***NY Times Article: October 12, 2000 (also ran in several other papers around the country)http://gastricbypass.netfirms.com/gb_raltman.htm ***Diane Rehm Radio show on NPR: October 25, 2000
***Discovery Channel: Understanding Fat (this show aired in 2002, Produced by the Cronkite Ward Company)
Bob Altman's Five Year Anniversary Message ~Click the pics for full sized image~ Greetings from the southern branch (Florida) of the support group. I can't believe that I have been gone from you all for nearly 2 years now. I also can't believe that October 8 will be the FIVE YEAR Anniversary of my weight loss surgery. I look back on all that has happened to me in the last five years and nothing stands out as much as the new life that I now have. That includes my daughters marriage, the birth of a new grandson (my fourth grandchild), another daughters divorce, my retirement (twice) and my move to Florida. Nothing is as precious to me as the thin life that I have now because of a valiant little guy named Bill Marcus. More about Dr. Marcus in a minute.
I think the best way to celebrate my new life is to tell you how I got here. About 5 ˝ years ago my very good and honest PCP, Dr. Douglas Shumaker in Rockville told me I had about 5 years to live if I continued at the rate of weight growth I was experiencing. I had been on every weight loss plan imaginable (except Jenny Craig – the thought of buying food that did not come a McDonald’s wrapper never quite appealed to me). I had even been one of the first male members of Weight Watchers in Michigan in 1966! Yes, I know-I’m old!
I was 410 pounds and getting larger. I had diabetes, sleep apnea, cellulitis, abscesses under the rolls of fat, edema in my legs, shortness of breath, heel spurs, high blood pressure, depression, and finally my cholesterol had begun to climb into the abnormal range (I would fool myself into thinking I wasn't so unhealthy because my cholesterol was always normal….what an idiot!) I was so fat that I couldn't use a urinal in the men's room…I had to sit like a girl…which was very embarrassing for a he-man like me…LOL! I could barely drive a car and could not walk up the stairs at night to go to bed without stopping to catch my breath. I was depressed and feeling hopeless. I had given up trying to lose weight. I was resigned that I would just die fat. My abilities to deny my weight and to block out the obesity were failing me. My PCP startled me with a very honest assessment of my situation and he told me about this doc in Silver Spring who was having some success with weight loss surgery. I guess my sense of survival took over and I reluctantly decided to give it one last try and see what this new doc had to offer. After stalling for a while I made the appointment and met with Dr. Marcus and my life changed from the minute this short, sarcastic, but brutally honest and compassionate man walked into the examining room. That day he gave me hope that I could change and he would help me do it. I attended several support group meetings before the surgery and meeting other postops also helped me make my decision to have the surgery. It was going to be an adventure, but little did I know at that time that the journey would be an adventure unlike any I had ever undertaken.
I went into the surgery with high expectations and little or no fear. I guess I should have been a little more afraid. Apparently during surgery or after when they were moving me off the operating table I burst the gastric artery. Later that night an alert ICU nurse saw that I was “going south” as they say and they rushed me back into the OR to find the source of what was diagnosed as internal bleeding. Dr. Marcus came back and apparently went in and literally held the ruptured artery in his hands for some time until another doc could scrub and get in to help him. Dr. Marcus had to remove my spleen to reach the site of the bleeding. He was able to repair the leak but every system in my body shut down and I ended up on life support with little expectation of survival. I remained on life support looking like a Thanksgiving Day parade balloon for nearly 3 weeks when Dr. Kariya, my pulmonologist finally was able to wean me off the life support. I woke up and asked for the score of the Redskins game and my wife told me that I had missed 3 Redskins games. After another week or so in the hospital I had to go to a nursing home for what was supposed to be a long recovery. I could not walk since most of my muscles had already begun to atrophy. With a very intense physical therapy regimen I was able to walk out of the Hebrew Home in 3 weeks, with a walker, but I was walking. By the beginning of December I was back to work part time using a cane to walk.
I had complications again a year later when I had my hernia repaired and a tummy tuck. I had severe bleeding and a coagulation problem that Johns Hopkins diagnosed as something called DIC, which is usually fatal. I didn't die. I’d looked the grim reaper in the eye again and he blinked.
As I said last year on my fourth anniversary and as I will say every day and every year: Thank you Dr. Marcus for giving me my life back on more than one occasion. You are a wonderful and caring human being and I would not be alive today without your medical skills and your love. I will always be indebted to you for never giving up on me.
Thank you Ellen (my wife of now 37 years) and my family for always being by my side and nursing me when I needed it and hitting me upside the head when I needed that too.
Thank you Jeanne and Charlotte for helping me recover and helping me learn how to stay healthy. All my co-morbidities are gone. I lost 240 pounds and regained a few pounds but I am finally in control of my life. I am still more than 200 less than I was in 1998.
All the complications I experienced were just part of the journey. I would go through them all over again just to feel as good as I have felt the past 5 years. I rarely look back just ahead at what is a great life.
And last, but not least, thank you to everyone in the support group without whose support and love I may never have had the courage to have the surgery, and the desire to fight when things were rough. Your experiences and your courage inspired me to live and still inspire me every day.
Bob Altman
BPD 10/98 More than 200 pounds gone but not forgotten!
