Althouse: "Father fears 800-pound son will die after hospital discharged him for ordering pizza."

October 10, 2015

"Father fears 800-pound son will die after hospital discharged him for ordering pizza."

Headline at The Washington Post.

The son had been in the hospital for 3 months, trying "to get his weight down to 550 pounds so he could have gastric bypass surgery," and in all that time he'd only lost 20 pounds. An 800-pound sedentary man needs 7,000 calories a day just to maintain that weight, so he must have been getting immense amounts of food, even without the ordered-in pizza.

The father said: “If he comes home and I do get him up the stairs somehow, some way he’s going to go right back to his eating habits.” How? Where does the food come from?

The son said: “I don’t feel like I broke the rules... I was on a care plan and you could’ve implemented on that care plan that I had an addiction to ordering out food. You guys knew that from the get-go the moment I got admitted there.... Rhode Island hospital completely sickens me... You broke the rules, not me.”

49 comments:

The Bergall said...: Perhaps he didn't like the food?; 10/10/15, 3:45 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: Damn. I remember the 680-lb. girl who died amid empty pizza boxes, but this is beyond ridiculous. Cannot someone just lock the dude up and forbid pizza deliveries to his room?; 10/10/15, 3:56 PM
Achilles said...: Lets have a pool on who is paying for all that food and medical care. Because it isn't the fat guy.; 10/10/15, 4:02 PM
jr565 said...: You broke the rules not me. You let me order the pizza!; 10/10/15, 4:06 PM
n.n said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/10/15, 4:13 PM
Original Mike said...: The devil made me buy this dress. I didn't want to do it. The devil made me do it.; 10/10/15, 4:14 PM
n.n said...: His junk food orientation seems to be stable. Also, his extreme obesity is a preexisting condition.

He's right. Someone else broke the rules.

At the other extreme, there was Terri Schiavo, but not by choice.; 10/10/15, 4:16 PM
Rosalyn C. said...: Father is afraid 800 lb. son is going to die at home. How is he going to deal with that mess!? Where's the mother, right? How did we become a society where everything is always someone else's fault, someone else's job? How do we restore some balance and sanity?; 10/10/15, 4:22 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: ""Father fears 800-pound son will die after hospital discharged him for ordering pizza.""

Discharged him? Nonsense.

Q: Where does an 800-pound son sleep?
A: Anywhere he wants to!; 10/10/15, 4:47 PM
Michael K said...: "You broke the rules not me. You let me order the pizza! "

"Flounder, You fucked up. You thought we wouldn't give that pizza !"

I once admitted a 700 pound woman whose chief complaint was that she was afraid she would starve to death as she could no longer get out of bed.; 10/10/15, 4:50 PM
Jake said...: I'm trying very hard not to hope something bad happens to this dope.; 10/10/15, 4:52 PM
Megaera said...: "...and if I do get him up the stairs somehow ..." Ah, the memories of the good old days on the rescue squad's bariatric ambulance, responding with at least 2 fully-crewed fire trucks and having to wait while they removed doors (and sometimes door frames) to get patients in and out of their own houses, anywhere from 5 to 8 of us carrying someone up or downstairs so they could be put on the extra-heavy-duty stretcher and winched into the wide-box truck. And they could NEVER explain how they got that way, let alone stayed that way ... but I guarantee you, their family members aren't the ones risking their backs and their livelihoods getting those patients in and out of the house, to and from the hospital ... Good times, good times...; 10/10/15, 4:52 PM
The Godfather said...: Obviously his weight is a symptom, not the problem. If he were to get his weight down to a quarter of a ton, and have gastric bypass surgery, how long do you think it would take him to get back to 800 lbs? I don't know if there is a solution to his problem. I know that as long as he and his family continue to blame others, he will not improve.; 10/10/15, 5:05 PM
Achilles said...: "An 800-pound sedentary man needs 7,000 calories a day just to maintain that weight"

That's a lot of food stamps.; 10/10/15, 5:08 PM
David said...: Dead man walking, if he could walk. God help him because no one else can.; 10/10/15, 5:08 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: From Earlier Post:

""I am icy, certainly, but I am not uptight."
Writes Alana Massey, complaining about "the troubling ease with which men dismiss women as prudish if they are not immediately open and enthusiastic about sex."

Seems Alana may have found her man; I don't think sex is the first thing he thinks about when he sees a woman.

He is wondering if the woman is delivering a pizza.

