Can you imagine, a person weighing 520 catties,
What is daily life and every move like?
At least, in the eyes of the person involved,
This flesh is not there for no reason.
He can cook, even bragging:
You can name any dish, and he can basically make it.
For example, braised chicken with mushrooms, no mushrooms, but soaked mushrooms.
Facing this flesh, he said he tried all known weight loss methods on the market.
Every time he goes out, when others see him, they might even underestimate his weight, thinking he weighs just over four hundred catties.
Even when he went to the hospital for a checkup, the doctor said X-rays couldn’t penetrate his body.
“He is now like standing at the edge of a cliff, if he doesn’t change soon, his life will face serious threats.”
This is the doctor’s exact conclusion on his weight.
He also wants a normal life and work, bidding farewell to his 520-catty self.
This fat man is Li Ming.
June 11, 2021, the first day in Zhongri Friendly Hospital.
The doctor is busy with various examinations for Li Ming.
When measuring the body, the doctor opens his arms to hug, but even Li Ming’s waist is out of reach.
The final measurement results are waist circumference 189 cm, hip circumference 186 cm.
And Li Ming is only 182 cm tall, with a waist circumference 7 cm larger than his height.
He looks like a square pillar akin.
Because of his fat body and wide width, he can’t wear regular clothes, only available in specialty plus-size clothing stores.
Even so, his clothes are even larger than regular plus-size clothes.
9X, one L, think about how big these sizes are.
Whether it’s pants or tops, it’s like pockets.
On the first day in the hospital, just trying on a hospital gown, Li Ming was sweating profusely.
Li Ming’s mother said her son has been a chubby kid since he was small.
And he never picked his food, eating whatever the adults ate.
At the age of three or four, friends and relatives around him no longer called his parents by name.
Greetings on meeting are “Chubby’s dad, Chubby’s mom.”
The father said, the child was a celebrity at a very young age, and everyone in the neighborhood knew this chubby kid.
Although Li Ming has been chubby since childhood, for a long time, his weight was within an acceptable range.
It wasn’t until he had a car accident at the age of 18 that everything changed.
Being bedridden for three months due to the accident, Li Ming ate a whole bag of peanuts.
In addition to that, he ate whatever came his way.
When he got up after three months, Li Ming’s weight exceeded 260 catties.
By the age of 25, his weight had reached around 400 catties.
In 2021, Li Ming was 28 years old.
From 25 to 28, his weight increased by over a hundred catties, finally settling at 520 catties.
Actually, when his weight soared above 260 catties, Li Ming already realized the seriousness of the problem.
He once tried not eating for a week, ending up just drinking water, and even the sight of water made him nauseous.
In addition to various weight-loss methods, Li Ming tried them all.
Even so, his weight couldn’t come down.
Ultimately, Li Ming had to seek help from a hospital.
His parents said their son snores loudly while sleeping.
The doctor also said extreme obesity could easily lead to sudden cardiac arrest during sleep.
To ascertain the effects of obesity on Li Ming’s sleep and breathing,
During his hospital stay, Li Ming wore a sleep monitor while sleeping.
The monitoring results showed severe sleep apnea in Li Ming.
The data indicated that in just one night, Li Ming’s breathing stopped 311 times.
The lowest blood oxygen saturation recorded was 46, while the normal blood oxygen saturation should be 100.
Of the 480 minutes monitored, 390 minutes were classified as oxygen reduction state.
Therefore, Li Ming’s condition of hypoxemia during sleep was extremely severe.
If a person remains in a state of hypoxemia for an extended period, all internal organs will be damaged.
Most affected are the heart, kidneys, and brain.
Especially, the absolute number of brain cells will continue to decrease, causing irreversible damage to the brain.
Currently, to eliminate this excess body fat, Li Ming needs to undergo gastric bypass surgery.
However, the doctor set a goal for Li Ming.
Before the surgery, he must lose 52 catties within a week.
