Losing Weight

Losing a 500 Lb. Gorilla..??

THE BEGINNING

 So good afternoon everyone, I would like to welcome you to what I called awhile back Rick's Story. "AKA losing the 500lb Gorilla "  I used to have a website that was maintained by myself back in 89-90 which was ricksstory.com back in the day when domain registrations were 150 bucks. It was the story of my gaining weight till I was up to almost 850 lbs. Now how I got that way and how I am where I am now is a very crazy and winding story to the likes of which you have never, ever heard of before. These blog posts, pictures, radio interviews are all part of a very strange journey into the world of being a man who's life went from being 6ft4 inches tall and an all star right defensive tackle for the Amherst Tigers in 1973-76 to a man who could not stand on his feet for more then 2 mins.

So where to begin this tale of the 800 lb man, well it all started back in 1976 I graduated from high school and my mom and step dad were getting a divorce. So after that we (my 2 brothers, my sister, our dog Greta and my mom) all moved out to Burbank Calif. Where the sun was hot and the women were hotter especially for an 18 yr old high school grad. I met a lot of very kool people and did a lot of very good partying and as my friends can attest to there were some awsome parties running around the valley in the 70's.

My brother Todd who was 3 yrs my Jr was a David Lee Roth wanna be and my sister Ellen was a few yrs younger then that, and my youngest brother Jim (aka Boomer nicknamed by my aunt because he always was falling down) had it the roughest after the divorce. But we all had each other and a very good mom who's children's well being was always first and foremost on her list of things to do. Being a military kid and never spending more then 3 yrs. in any 1 school so we became very adept at making friends both good and bad one's. We could do most things on our own at this age (I was 18) and girlfriends were never my strong suit I was always the JOCK type. Played Baseball, basketball, football, shot put in track & field, Hockey you name it I have probably played it but playing the FIELD was not my strong suit.

So hanging around Burbank Ca. I had many types of friends, and working on cars was a main hobby of mine and I loved to make the cars go fast. I had a 68 Olds 442 that I had bought from the actor Richard Slattery from the old TV show CPO Sharkey with Don Rickles. Man did I sink some cash into that machine and it payed off in the long run because that sucker hauled ass and fast cars and faster women go together real well..if I only would of known that back then dammit.

Well my crazy story begins one day while I was working on a car in the street on hollywood way in Burbank  with a bunch of my friends pulling a transmission out of his dads car and replacing it with a new one. As I was taking a little break leaning against the car, a person driving by pulled over to the side of the road nearer my friend  and he walks up to the window as to see what's up. It was the usual thing living in Burbank to be asked by some tourist who was looking for NBC studios for the tonight show taping which was right down the block. Well much to my surprise my friend steps away from the car and says "hey Rick he want to talk to you" So I ask who is it? He says "I don't know. So I walk over to the car and there in the drivers seat but this guy who just hands me this note, soaked in perfume and he drives away and the note reads like this...

Hi my name is Rachel (I'll use Rachell but that was not her first name) and I have been admiring you from afar for the last few months and I think you are extremely good looking and I would love to ask you over for a dinner. tonight so if you are intrested please give me a call..with her phone # listed in the note..bla, bla, bla. No lie 25 yrs later I can remember the day like it was yesterday. So I take it over to my friends and they pass it around and egg me on to call her and see what happens....

And 1 other thing...she told me in the note that  the guy who drove up and handed me the note was in fact her husband (who she had a very open marriage with) was going to be going out of town for the next few days and that it was no problem with me coming over...

Stay tuned for part 2...

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The cabbie

The Beginning Pt-2

So where did I leave off...ow ya setting up the dinner, I think it was set for the next evening at her apt which was just a few blocks away. And as I look at this with hind site I really should have been a bit freaked out about someone watching me from afar  but young, dumb and full of some had to take over the only brain all of us young dudes think with. so I get all gussied up ready to have a nice dinner and off I went. Walked up to the door nervous as hell but not that much since I already knew what she looked like from the picture she had provided in the big nilla envelope. She was the Marlo Thomas type, small, petite and very pretty all of 105lbs soaking wet. She was a model that worked in Hollywood at different fashion event around town and made decent money but as I found out that underneath all of that nice shiny exterior was a raging nutjob full of hatred and obsession.

