Teen drops 183 pounds aided by surgery

The food drive was on at Central Valley High School last week, and Bob Plumb had come up with a novel idea. He’d tally the pounds he had lost the previous year and donate that amount in canned goods.

It was going to be as much a statement as a donation. The 16-year-old had visions of strapping on a backpack, perhaps filling a couple suitcases, and lugging his load from class to class, the new Bob giving the old Bob a piggyback ride.

The problem was, old Bob, the Bob that started melting away like microwaved butter after stomach surgery 13 months ago, tipped the scales at 363 pounds. New Bob weighs 180.

“You can’t carry all that weight, Bob,” Liz Plumb warned her son. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

Bob sort of nodded his head OK, though he was clearly still calculating how much food he could stuff into a backpack without flipping over in study hall and becoming stranded, like an overturned turtle.

Of course his mom was right. Back when Bob weighed 363 pounds, his weight had hurt him. His wrist had broken twice beneath his weight because he’d fallen. His spine even now bears a slight curve from all those pounds.

“I still haven’t ridden a bike,” Bob said, though he plans to. He’s just been too busy playing the role of the incredible shrinking man ever since having his stomach banded on Oct. 5, 2005. Besides, he’s been on a date every weekend for four weeks.

Banding is one of several gastrointestinal surgeries performed to decrease the amount of food a person can digest. The more common surgery is gastric bypass, which dramatically reduces the size of the stomach and prevents food from reaching a portion of the small intestine, essentially limiting the body’s ability to absorb food.

Banding is less permanent. It’s sort of like slipping a watchband around the upper portion of the stomach and then cinching the band to a size that reduces the amount of stomach available for food. After the surgery, the band can be loosened or tightened as necessary by injecting saline solution into an adjustment device located just to the left of Bob’s navel.

Banding has its critics. In July, the Archives of Surgery, a publication of the Journal of the American Medical Association, reported that 78 percent of gastric band recipients in a State University of New York study experienced dehydration and vomiting complications a month after surgery. The portion of gastric bypass patients with similar problems was 28 percent. And while 80 percent of gastric bypass patients said they were very satisfied, the percentage of very satisfied gastric band recipients was 46 percent.

Bob Plumb has no complaints. Twice now, doctors in Portland have adjusted the band around the teen’s stomach, each time tightening it a little more. Bob had the surgery a little more than a year after both his parents, Liz and Scott Plumb, were banded. They had the surgery done in Mexico where the $8,000 cost is less than half the price of the U.S. surgery.

Bob’s parents said they had hoped their eating less would encourage him to follow their lead, but the teen wasn’t able to and also had surgery in Mexico. Bob’s mother has lost 150 pounds, his father 140.

Eating can be tricky with a cinched-down stomach, the Plumbs say, because food can bottleneck above the banded area. What doesn’t go down must come up.

Breads, pastas, and fried chicken are foods Bob avoids because they’re difficult to get down. What he does eat is consumed in small bites and well chewed. His daily diet consists of about three cups of food.

At lunch, Bob eats half a salad – the top half – picking off the meat and cheese and leaving the lettuce behind. His evening supper is so small, it would leave most people staring into the refrigerator, mouths agape until the butter turned soft.

“Before, I’d eat a lot of meals throughout the day, two bowls of cereal for breakfast,” Bob said. “At lunch, I’d have two sandwiches. At dinner, I’d have thirds, fourths and fifths.”

Bob’s transformation has involved more than just cinching his stomach to a half-cup in size. He’s had to start digesting his emotions, rather than avoiding them by stuffing food in his mouth.

There’s a saying common among weight-loss circles that “it’s not what you eat, it’s what’s eating you” that leads to obesity.

As best as Liz Plumb can recall, Bob started eating excessively as a toddler out of boredom, a habit she encouraged by offering him snacks to keep him occupied when she had her hands full with Bob’s younger sister, Mariah. She’d hand him an Otter Pop, those sticky sweet frozen tubes of fruit juice and corn syrup that, depending on the size, can amount to 80 calories each.

It is easy to imagine Bob eating to keep occupied. Even standing still, he is in perpetual motion, playing with his hands, readjusting his posture, repositioning his feet. He is like a hummingbird, constantly moving just to stand still.

Early in his weight loss, Bob took up loom knitting to keep his hands busy and away from the refrigerator door. He knitted roll-brimmed hats and scarves to match, which he gave to girls at Central Valley High School. On cold fall mornings, you can see colorful “Bob hats” riding the steady current of students streaming to class.

He’s knitting less these days, filling his time instead with six shifts a week at White Elephant Surplus Stores and high school jazz choir.

Because he has reached his ideal weight, Bob is running out of what his mom calls “non-scale” victories, the kinds of accomplishments gauged by life experiences rather than pounds measured. Changing pant sizes on a monthly basis, squeezing into a rollercoaster seat for the first time, and flying commercial without needing a special seat belt extension were all milestones for Bob.

Last month for Halloween, Bob dressed as Superman, but his real achievement was a Clark Kent existence as an ordinary teenager.