Because only by losing weight, the visibility inside the abdominal cavity during surgery will be better.
Losing 52 catties in a week means losing over 7 catties per day on average.
Next, the hospital nutritionist tailored a daily diet plan specifically for Li Ming’s body.
Main meals were replaced by meal replacements, and various vegetables and fruits were included.
Sometimes, a meal would just be a cucumber and a bag of meal replacement.
For Li Ming, weighing 520 catties, this is an ordeal.
But he is very aware that he cannot give up halfway, coming to the hospital to lose weight.
Previously, due to obesity, Li Ming was rejected for jobs multiple times.
Later, he worked as a delivery driver for takeout.
However, his obese body had a fatal impact on his work.
Li Ming’s biggest goal is to reduce his weight so he can work properly.
On the third day of hospitalization, Li Ming lost 14 catties.
To further ascertain the impact of obesity on Li Ming’s body, the hospital conducted a series of examinations on him.
However, the X-ray examination of the lumbar area failed twice due to excessive body fat.
The coronary artery CT examination was also obstructed by excessive fat, making the blood vessel imaging unclear.
As a result, Li Ming only underwent a blood test, and the X-ray and CT scans were canceled.
Later, Li Ming’s attending physician Dr. Meng suggested trying again.
Especially for the CT scan, without prior knowledge,
Patients like Li Ming, who are obese, are prone to heart attacks caused by blood vessel blockage during surgery.
The entire morning of examinations did not go smoothly, and Li Ming was somewhat discouraged.
Fortunately, in his hospital room, there was a 54-year-old female obese patient.
She had an optimistic outlook and was constantly encouraging Li Ming.
The lady said that she had done a food show on a Fujian TV station 18 years ago.
Being obese was her trademark, but when reaching a certain age, health became more important.
When Li Ming just arrived, the lady encouraged mutual supervision, urging him not to sneak food.
During the second coronary artery CT scan, the situation remained the same as the first time.
Afterwards, Dr. Meng had Li Ming undergo a chest CT and cardiac ultrasound for reference.
During the cardiac ultrasound, the doctor described Li Ming as wearing a large fur coat, limiting the diagnostic possibilities.
Examinations revealed that even though Li Ming was only 28 years old, he already had fatty liver.
In addition, his lungs were compressed by a thick layer of fat, and his heart had become hypertrophied.
Obesity had severely affected Li Ming’s major organs, making surgery imminent.
However, he needed to continue losing weight to meet the surgical standards.
The lady underwent surgery ahead of Li Ming during her hospital stay.
After the surgery, everything recovered successfully.
Li Ming bought a few balloons to give to the lady,
and the two made a pact: successful weight loss, healthy living, with a bright future ahead.
On June 18, 2021, Li Ming had been hospitalized for a week.
Upon reweighing, his weight had already dropped to 480 catties.
Losing 40 catties in a week meant that he could go ahead with the surgery.
Regardless of who undergoes surgery, doctors always inform the family members of various risks beforehand.
Due to obesity, Li Ming faced even more risks during the surgery.
Dr. Meng went through each risk with Li Ming’s parents one by one.
The parents were well aware that without surgery, Li Ming’s life would be in danger.
Only by passing through this hurdle could their son’s health be restored in the future.
June 21, 2021, was the day of Li Ming’s official surgery.
For Li Ming’s surgery, the hospital had specially made everything from the operating table to the instruments.
The weight capacity of the operation table was 306 kilograms.
All laparoscopic instruments were extended versions.
Ordinary laparoscopic instruments are 36 cm long.
The extended versions were 52 cm in length.
After Li Ming lay down, his body had to be securely fixed to prevent him from falling off the operating table.
Intubating the trachea was the first difficult task during the surgery.
Due to his obesity, Li Ming’s respiratory tract was very narrow.
However, once the anesthesia was administered, if the intubation couldn’t be accomplished within a minute, the patient would be in danger.