We had a nice dinner and sat around watching tv and talking. She had a old beta max tape machine that had some movies on it and I thought that gadget was kool as all hell. We started watching some movies and sure enough the talk soon turned to her attraction towards me and my body. And to tell you the truth this had never been an area of expertise for me so away I went into the wild blue yonder of talking and other activities. Now you have to remember this was still a married lady and due to that fact and that I was raised to respect the marriage thing I did not want to go this way but then something really crazy happened and I 'll never forget it. As I said we were watching a movie and I was on the couch nearest the TV and she was to my right further away from the tv. She had asked me earlier if I wanted some ice cream or something and I said sure what do you have. And all she had was the Hagen Daz pint size things of choc and vanilla.

So their I was watching a movie, eating some ice cream with a very attractive lady 7 yrs my senior and all was well when she tapped me on the shoulder so I would turn her way to see her her laying there on the couch against the arm with her legs facing me spread apart and she was well lets just say having fun with herself. WELL GEE WIZZ holy crap whats a guy to do but do what every red blooded American boy my age of 20 did...RUN..no we went at it right there on the couch for hours and I spent the night and so it all begins. So over the next few weeks things seem to go along pretty steadily very good and since I was living with my mom and her husband was moving out, getting divorced and I was sick and tired of living with mom so I moved in with her under her advice.

As I look back on this night it was a night that changed my life 110 % because this was in essence the Black Widow spinning her web to catch her prey and that is exactly what happened. Now at this time I was maybe a year out of high school so were talking 77-78 I was 6 ft. 4 inches tall and weighed 240 lbs and was in great shape  but that was all about to change DRASTICALLY. Over the next few months things went A OK we had a lot of sex and things were just humming along. 1 day I found a calendar of her's that she would use as a daily diary sort of thing with different sorts of weird markings on each day. Some were obvious like Dr stuff and kid stuff (she had 2 kids when I met her 1 girl, and a baby boy who was the product of a affair with a movie star the she had actually won a paternity suit against him and had like 50 G's in the bank for the boy) but the 1 thing that caught my eye were these little sets of XXX's in the lower right hand corner or just about every day.

Well this spiked my curiosity and I asked her what all of this stuff meant and she tells me that the XXX's were making love and the O were the Oral side of that. WEll I'm not bragging or anything here but in 1 month there were 127 XXX's and about 60 OO's I Said "your kidding no way did we do it that much" and she said "think about it" and I did and I thought all the lunch breaks coming home X after dinner X after Bfast X all localizing around FOOD if you will beginning to notice a pattern starting to take shape....

Stay tuned for more tomorrow....

The Cabbie

Part 3

Getting Bigger

Well as the pattern continued to get worse and worse my mind was oblivious to the fact that I was getting bigger and bigger. We went on dates and movies and so on and so forth until one day I came down to go to work and I had no clean clothes that I could find among the regular stuff that I would wear. So you know those time where you dig in the drawers to find some of the old shit you used to waer in a pinch it will work. Well I found a pair of good ol Levi's and I went to put them on and they were at lear 6 inches from buttoning in the front. I was dumbfounded and decided that I needed to go on a diet. Well in this world that I found out later to be labeled "FEEDERS" which are people who love to feed people and they worship the stomach and everything that has to do with the size of it all. Now keep in mind she was only 100 lbs soaking wet so I just couldnt wrap my head around this thought.

So over the net few months the affair got a bit worse and worse as my weight continued to grow and grow. Being completely manipulated with sex, food, drugs and whatever else she could scrounge up. There were time when we would be driving in the car (I couldnt drive anymore since I could not get behind the wheel) and she would leave the ac running for as long as we were driving for fear that me sweating would result in me losing weight. To really point out the extent of her obsession Im going to tell you a story here that knockes the shit out of me every time I think about it.

