Benton Man Rediscovers Himself After Life-Changing Weight Loss Surgery
BY: JIM MUIR
THE SOUTHERN
BENTON ILLINOIS - Everybody has experienced one of those awkward moments when somebody speaks to you and calls you by name, and you’re completely caught off guard because you’re convinced you’ve never seen that person before in your life.
That exact situation happened to me recently - with quite an unusual twist.
I was making my way through the Benton-West City Wal-Mart a few weeks ago when one of the store employees greeted me in a manner that made me think I should know him.
“Hey, Jim,” he said with a broad smile. “How have you been doing?”
I looked at the gentleman, realized quickly that I didn’t know him, smiled and said “hi” and “fine” and kept on walking down the aisle. I’d walked 10 or 15 feet when I heard the employee call out my name again. I turned and walked back a few feet and in a matter of seconds we were standing face-to-face in the aisle.
“You don’t know me, do you?” were the first words out of the employee’s mouth.
“I’m sorry, I apologize,” I said. “But, I don’t know you.”
With those words a wide smile spread across his face.
“I’m Brian,” he said as the smile got a little bigger.
I stood there and looked at him and still couldn’t put it together. Finally, grasping at straws, I took a stab at who this guy might be.
“Brian the Cubs’ fan?” I asked meekly.
“Yeah,” he said. “Brian the Cubs’ fan.”
At this point in the story I should relate that “Brian the Cubs’ fan” is Brian Lampley, of Benton, a longtime employee at the store and a guy I talked baseball with every time we crossed paths. As I mentioned, he’s a Cubs’ fan and I’m a die-hard Cardinals’ fan so we exchanged more than a few near-insulting comments through the years. I always made it a point to note what time each year that he waved the white towel and said, “wait ’til next year.”
I should also note that the Brian I talked baseball with was a big guy, a very big guy and much bigger than the guy standing in front of me in the sporting goods department. In fact, it would be fair to say that Brian is not half the man he used to be, literally.
During our brief conversation Lampley, 41, related that he has lost 328 pounds and now weighs in at 200 pounds. Based on those numbers Lampley, who weighed 528 pounds, is now 64 pounds less than half the man he used to be.
Proving that I never completely shift out of reporter/columnist mode I told Lampley I would love to write his story and let readers know about his remarkable transformation. He agreed and a few days ago I interviewed the new Brian Lampley.
Unlike many people who battle a weight problem all their life, Lampley said his problems didn’t begin until after he graduated high school.
“I was about 200 pounds in high school and I wrestled and played football and I was active,” Lampley said. “It was after I graduated that my weight started to gradually increase.”
Lampley said during the past decade he knew his weight was skyrocketing but it soon became something he could not control. He said he tried “virtually every diet known to man” and nothing worked.
“I could stay on a diet a week, two weeks at the most,” he said. “And then it was right back in my old routine. I just couldn’t stick with it, no matter how hard I tried.”
Describing his eating patterns as “different,” Lampley said he rarely ate breakfast and most days didn’t eat anything until early afternoon. Once he began eating he said he would eat what would constitute a full meal every two hours. He said it became so bad that food literally dictated his moods.
“I would be driving along and just be in a bad mood, a horrible mood, to the point of being mad,” Lampley said. “And I could go through the drive-up window of a fast food restaurant and get a sack of food and literally drive away in a good mood, singing along with the radio.”
It was not until his 12-year-old nephew commented in a kind way, “you’re too big, Uncle Brian” that he decided to seek medical help.
Considered morbidly obese, Lampley ended up as a candidate for gastric bypass surgery. He said he had avoided scales for years and was shocked when he found he weighed more than 500 pounds. He said the last pair of pants he purchased prior to the surgery was a 9X.
“You have to be at least 100 pounds overweight, in good mental health and couldn’t have heart problems or sleep apnea,” Lampley said. “I knew it was a risk, but I felt like I was going to die if I didn’t get the surgery.”
Lampley underwent a procedure called the Roux-Y gastric bypass at a Champaign hospital. It’s a procedure where the stomach is divided and a small pouch - about the size of his thumb - is formed and the majority of the stomach is sealed off. A portion of the small intestines is then divided and sewn to the newly created stomach pouch.
The surgery was performed on Oct. 18, 2004, and Lampley said the weight soon began “falling off.”
“I didn’t go through any withdrawals and I didn’t sit around and crave certain foods,” Lampley said. “There are a few things I miss but truthfully, the first two or three months after the surgery I didn’t feel like eating.”
Lampley said it was a remarkable transformation for him even after losing the first 100 pounds.
“I lost the first 100 pounds and I still weighed 428 pounds but I felt like I was light,” he said. “The very first thing I noticed is that my knees and my feet quit hurting all the time. Another thing that has changed dramatically is my body temperature. After losing all that weight, I guess I lost my insulation because I’m always cold. Last summer when it was 100 degrees I never broke a sweat.”
When asked how his life has changed, Lampley gave a poignant answer.
“Well, first of all I live in a world now where I can participate,” he said. “Before, I avoided going places and avoided nearly everything and everybody. Now, I’m out there and I’m living again. I can go to a movie now; I can go to the mall. Every aspect of life I can participate again. I can go to a ballgame now and not have to sit in the bleachers because I couldn’t sit in a chair with arms.”
Lampley said he remembers vividly the stares of people and the feelings those stares and snickers created.
“Obesity is one of the last accepted discriminations,” he said. “I know how women feel when men immediately look at their breasts, because nobody looked me in the eye, instead they looked right at my belly. I can remember walking through the store and some little kid would say, ‘hey mom, look at the fat guy.’ It got where it was easier for me to just avoid being around people, and of course that made me turn more to food.”
Lampley has worked at Wal-Mart for 13 years but has a master’s degree in vocational rehabilitation administration. He said he continually looked for other work but believes his weight was a deterrent.
“I would go for job interviews and I could see it in their eye that my weight was a problem,” Lampley said. “I knew immediately that I was not going to get the job.”
Because his health insurance at work would not cover the procedure Lampley borrowed the $30,000-plus from his parents.
“I believe my weight would have eventually killed me, so I can really say that my parents gave me life twice,” Lampley said.
When asked to sum up the biggest difference in his life minus 328 pounds, Lampley couldn’t pinpoint one single thing.
“I feel like I’m 18 again,” he said. “Every single aspect, and I mean every single aspect, of my life has changed for the better. All I can say is that life is good, life is very good right now.”
(618) 525-4744
