I have battled serious obesity since I was a Sophomore in high school. That was the year that I changed from super thin and 6'4" to moderately overweight. 

9 years after gaining that weight, I injured myself badly at work.  I had an instance where I was flipping a pizza oven stone and it started to fall - and my instinct was to attempt to catch it.  That mistake aggravated a previously unknown congenital defect from L4-S1. Basically my L5 vertebrae was about 75% forward from where it belonged. After a bunch of testing and such I had a spinal fusion from L4-S1. This reduced my pain level substantially so I could begin to work again.  But during the 9 months I was basically stuck in my bed on my left side, because it was the only position that gave me any relief. Being motionless for the majority of every day, caused me to gain more weight, so I was now around 240-250. 

In 1992 I moved to Utah and got married. In April 2001, I Tripped and fell on my left side. The way I landed caused serious damage to my Left shoulder and the rotator cuff. By the time I finished 4 surgeries on my left shoulder (2 via scope, 2 open) I had ballooned up to 395lbs.

I have been trying to control my empty calories consumed, which is truly a herculean undertaking, I managed to reduce my weight over the next 10++ years to reduce my weight to the range of 330-350. I also injured my Right shoulder and rotator cuff soon after the left one, in fact it was while my left shoulder was in a sling following one of the surgeries because I tried to do my full job including lifting cases of envelopes every day, that I injured my R shoulder.  

As time continued onward, I was in a car accident in January of 2016 that shattered my Left Tibia into 8 pieces just below my knee. Because I was on blood thinners thry could not do a surgical repair right away.  Instead they put my leg into an external fixator. Those things are brutally painful because you have pins driven into your thigh bone and Tibia below the pieces. Your muscles can move but the pins don't, and that means that you literally tear your muscle and that hurts.

The other big delay was that I developed "fracture blisters". This is the same as 2nd degree burns, caused by the intensity of the impact. My left leg from a bit below the knee all the way to just below my ankle. It was a crazy process to have the nurse peel my leg every day for 3 months. I finally had the surgery in April of 2016, and since then I have been working to regain range of motion in my left knee which was only about 75 degrees when I was released from the rehab facility.  It's now about 100 degrees, so I can get in and out of vehicles pretty good. 

After I was back to where I could walk somewhat decent I worked on gaining strength back and also increased range of motion, I was able to stand longer and walk further with my 4 legged cane every step. It's a pain to walk with the cane, but both knees have a torn ACL and the other ligaments are stretched out like my shoulder ligaments are. According to my surgeon at the time, once tall people stretch ligaments they will continue to stretch forever!  That means that my shoulders and knees will forever be trying to dislocate or move in ways they are not supposed to move. So I don't go anywhere without my cane and use furniture and walls for stability in the house.  

After all of that I had gained quite a bit, getting up to 345 again. Now that I stopped Pepsi and more, I have dropped down to 296.0 this week!!

Now I have to figure out how to keep it going down while having sweet stuff once in a while...