Before I met her I had gotten into a bit of trouble selling some weed and the cops at this time in the 70's were making examples out of drug dealers. (I had 3 dime bags I was taking to a friends house and got pulled over) So in the interem I had met my wife and gained a bunch of weight about 150lbs. so now Im like 400+ so here I am going to be sentence in LA county jail, I get 6 months jail time and I thought she was going to have a fit. I almost looked at it as a great thing since I could lose weight without being hit over the head with a cain. So I go into the jail start doing my time then 1 day I get pulled out of the chow line only to be givin doulbe portions of all the food...ya thats right she had gotten a court order for me to recieve double portions can you believe that....?

How did she do it..well heres what I found out. She had went to her shrink (ow ya she saw a few in her day) and the shink honestly wrote a letter asking the judge to grant her this order of double food portions since her mental stability depended on the fact that I stay a large man...fuck me I could not even believe this. But of course I did not eat all that crappy food, made some good money pawning it off of others who did want it, espcially the deserts..hahaha. Well she would visit me everyday, giving me the 15 bucks allowed by the county jail at that time to by candy bars at the store once a week. I also sold these when the store was short and made good heep off of that also. So eventually I was able to walk again and was feeling a ton better after 6 months in the jail.

So here comes the day when I get out, keep in mind that during her visits I remember her crying as if she had lost a dam child becasue my stomach was getting smaller and she begged me to eat more and more to the point where I actually gelt very sorry for her and I knew at that point she was a sick person and I felt I had to help since while I was in jail and getting better she had made several promises to me about getting help and we actually got married while I was in jail in the judges chambers in Burbank Ca. so I got out we started out on our new life together only to end up in the same bad way I was before, I loved foor and food loved me so it was a marriage not so made in heaven but as in hell if you ask me.

Several times I had left her and went to my moms house to go on a diet and get myself better but @ 400-500 lbs its a long hard road and when she would pop over my moms house with a pizza I just couldnt say NO. OW YA I understand what your thinking, I had as much of a problem ad she did and I agree 120% but I had no where to run. @ 500 lbs you dont move to fast or to far til one day when my mom moved to hawaii and I made a brash escape and got to Hawaii to be with her. I figured the distance and the time there would keep me away from her far enough to do what I had to do. Most of the pictures you see like the one with my sister in the pool was iin Hawaii, Me in my blue shit that was walking up the driveway in hawaii to the house but ow the best laid plans of mice and men.....

So I was there about a month all was going good, I was dropping weight and feeing better every day. I had not heard from the X and all was well till one day when the doorbell rang and she was at the front fucking door..I could not believe my eyes. I told here to get out of here I didn't believe her lies about wanting me to lose weight and that she would help me bla, bla, bla. Well after 2 weeks of talking and talking me she whittled me down and I went back to california with her breaking my moms heart which to this day I cry about time and time again now that she has passed on but she live to see me shed this problem and I am proud of that. So I get back to calif. a few months go by, I have no mom to help me now and she went back to doing what she did best manipulation to the 10th degree and I fell for it.

Now I going to remind you here tht I was only like 19-20 yrs old so my knowledge when it came to women and common sence was not at it's best so this 7 yr older woman took complete advantage of that dragging me down a hole so deep that suiside was often in my thoughts since I remember as a kid being a bit overweight and how hard it was just to lose 20 lbs never mind 300 a seemingly impossible task.

Well I will continue another day soon so subscribe to the RSS FEEDS and follow me on twitter/vegascabbie any email you want to send please feel free vegascabbie@cox.net

The Cabbie....

THE CLIMB CONTINUES, AND THE ABUSE STARTS !!!!!

Well to put it lightly I was in a bad situation that as I look back just could not get my way out of. I was to a point in my life that was the most horrible that a man could ever want to be in. I remember times like this with a glimmer in my eye of wondering what I would do with my life if I ever lived through this experience. Well I did and here I am talking about it since I have come to realize that this is a problem across the country, a silent problem that is killing people. Believe it or not that after I left her she did this all to another man that she was cheating on me with when she was with me.

I remember that my ex wife would watch over me and literally force me to eat my food or make my life a living hell. You must realize there that I was over 500lbs, there was no job, no money, and the sex goes at about 450 lbs. well at least any decent kind of sex. So I remember this one incident where I got caught giving the end of my hot dog bun to the dog we had and the next thing I know I was getting hit over the head with a cain. Thats right a walking cain that split my head wide open, bleeeding profusly I called 911 or rather she did since I was not allowed a phone it was locked up in the room where she slept.

