Eric Sagel

In December of 2011, I went to the ER problems breathing. I found out that I had a pulmonary embolism. A blood clot that had started in my leg had moved to my lung. As my Doctor described what a PE was, he drew a lung on a small white board and started putting small dots in the lung, and continued and continued and continued. My lung was cluttered with clots. At the time, I weighed 473 pounds.

After I recovered and was home, I looked up PE and discovered that up to 33% of PEs are found on the autopsy table. In many people this would have been a wake up call that I needed to do something about my weight.

The irony was that I had already that wake up call. I went to the ER on Dec. 19th. A week before, I had gone to my first appointment with a local surgeon to plan my lapband surgery. My timing really sucks.

I had the surgery on May 17th. I had to lose weight to get ready for the surgery. I lost 88 pounds. Since the surgery I have lost another 70 pounds.

I am now exercising regularly. I walk to my grocery store. I have gone down 4 shirt sizes.

I am at the time of this writing I made my goal to be under 300 lbs. Now, I am working towards a total loss of 200 lbs.

My health is improving and a lot of opportunities are becoming open to me.