In October of 2014, I had weight loss surgery.
For anyone who doesn’t know about bariatric, or weight loss, surgery, there are several different types. Gastric bypass (Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass), sleeve gastrectomy, adjustable gastric band, and the biliopancreatic diversion with duodenal switch (BPD/DS).
For me, I went with the sleeve. It is a laparoscopic surgery in which about eighty percent of the stomach is removed. The remaining portion is a tubular pouch, and it is basically the shape and size of a banana. The new pouch that became my stomach held less, helping me to consume lower amounts of food and, of course, fewer calories. It more or less enforced portion control.
Once I had my surgery and my doctor released me to start working out, I lived in the gym. I worked out every day, and the weight just seemed to melt off me. I lost a total of 180 pounds.
Before surgery, you have requirements you have to fulfill before the doctor will do the procedure. Each state and, I assume, each doctor is different, but I don’t remember it being too complicated. I think the most invasive thing I had to do was talk to a therapist, and that was accomplished by phone. The entire call lasted maybe fifteen to thirty minutes.
What they don’t tell you when you have this surgery is how much your mental health is affected. I wasn’t prepared for the attention I was suddenly getting as more and more of the weight fell off.
They don’t tell you the statistics of the divorce rate for those who have bariatric surgery. I didn’t know that up to forty-one percent of patients are more likely to get divorced within four years of having the procedure. Some states or doctors make you do couples therapy if you’re married because this can put a strain on your marriage. At the time, I didn’t know that, and it wasn’t a part of my requirements to get surgery. I should have gone to group sessions or at the least spoken with other patients. No matter which surgery a person gets, each one has the same strong, life-altering effect.
As bariatric patients, we don’t see ourselves losing the weight until it’s so drastic that, one day, we look in the mirror, and we see an entirely new person staring back at us. And that messes with a person’s mind on a totally different level than most people can comprehend.
Suddenly, I was getting attention. People were complimenting me, telling me how good I looked, noticing me for the first time. It felt good.
I won’t make excuses and say my weight loss surgery was why my life later turned into such a disaster. Having the gastric sleeve didn’t make me do the things I did. It didn’t put a gun to my head and force me to cheat on my wife or to lie to everyone in my life.
But if I had known the mental changes it would cause, I might have made a different decision. Looking back on it now, I ask myself, Was the surgery worth it?
Health-wise, yes. Definitely.
But in other aspects of my life, when I consider the emotional pain I’ve put not only myself, but those I love the most, through …
No. I honestly don’t think it was.
4
Warning: This chapter may be graphic for some readers.
The mental challenges I was enduring following my gastric sleeve procedure were nothing compared to what happened January 6, 2015—one of the worst moments in my career, and one that will live with me forever. It was a nightmare every police officer fears having to face, but is the potential reality we have to prepare ourselves for every time we leave our homes.
I was working at the Pampa Police Department at the time as a detective. A fellow officer and I were called out to a domestic disturbance with two other officers. Shots had already been reported being fired, and the suspect was refusing to come out of the house. The suspect was someone we were well acquainted with since he was a meth user. The night before, he’d spent his time beating his girlfriend. The only reason he’d stopped when he did was because their child needed to be fed.
Thankfully, the girlfriend had been able to get out of the house before we arrived. But she and her friends were attempting to collect her things, which was why the suspect locked himself in the house and started shooting.
At first, I was busy directing traffic away from that part of the street, but soon, I was motioned to put on my vest and come assist. We tried to get the suspect to come out, but no one would answer, and after being advised how to proceed, we broke down the door and quickly cleared the front of the house.
With only two rooms left, my heart was pounding as I went into one with an officer, and the two other officers went into the other room. Just as I entered the room, I heard the unmistakable sound of the blast from a shotgun.
The officer I was with and I rushed toward the noise.
One officer was lying on the floor bleeding, while his partner was trapped in a corner, shouting into his radio, “Shots fired! Shots fired! Officer down!”
The suspect was hiding in the closet with a 12-gauge pressed to the door. The bullet had caught the officer in the face, taking off the lower left side of his jaw.
My partner and I reacted quickly. Call it adrenaline or all the working out I’d been doing since my surgery, but I picked up my fellow officer by his vest with one hand while my partner grabbed his feet, and we pulled him out of the room.
But