So get this the ambulance gets there treatrs me for the wound and in the mean time I'm telling them what happend, shes outside talking to the cops and when the cop comes in the house I literally get accused of assaulting her (you have to remember I was always sitting on the ground I never walked anywhere accept to use the restroom) I said WHAT and there was her 12 yr old daughter backing her up because mommy promised her some sort of reward or clothes I'm sure. This was a common occurance the daughter backing her up in many, many ways. They would team up on me saying that they would accuse me of beating her daughter if I didnt eat the whole pizza. YA crazy shit like that I'm serious nobody could even make this shit up believe me.

And the cops would always take the 95lb weakling wifes side of things. This frail little thing would bat her baby brown eyes at the cops and just get them all on her side and I was of course the big, bad guy. And I know you only have my word on this but all I ever did to her was protect myself against hits and scratches and she would hit me so hard that she would bruise herself sometimes and that is what I would be accused of doing. Which at time dont get me wrong I really wanted to hurt her sometimes but common sense always got ther better of me. There are many, many stories like this and I will tell a few more since they get really bizzare but believe me when I tell you I was in a very, very bad place AND I DID NOT KNOW WHAT I WAS GOING TO DO.

My family was involved but she did a great job of cutting me off from them, they didn't know where I lived, didnt know the phone number (no cell phones back then) but I got word to them and was saved numerous times but the manipulation continued much to my dumb ass believing her lies and deciept. I will get more into some crappy, juicy detailes in the next chapter. I am doing this these many yrs later becasue I realixw now what was taken away from me back then I was 21 or so when I met her and when it was all over my 20's had dissappeared, POOF like magic the best years of a young persons life was gone.....son of a bitch I get pissed about it sometimes...

Thanks for reading, more on friday....

The Cabbie

No end in sight...!!!!!

As the days and months went by and I grew in size day in and day out there was really nothing I could do. Now I know that sounds stupid to most of you but I was under the influence of a very different sort of EVIL. A manipulative sort of person who had a mental illness that my love for food was feeding into and I just did not know how or what to do about it. There were several stories of horrible abuse that I would love to tell you but I just cant remember them all but I will do my best to pass them along. I remember 1 times when I was about 3 yrs into this mess when I just wanted to get out no matter what I had to do. But it had gotten to the point where it was so bad that I needed a lot of help to get this accomplished. So I eventually found a neighbor to help me reach out to the outside world. I know this all sounds fucking wierd but you have to put yourself in the mind set that lets pretend you were in prison but there were no guards accept her daughter and a few neighbors that she had convinced that I was a bad person.

You see after I got out of Jail (which I thought of as a new beginning for us) she soon went back to her old ways of manipulation and deciept. I was soon back on the road to being huge after I had lost over 150 lbs in Jail and Iwas getting pissed at myself and so was my family (as well they should of) but I was held prosoner in my own home with mo way to get anywhere or communicate with anyone. She had the only keys to the car which actually did not matter since I was to big to get behind and wheel of any car to even drive. She would always take the phones with her whenever she would go somewhere and this is when I had my chances to escape when I did. On a daily basis she would go do errands like take the daughter to school, go see her many Dr's. Etc. Etc. and this I found out would be my opportunity to get the hell out of there.

So after getting a friendly neighbor named John to help me with a spare phone he had I was able to make arrangement to get out of the house. Now this would include a truck so I could ride in the back since no other car could accomodate me and the timing of it all was crucial. So eventually it was all set and the day came when she left for her errands and I made the call for the ride to come and get me. Now at this particualr time my mother lived in Hawaii so she was not involved this time around. They were on vacation back to New York visiting some friends and I had made arrangement to meet up with them in a few days and I remember my mom being so happy. So I dissappear and I remember the neighbors who were her friends seeing me get into the truck just waiting to tell her the whole story. You must remember there were no cell phones in these days so the word didnt get around like it would of today.

