Empowered Famous Folks

[Guest guest]

Yesterday, I had the distinct honor and privilege to have spent the day in a

room full of famous people who gathered on their own initiative to

participate and celebrate new life, new knowledge, new friendships, new

social and emotional anchors and resumption of " living. " There was not a

person in that room there on a professional basis, no surgeons, no

nutritionists, no social workers. Just folks with whom I have so much in

common and we/they did it on our own!

I could not help but sit there in that room listening to all that it was a

magical transformation indeed and how fortunate I was to be allowed to be a

part of it compared to the way I lived the majority of my life.

I am writing, of course, about the Houston Bariatric Patient's Conference. I

would estimate we had about 60 or so (am sure I will be corrected) folks

mainly from Houston groups but really all over the country who attended.

(I am so impressed with her in person and have become even more of

a groupie) did a great job in her talk about nutrition and post op life in

general. I, for one, owe her so very much for the sharing that has made a

difference in my life for the last two years.

These are famous folks, one and all and personal heroic figures for me. I

think that because through my own experiences I know first hand about the

life transforming process WLS has been for me. I always say that is the only

thing that I am an authority on and most of the time I feel like I am only a

passenger even there!

But here were folks that I have shared so much with for so long that I

finally got to meet and greet and to know even more personally than before.

That makes em famous to me cause they were all either in the process of

transforming their lives, or had recently done so, or had done so at some

point in the past and were there re-committing themselves to retaining the

grasp of a life only dreamed of pre-op. That makes em courageous and

impressive alone.

The very idea of being in a room filled with that much courage!

But even more impressive was the fact that they had all voluntarily gathered,

voluntarily committed again and again to renewal of the renewal. Yep, it was

educational and I know those of us who are active online and in live groups

talk about a lot of the nutritional issues we share but I was conscious again

that it was and always is so informative and refreshing to hear it all again

and reinforce old knowledge and soak up so much new. Maybe it is just

hearing it spoken that is so reinforcing reading it. Maybe it was just an

awareness of how proud I was at being allowed to keep the company that I was

in!

As in life in general, IMHO, one can chose to be either proactive or reactive

and here I was privilged to be in a roomfull of proactive folks and they were

all famous! Every one!

I came away with a renewed sense of committment on personal issues, most of

which have relatively little to do with the numbers that fly by when I step

on a scale. Are the numbers important? Yeah, kinda sorta, because they

relate to how well I am doing or not doing with health issues. I could

really lose another 40 or so and probably do really well with other issues.

But it is almost always about quality of life for me now.

Yesterday, was one of those glowing days when I was aware of how much my

life, my perspective, my values and my sense of optimisim for the future had

changed, along with some clothing sizes. I think I have all that in the

right perspective for me this morning! It might change before this afternoon

however so I have no sense that anything is in concrete. It keeps me more

flexible on my toes to see it this way :-)

Forgive the ramble, I just wanted to share that WLS experience that I had and

to publicly acknowledge all those wonderful folks in Houston who worked so

hard to make it such a success!

Dan Slone

Surgery 5/2/2000

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 8/25/02 7:35:18 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

DianneOSU@... writes:

> Let's be sure to do this again NEXT year!

And if, er...when, you do, be sure t extend invitations to people in other

areas to come. I know I was offline for several months, but the first I heard

about this was just a couple of weeks ago and it was innuendo (that

was presenting a talk in Houston). I would have liked to have attended

myself.

Maybe this could be the start of a National WLS Patients Conference. ;^)

In Charlottesville, VA

RNY w/ gall bladder removal, 3/31/99, 318