My 600 lb Life – Perseverance (J.T.)

I listened to this on TLC Go today—it airs tonight on the network.

This is the second Oklahoman in a row. Another person with severe food addiction. But unlike the last one (Bethany), J.T. seems to be doing all right after a year.

He’s 892 pounds and about 6’ tall—his BMI was 121 when he first arrived at Dr. Now’s. That lymphedema mass is as big as some humans.

I think he’s worse off than Bethany was overall, due to his overall size and that mass. There were some serious issues with journeying from Oklahoma to Texas—he got food poisoning during his return from the initial appointment, and on a follow up visit the rental vehicle broke down and he was stranded in the hot sun. (Dr Now called an ambulance to get them.)

Plus, his girlfriend up and left him while he was under care in Houston. You’ll see some frustration stemming from his being left alone in a medical care facility with nobody nearby to support him, and a stall in his weight loss. Dr Now has to take some crap from him.

Fortunately he has a cousin that regularly visited him and backed him up. He dropped a third of his weight and won the sleeve gastrectomy, and is still fighting. (The girlfriend didn’t come back, which is probably just as well, because she was basically an enabler in that relationship.)

I like these stories. Usually at the introduction they show a clip of one of their low moments—and this was no exception, he was attacking Dr Now like James King used to—but in the end he started doing the work he had to do.

Puts last week’s Bethany to shame.