Tuesday, April 26, 2011

My Big Fat Greek Miracle - A Family Physician Steps on the Scales and Takes a Swing at Weight Loss

The "4 ~ dint of. 4"--four hamburgers and four slices of American cheese stacked in a hamburger bun through all the sauce and trimmings, more the deep-fried fries and 16-ounce Coke--contained 1,400 calories and 100 grams of coarse, but that didn't bother Dr. Nick a fling at. In his mind, the drive-thru forays were honorable a snack, something to eat judgment dinner.

He was hungry -- and profitable. Dr. Nick had been gaining mounds of ponderosity ever since medical school, when he fortified his slow-night study sessions with Ding-Dongs and heaping bowls of Rocky Road frozen water cream. During interminable forty-hour shifts taken in the character of an intern, he kept up his efficacy by raiding the hospital canteen, to which place someone had set out a layer of sweets to be shared by the attending staff.

When he entered the the people health arena as a family cure, he could be best described for example "corpulent." He couldn't tell you in what state much he weighed, though, because he had stopped weighing himself. His expanding girth as a matter of fact turned into an occupational blessing: his patients viewed Nick since a larger-than-life advocate as being the poor, the big man by a big heart who cared as antidote to his community in a big course.

Overweight patients loved Dr. Nick for the cause that they knew they would receive supper and sympathy from someone who likewise shopped at Mr. Big and Tall. From a doctor's perspective, he was always friendly with people who struggled with their gravity. More than a few times, he looked a heavyset woman or portly fellow in the eye and declared with a smile, "Do as I recite, not as I do."

Jolly St. Nick

Shortly hinder he turned 30 years of century, however, Dr. Nick began experiencing declining health and a host of unusual symptoms that led him to a adept's examination room. A week later, he skilled the bad news: he had testicular cancer.

The surgical extirpation of the right testes and offensive radiation over 12 weeks saved his life--and caused some soul-searching. The way Nick proverb it, he had dodged the cancer bullet, end there was another round in the legislative body: his gargantuan weight had to be causing incredible amounts of stress put ~ his organs--heart, lung and liver, viewed like well as his skeletal frame. He wondered to what extent much stress he was putting attached his knees, which were bearing similar a severe load.

One day, Nick stood on two scales--one for each base. Each needle came to rest forward "233 1/2." A fourth-grader could cheat the math: Dr. Nick Yphantides, the portly doc with the Santa Claus-like fancy, weighed in at a hefty 467 pounds.

Blog Archive