[Osage Orange]

I work in the healthcare field...

I could tell you some doozy stories...about the "hefty" patients I've dealt with.

Some very sad stories, some kinda funny stories, some just horrible stories.

Anyway there is specialized equipment made just for the over-sized patients..."Big-Boy" beds....wheelchairs, commodes...etc. Large crane type devices...( they look like engine hoists..) that enable staff to move/turn patients...etc.

FWIW-

[Calpernia]

I just don't understand at what point in ones life do people decide to stop moving. I go crazy if it rains a few days in a row and I can't go out and WALK. When do people lose the urge to move?

[Xenalyte]

I worked at Optifast in the late '80s. We had one patient who started the program weighing 478 pounds.

At the time, we did a caliper skin test for new patients. When my co-worker picked up a fold of skin to caliper it, she found mold growing under there. Eeeew.

After 10 days on a 400-calorie-a-day diet, said patient weighed 495.

[Mjaye]

Last night there was a show that depicted a woman with a 200 lb. tumor. Her own body had shrunk to about 98 lbs. when they operated, over 20 hrs. of surgery. This was clearly not her fault, nobody had wanted to operate on it as it grew (she had a disease that encouraged such growths) What a trooper she was, and got back to "normal". Seeing what some people have had to live with should make us all grateful as he** for our relatively minor problems.

As for the lady who became one with the couch, she must have been sick in the head, IMHO. Normal people don't go to that extreme. And the people around here should be held accountable for not reporting the situation.