Thankfully, despite the difficulty, the subsequent intubation went relatively smoothly.
Next came the key part – the surgery.
What the doctor had to do for Li Ming was called Symmetrical Three-Sleeve Gastric Resection.
Three incisions were made on the patient’s abdomen to carry out the operation using laparoscopy.
The surgery involved removing the greater curvature of the stomach, leaving a banana-shaped tube-like structure.
This way, food intake quantity could be reduced.
The first step of the surgery was establishing pneumoperitoneum.
The doctor injected carbon dioxide into Li Ming’s abdominal cavity, causing the abdominal wall to distend,
thus creating a visual space for the laparoscopic operation.
Before formally removing the stomach, work was required to suspend the liver, among other tasks,
Moving all obstacles in the stomach region was necessary for a smooth removal process.
Dr. Meng stated that without the prior weight loss measures,
During the surgery, due to the massive liver, it couldn’t be lifted.
It took 20 minutes of intense effort, but Li Ming’s fatty liver was successfully lifted.
Next, the doctor proceeded with the separation of the stomach and spleen.
If separation wasn’t done correctly and led to significant bleeding from the spleen, the subsequent situation wouldn’t be optimistic.
However, due to the excessive fat thickness of Li Ming’s abdominal wall,
each step the doctor had to work against the fat.
Outside the operating room, Li Ming’s parents were anxiously waiting.
Prior to entering the operating room, Li Ming’s father specifically took a photo of his son.
He wanted to keep this photo, showing it to Li Ming whenever he wanted to eat in the future.
Li Ming said that since he had traveled all the way to the hospital for this surgery, he would definitely not eat like that anymore.
It was too difficult.
While his parents were waiting, inside the operating room, the doctor successfully separated the spleen and stomach, moving out of the operation view.
Subsequently, the doctor proceeded to the stomach removal process.
Due to Li Ming’s excessively thick abdominal wall, it was somewhat challenging to remove the excised stomach tissue.
Finally, with the coordinated effort of two to three doctors,
The excised stomach section from Li Ming’s abdomen was finally taken out.
As the sight of the successful removal relieved the doctors,
The chief surgeon, Dr. Meng, noticed a minor umbilical hernia in Li Ming.
Li Ming’s umbilical hernia, caused by increased abdominal pressure due to obesity, resulted in a hole forming around the navel.
As a consequence, the small intestine within the abdomen could easily protrude through this hole.
Once the small intestine entered this hole, it would be challenging to return to its original position.
This could lead to intestinal necrosis or even intestinal obstruction.
As a result, the doctor proceeded to herniorrhaphy for the umbilical hernia.
This meant another surgery apart from the stomach resection.
When everything was successfully completed, even the needle used to suspend the liver looked bent.
Once everything was done, looking at the excised stomach,
Dr. Meng said, “I haven’t seen a stomach this big in a long time.”
Later, Dr. Meng took the excised stomach specimen outside the operating room for Li Ming’s parents to see.
The father took a photo to show Li Ming when he woke up.
With the successful surgery, the parents’ anxious hearts were finally at ease.
After the sutures were done, Li Ming gradually woke up from the anesthesia.
The doctor called him to wake up, and the first thing Li Ming said was, “I can’t catch my breath.”
By the third day after the surgery, Li Ming’s body had already recovered.
Dr. Meng told him that he had passed that stage of the surgery.
However, he needed to strictly follow the doctor’s dietary requirements for the next month post-surgery.
During those days after the surgery, the mother was by his bedside without much rest.
Next up was the recovery process.
The lady, having deliberated with Li Ming, agreed that after three months, he returned for a review.
Li Ming needed to lose at least over 100 catties by then.
June 24, 2021, Li Ming was discharged from the hospital.
Three months later, Li Ming successfully lost 110 catties.
Li Ming’s ideal weight in mind is 180 catties.
His weight-loss journey still has a long way to go.