So I get to the "SAFE HOUSE" where my friend was waiting for me and had made all the sleeping arrangement and all. And my X had no idea who this person was or where she lived so there was no chance of me being found. My plan was to get to Hawaii where my mom lived and to go o ver there and  rehab and lose some weight and to get myself to a point where I could live life again. Below are some pics of when I did make it over to Hawaii with my sister. 


Well I did all of this but there was some problems with the whole thing, you see my x had found out that I was going to my moms and that was not to hard to find out. You see my X was a very smart, evil sort of person where she could call up like in this case the phone company and get her address by saying she was my moms and neede to see what they had for her address since she was not getting the phone bills properly. And once she had all of this info she had my mothers electricity shut off and that had some diar issues becasue my mom had a deep freezer where a lot of food and meat was stored. Well you guessed it 2 weeks after that the meet was nothing but maggots and 500 dollars in meat was now wasted. I knew who had done it and she threatend that if I did not come home that this was only the beginning and she was not kidding...stay tuned more next time on how I lost my 500lb gorilla.

Thanks again

Rick The VegasCabbie
Follow me on twitter/vegascabbie

I finially had a plan....

<-------Me with the headband in 1975

Well as time went on and the abuse and the situation got more and more out of hand I was getting desperate and you know what they say, desperate times call for desperate measures so my mind went to work. Well about 4 yrs into our marriage she decided to go back to Detroit where she was from. I no more wanted to do this then a man in the moon but what choice did I really have. So we left Burbank Calif. and went to Southgate Michigan where her parents lived. Well I devised a plan since this was to me too far away to move from any of my family that if I needed hem was just too far away.

So we drove for 3 days across country and I felt as though I was really becoming separated from my family just as she was doing to myself. Well I had acquired part of an old phone that I needed to put together in case I needed to reach someone since all I was going to be around was her family and none of mine. So slowly day after day just a little at a time I was building a phone (you know 1 of those old fashioned kind) and sure enough like clockwork the day came when of all people (her mother) accused me of going into the attic and stealing some old baseball cards of her sons. (my wife's brother) Now to put this in perspective I could not even climb up stairs to get into my Apt. let alone climb into an attic ad dig around for a box of baseball cards. Completely rediqulious if you ask me and totally untrue.

Well after the huge argument of these cards I decided that I was going to leave and get back to California no matter what I had to do to get there. So I pieced together this phone and made arrangements to get my ass back to California. Needless to say she found out about me making the calls and as I was leaving that day she met me at the airport with all of her shit to go back with me. Actually we cashed in the tickets and we drove back so we could bring our stuff along with us. Well this trip to say the least was a nightmare, on top of having to stop and eat 3 HUGE meals a day I couldn't even allow myself to sweat since that would be losing weight in my ex wife's eye. She would literally start to cry and freak out if I started to sweat too much and that did happen as we were driving thru Vegas on our way to Los Angeles in the middle of July.

We stayed at Circus Circus for a day or 2 and we were looking for a wheel chair so I didn't have to walk anywhere and sweat for anything. Well on the second day we were here the car broke down while she was in the store and I was left in the car and it was HOT and I was sweating my ass off. About 30 mins later she came out and immediately started crying like a little baby trying to shove water down my throat so I wouldn't lose any water weight. To me this was sooo funy but to her this was serious business. She treated my stomach as though is was a separate possession I swear to god. She would HUG it as though it was its own person like she was in love with just that part of me and that was hers to do what she wanted to do with. SICK when ya think about it ain't it..? as I look back now I kinds freak out about the stuff really with the knowledge of hindsight it's really a freaky story.

Well we got to LA and this is where the shit really started to get rich....she started seeing other guys, torchering me to no end and keeping me in my own little prison by keeping the phone and the car keys all in her possession. She even had her daughter tell lies to the police officers about what would go on at the house and her mother would offer her rewards for doing these lies....soo much more to tell you so stay tuned. Here is the 1st of a few radio interviews I did after my surgery and this will give you some insight to what was going on in my life.....

Thanks

The Cabbie

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Now we move on...!!

And the gears keep turning...

