a half ton

I stayed up last night watching a special on TLC about a man who weighed a half of a ton. That's more than 1,000 pounds, people. He hadn't been out of his house in seven years.

When the paramedics arrived, he was just minutes from death. He was literally suffocating himself with his fat. He couldn't roll over on his back, and if he did, he would crush his lungs under the extra weight. His skin had stretched so much that he had these pockets of tissue that had gathered and were seeping fluids onto his bedsheets. I think it was called weeping tissues.... He had blood and probably fecal matter under his finger nails.

No words can describe what he looked like and how he must have been suffering.

The doctors put him on this crash diet of 1/10 of his calories (still more than I eat in a day) to get him down to a weight that was safe enough to do a stomach-stapling surgery. After a while, he was able to roll over and sit up with help.

He was married (when he was roughly 700 pounds; the marriage was never consummated), his wife would just feed him and feed him and give him whatever he wanted. One person on the show said it was bordering on assisted suicide. She said she just didn't realize how bad it had gotten. (!!)

Well I am not really sure why I am sharing this, except that I just can't stop thinking about him. It's so sad to me that there are people like that that just can't control themselves. Allegedly they don't have some hormone or something that lets them know they are full... Combine that with today's bad eating habits and lack of exercise and you have a man who weighs a half of a ton.