I am Laslo.; 10/10/15, 5:10 PM
cubanbob said...: He really doesn't want to lose weight. He can't be helped until he does. And it would help if his father wouldn't help enable the son's food problem.; 10/10/15, 5:10 PM
Titus said...: how does he pinch a loaf?; 10/10/15, 5:16 PM
Rob said...: Discharging him from the Rhode Island hospital was their not very subtle way of telling him he needs to move to a bigger state.; 10/10/15, 5:18 PM
Skyler said...: It's a free country. And doctors should be free to deny service to someone not following their sound advice. And so should whoever is paying for this. He made his bed. Let him die in it.; 10/10/15, 5:23 PM
Anonymous said...: A hospital is probably not the right kind of facility anyway. What is really needed here is something more like a drug addiction rehab center except one designed for eating problems, something where the guy only gets what the facility's nutritionist deems necessary.

I have seen some very heavy people lose weight pretty quickly, but in almost every case, the plan involved water-only for fluids and heavy restrictions on carb consumption. The one time I did water-only for fluids, just for a month, the result was a drop of about 20 pounds despite no other changes in eating or exercise habits.; 10/10/15, 5:26 PM
Levi Starks said...: Let's picture that 800 pound man as figurative of the US government.
He/it's huge, and no matter what happens it's appetite cannot be satiated.
When confronted with the magnitude of the problem, who gets the blame?
Now of course I'd say the democratic party and it's leaders are like the man's father, who is obviously co-dependant and the enabler that supplies the government with what it needs to grow. And those mean conservatives at the hospital only want to starve us.; 10/10/15, 5:29 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: I don't have much empathy for an 800 pound young man and his enablers. It just seems like a slow suicide to me, sorry.; 10/10/15, 6:01 PM
Michael K said...: The enablers are the key. A cousin of mine has a son who is a teenager, or was, and weighted about 550 pounds. How does a 15 year old kid get that much food ?; 10/10/15, 6:18 PM
Adamsunderground said...: The hospital should advertise, touting their Out-patience statistics.; 10/10/15, 6:52 PM
cubanbob said...: There are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat. If he needs 7,000 calories a day just to maintain his weight he could be eating a 14 inch pie with pepperoni a day @ 2,700 calories a day and eat another 2,000 calories a day and still lose a pound every other day which would be about 12 lbs a month X 3 would be 36 pounds. He was eating more than just the one pie he confessed to.; 10/10/15, 7:50 PM
cubanbob said...: There are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat. If he needs 7,000 calories a day just to maintain his weight he could be eating a 14 inch pie with pepperoni a day @ 2,700 calories a day and eat another 2,000 calories a day and still lose a pound every other day which would be about 12 lbs a month X 3 would be 36 pounds. He was eating more than just the one pie he confessed to.; 10/10/15, 7:50 PM
Geoff Matthews said...: What if he spent a year taking a regiment of vitamins and water? Basically, a zero calorie diet for one year, but he would get all of the required nutrients? Give him appetite suppressants, and a subscription to Netflix. What could we expect to happen?; 10/10/15, 7:56 PM
BN said...: Levi said: "Let's picture that 800 pound man as figurative of the US government.
He/it's huge, and no matter what happens it's appetite cannot be satiated."

R. Chatt said: "How do we restore some balance and sanity?"

I said: I don't know but there will be blood.; 10/10/15, 8:10 PM
FleetUSA said...: The state can't care for every problem child. He won't make it very long. His dad can do whatever he wants but not on our penny.; 10/10/15, 8:29 PM
chickelit said...: Titus said...
how does he pinch a loaf?

He probably has to pinch twice -- first at the sphincter and then manually to release the loaf stuck between flaps or folds.

I wonder if he's stool banking?; 10/10/15, 8:53 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: At some point he was physically able to masturbate.

Then a point came where he was too fat to masturbate.

How the Hell does that transition not tell you to lay off the fucking pizza?

Dude, you chose still more pizza over being able to reach your own cock?

Fuck.

I am Laslo.; 10/10/15, 8:58 PM
Renee said...: He was holding up a bed. Someone else who was ready for the program needed that bed.; 10/10/15, 9:15 PM
Known Unknown said...: "I'm trying very hard not to hope something bad happens to this dope."

Right there with you, Jake.; 10/10/15, 9:18 PM
Can'tFindADecentAlias said...: "Let him go. Think of it as evolution in action.; 10/10/15, 9:22 PM
Laslo Spatula said...: Somewhere there must be a lost Sam Kinison riff on this.

800 LB Guy: Get this: I got so fat I can't reach my own cock.

Paralyzed Guy: What?

800 LB Guy: I got so fat I can't reach my own cock.

Paralyzed Guy: So, it's like a disease? Glandular? You have 600 pounds of tumors?