Well as you can tell by the story I got bigger, the problem got out of hand and I was stuck holding the bag. Well to say the least I had to do something about my situation or DIE and that was simply the decision I was faced with. Well since my mom didn't raise no quitter I decided to LIVE, plain and simple I decided I wanted to live. I wanted to have a child, raise a family, have a good wife. All those things that were taken away from me by a thief in tight dress I wanted back and this was the way I was going to do it. So I decided that I neede to get my own place, well that needed money..something I had no way of earning in any way shape or form since over the last 5 yrs everything had been provided for me so I applied for Social Security Disability and after 8 months of fighting for that, being turned down 3 times I finially went to an arbitration hearing and WON. Ya I guess me being 800+ lbs didnt quaalify me as being unable to work even though I had seen 5 of thier Dr's all whom had said I was disabled to the tune of 70-80%.

Well I had been down before in my life but never like this, so after I got the disability I found a small little single Apt. in Van Nuys Calif. right off of Van nuys Blvd and Magnolia for $450.00 a month shit my check every month was only a little over $500 so I neede to supliment my income by working out of the house for a company named Kapilow & Son. They we're public Insurance adjusters based out of Santa Monica Calif. and they neede a person to read the FIRE calls that the fire Dept. had been called out to over night and for me to find all the "Juscy" fires and route and send the adjusters out on the call with all the owners info from micro ficsh and everything else I could find on them. Well this helped out to the tune of $600 more a month so I was now supporting myself with a little left over.

But I still had 1 BIG problem, I was still 800lbs and did not know where to turn, so I turned to the only person I knew I could trust and that was MYSELF. Now despite all the shit I had been thru over the last 5 yrs I still had the bacis skills of what I learned plaing football for Amherst high just outside of Buffalo NY. I knew I had to exersize and get my body moving again. Well the place I lived was a small. old apt building on Tilden Ave. and it had a pool. So every day I would waddle myself to the edge of the step, sit on the top step and slide my butt down 1 step at a time down the stairs till I got to the bottom. Embarassing HELL YES, necessary HELL YES, and I would take my shirt off embarrassing as all hell since I had tits bigger then most ladies in the bldg. And I would just roll off the side of the pool into the water and there I would stay for dam near most of the day. MAN did I have the best tan in town..I swear.

Well I did this day in and day out, every day down the stairs 1 ass cheek at a time and up the stairs the same exact way. You see the weight on my legs was too much to risk falling down the stairs and seriously injuring myself. And I'll tell you getting in that water was like floating on the moon, since you are 1/3rd your weight in water my whole body would just go AWWWWW at the mere weight being taken off my joints, back, knees, hips everything started to feel better. I dropped weight for about the first 2 months at the rate of 1 lb a day as near as I could figure and my body was bouncing back nicely. I have a very good personality when it comes to talking and meeting people, so it was easy for me to get to know the neighbors who saw me everyday swimming in the water. I'd babysit, well pool sit the kids since I was always there. You see I floated like a dam bouy and I had some good float in me. You could put 3 kids on my shoulders and my head would not go under water...funny shit but the FAT has a lot of air in it so I floated.

Well as the months passed I was feeling good, finially bought a van a 1976 Dodge van with a unicorn painted on the side of it. Rumor was from the previous owner that the base player for the band MONTROSE owned it and he had the painting done. Now I dont know if tis was true or not but I do know the paiting was habd done and well done to boot. Faded in spots but I will dig up a pic and post it up here as soon as I start digging. I would keep track of my weight loss by gettingin the back of my friend pick up and eventually my van and driving down to the post office In Burbank Calif. where I would go and get weighed on a scale that was used to weigh pallets of packages and mail that would come off the big trucks. This is how I knew I started out at the huge weight of 800+. Now the 800 lbs is just a very educated guess since I did not have access to the scale till after I was in the process of losing the weight. But my first official weigh in at the post office was 786lbs so wasnt hard to figure that I had dropped 40-50 lbs in the first month and a half of swimmin.

Well folks as you can see I am on my way to getting better but this story is only beginning. There is a lot of work yet to be done to get where I am sitting today and a lot of you I know are just dying to hear it but I can only give it to you a little at a time. But I am going to be adding some video here so accompany this story and some audio I did doing radio interviews around the country. So thanks again for the support and tell you friend I, hoping to be on Oprah and Dr Phil real soon....they have contacted me but that dont mean to much..at least not yet.

