When we have talked about number before, it was about money. This time we’re going to talk about numbers again but it’s going to be about weight, or fatness.

I’ve never been skinny, but there have been periods in my life where I’ve been fatter than others. When I was first stricken with Crohn’s Disease back in ’01, I was playing collegiate baseball and in the best shape of my life. I weighed in at probably around 210 pounds.

I got deathly sick and lost a lot of weight, fast. Several months later after I turned the corner and started recovering, I was skin and bones and down to 147 pounds.

I gained weight pretty quickly, but the bad part was I didn’t stop. After not being able to eat for three months, now I couldn’t stop eating. Over the next several years I slowly kept gaining weight.

I was probably around 260 when I was working in the Den of Iniquity, and working there kept me from going much higher. So when I quit, I unfortunately resumed my weight gain regimen.

So by this spring, I was about 315 pounds. One night I was almost asleep and my wife said to me, “I signed us up for a weight management class through the hospital” (where she works). Whatever, I went to sleep.

Then next morning I had a bad feeling. I said “Now WHAT did you say to me last night ?!!!!” Sure enough, we were going to Fat Class. Oh joy.

I was the lone male in Fat Class, it consisted mostly of older women. We would weigh in every week, I wish we would have had a “Biggest Loser” style weigh in where we would compete for the most weight loss every week, but no dice. They kept everything boring and confidential.

I did really well and was losing 1-3 pounds every week. But 7 or 8 weeks in to the class was when I got hit with this latest flare of Crohn’s. By then I was under 300. A month or so later being sick and in the hospital and on TPN put me down to about 275 or 80.

So that was nice, but there was a problem. I was on a boatload of medication, including prednisone. For awhile I was on 100mg a day, and it started to do a number on me. My face has become huge,

prednisone

and I’m constantly ravenous. I can’t stop eating. I was weighed yesterday and tipped the scales at 319. Goodness. And I think most of that is in the face.

And I’m afraid to cut my Absalom hair, because it will make my face look even fatter!