high earlier this year but have greatly dropped off, so I will be able to get out, Macungie 2012 is next week in fact. Shit. Have to wash the truck, and I wanted to touch up the silver striping around the wheels and lug nuts but I dont think thats going to happen, we'll see. A wash certainly is in order. And another Outer Banks trip is scheduled for July 20-27. We'll leave friday night around midnight, and haul ass down because I hate dealing with the saturday rental folk traffic on the main island that we have to go through to get to Hattaras Island. We can only stay for 7 days however as honey has to get to work on the 27th. Boooo. But also between days off, the surgery and other time off matters I just will not have the time to take any more then that. Its good to be back, lets see if I keep up with it......