Well God Bless and thanks again...

The cabbie back @ ya soon.

And so it goes....

So the days go by, faster and faster they seemed to go but there I was, alone again dealing with a weight problem I had no idea of how to fight yet there I was, doing it to the best of my know how. I slowly became back into the sort of person I was, talking to friends and going to do things. After buying the VAN I really became independant in so many ways like going to meetings for O.A. going to the drive in movies, Etc. Etc. My Ex would come around once and awhile and that was only destructive nehavior on my part since seeing her stirred up a lot of emotions, a lot of hate I had for her. HOW DARE she take away 9 yrs of my life (and I let her) and still think that she could just come over here and see me like there were no consiquences for what she had done to me. I know sometimes it sounds as if I am putting the blame squarely on her shoulders but some would say that is right where it belongs. But I know it was aslo myself who allowed it to happen and I do bear some of the issue.

So I lived in my Apt. working my little job, swimming every say that I could (weather permitting) and I even had somewhat of a little friend of Ray Manzarek of The Doors fame thru my job. You see my job was to track down owners of property that had been on fire or had some sort of damage to them. So I indeed had access to ownership records of who owned what property. Well 1 day I heard Jim Ladd on the radio mantion that comming up was the 20 yr aniversary of "light my fire" hitting number 1 on the charts. So I looked up Ray's information and I senthim off a letter congratulating him of this feat and of course telling him what a huge fan I was of the Door's along with some contact info just in case he wanted to give me a call and talk. Well 1 day a few weeks kater I was down in the pool and I hear the phone ringing and my brother Todd was up there and he answered the phone. He yelled down "Rick telephone" now since going up the stairs was such a HUGE ordeal and I did not have a wireless phone I said "who is it" I hear him ask who it is and the next thing I hear is him running to the foot of the stairs and he says "dude it Ray Manzarek of the doors and he want to talk to you" I just about had a cow, he helped me up out of the pool and to the phone, out of breath I said Hi Ray what happenen and we talked for about 45 mins and I just was besides myself.

The reason I bring this story up is because it gave me hope, the hope that a dream, a simple dream like this can come true then me losing weight and becomming a human again was not far behind. So it acted as a huge incentive to keep my dreams alive and on target. And boy it sure did, a few months later I moved down to Sand Diego where the rest of my family had moved to and began was to be some of the toughest times I had ever gone thru and you will see why in a day or to...God Bless and stay tuned..

Rick
The VegasCabbie

OK back to business.....

 So here I was down to about 750lbs wondering what I can do to get myself back on track. Day after day trying to just figure out what the hell I was going to do with myself. I was feeling good about what I have done so far but I was also on a very slippery slope and I had actually started to gain weight back to some degree. But my body was telling me about the price I had paid for being so large. After my attempts to leave my ex wife the YO YO effect of dieting is horrible to say the least. The balance of blood sugar, vitamins,  and  the liver & kidney issues is a circus act to say the least. There were days when I would feel like a million bucks and a few hrs later feel like shit. The only insurance I had was a little known thing called MEDI-CAL and it was a welfare thing that you received along with your Social Security disability AKA SSI. So between getting to the Dr's and paying the co pays I was really strapped for cash no matter what I did and I live in freaking California....

So I moved down to San Diego where my brother had moved to some months prior to this happening to me, this is all happening owww lets say early 80's like 83-85 or so. My mother had moved back to Las Vegas and I was all alone in LA living near the crazy lady who still tried to get me to eat food for her whacky ways. So I moved in with some of my brothers friends and I found a little job doing computer repair etc. Well one day a few months later my mother called and tells me about a Dr she had seen on the Rosanne Barr show and he was speaking of to Rosanne about her getting the surgery done herself. WEll the phone number sat on a post it note for 6 months along with a sticky note untouched till one day when my mom calls and makes her usuall inquieries as to my life as she always had and she asks me about the weight loss and if I had made the call.

Well I told her I had not but as usual I promised to do it and much to my surprise I actually did it and after the initial phone call from my mom I actually made the call.