800 LB Guy: Naw. I just really like pizza.

Paralyzed Guy: You fuck! I fucking DREAM of being able to touch my cock again!

800 LB Guy: It's not that bad, really.

Paralyzed Guy: It's not that bad? You can't even touch your own cock -- by your own fucking choice, day after day, not like having your fucking spine severed in a car accident --and you're OK with that?

800 LB Guy: You know what I really miss?

Paralyzed Guy: Sure. I want to hear this.

800 LB Guy: I really miss being able to wipe my ass.

Paralyzed Guy: You know, yeah: I miss that, too. I miss that because MY SPINE GOT SEVERED IN A CAR ACCIDENT. Not because I couldn't LAY DOWN THE FUCKING PIZZA!

800 LB Guy: I have a sickness. I'm addicted.

Paralyzed Guy: You know what I was addicted to? BEING ABLE TO USE MY FUCKING DICK, that's what I was addicted to! I could masturbate, I could fuck: you know what I would give to fuck the Ugliest Girl in the World right now? Just once?

800 LB Guy: You -- you don't understand the depths of my sickness...

Paralyzed Guy: The depths of your sickness? My fucking depth now starts at everything below my FUCKING CHIN!

800 LB Guy:I thought you would be able to understand...

Paralyzed Guy: Understand? An able-bodied person with a fully-functioning spine willing to GIVE UP ON THEIR OWN DICK? AWWW! AAAAWWW! OWWWWW!

Something like that.

I miss Sam Kinison.

I am Laslo.; 10/10/15, 9:23 PM
Ambrose said...: Wow, you have a son and at birth he weighs what, 8 pounds, 3 ounces. And then ... "Sunrise, Sunset", you wake up one day and he's 800lb. Where does the time go?; 10/10/15, 9:26 PM
Jason said...: So, he's behaving like Congress with our money.; 10/10/15, 9:31 PM
BN said...: "I miss Sam Kinison."

He wouldn't be allowed to be Sam Kinison anymore.

And, besides, he was pretty fat. Just saying. He might tell that joke from the other side.; 10/10/15, 9:33 PM
walter said...: "How? Where does the food come from?"
and..
Who gets pizza delivered in a hospital?

Yeah..some of those obvious, severely begged sort of questions that journalists are somehow unable to ask. Like when reporting on the glory of a single mom with her 6 kids getting a Habitrail for Humanity house...as if the children were airdropped into her life.

Have to wonder how/if this guy says the least bit clean in a non-medical environment. Maybe the truth is he was burdening the CNA's too much..probably breaking their Hoyer lifts..or whatever sort of medcrane they order in for this amount of largesse.

But if all you eat is crap..like pizza, at about 300 calories a slice, not that hard to get enough in ya over a day to maintain...if supply chain is uninterrupted.; 10/10/15, 9:46 PM
cold pizza said...: Forget the rehab center. Get this guy into the water at SeaWorld. The amazine Man-eat-tee. Put in some extra heavy duty filters and tether him to a wall so he doesn't float away. Put him on sardines until he's down to a less-than-whalelike weight and then get him the surgery.

Because no human should have to empty bedpans (if he uses them) for this tub. -CP; 10/10/15, 9:55 PM
walter said...: Svelte by the 800lb metric, but a bit of err..levity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKVQY-LQ_3o; 10/10/15, 10:39 PM
averagejoe said...: Eat pizza or die!; 10/10/15, 11:13 PM
Deirdre Mundy said...: "Who gets pizza delivered to the hospital?"

All sorts of people. Staff members. Visiting family. post-partum women. Kids with cancer who won't eat anything else. Old people. People in the mental health floor.

The thing is, unless you go downstairs to MEET the guy, it comes to the nurses' station.

So... the hospital must have been enabling as well....; 10/10/15, 11:34 PM
glenn said...: Maybe his welfare caseworker was helping him out. They do stuff like that.; 10/11/15, 2:47 AM
EdwdLny said...: Hmmm. Let him enjoy the consequences of his choices and decisions. He and the other leeches on society.; 10/11/15, 5:53 AM
clint said...: Three hundred pounds is "likes pizza too much" weight.

Eight hundred pounds is something seriously messed up hormonally or psychologically or both.

But, yeah, a hospital bed doesn't seem like the right place for him. He should go win the Biggest Loser, if they're still running that thing.; 10/11/15, 8:18 AM
hawkeyedjb said...: It's all somebody else's fault. What's this guy's name, Hillary Obama?; 10/12/15, 8:05 AM
Peter said...: It is difficult to motivate oneself to help someone who won't help themselves?; 10/12/15, 9:26 AM