Ten months ago I wrote a column called "The Incredible Shrinking Me" about my weight loss.

While the response to that column was overwhelmingly positive, within a week of it running I received a letter from my new insurance company pulling the plug on my health care team. Pencil pushers at insurance companies live for one thing: find a way to make the cost of health care cheaper for them at the risk of worse long term health care outcomes. They insisted I see local doctors.

What they didn't acknowledge and what formed the basis of my appeal was that I wasn't involved in just a weight loss program. I was referred to Stanford for chronic lymphedema, an incurable condition where lymph fluid doesn't circulate properly so the tissue swells.

My left leg is much larger than the right. But this isn't about vanity. The stagnant lymph fluid leaves the sufferer prone to infection. I've had dozens of hospital stays as well as two ICU stays for sepsis. Stanford is a leader in the treatment of lymphedema. Weight loss was just the first step in that treatment. Sacramento has nothing comparable to Stanford.

Unsurprisingly, the appeal was denied.

As a side note, I was hospitalized with an infection in 2002. My doctor at the time told me I needed to be seen by Dr. Stanley Rockson at Stanford. My insurance wouldn't comply. Twenty years later, I was referred to Stanford and who was my doctor? Stanley Rockson. I was shocked he was still there!

But I've soldiered on with new doctors.

At my heaviest, I weighed a jaw-dropping 650 pounds From 2013 to 2015. I went on Weight Watchers, began walking and lifting weights and dropped 223 pounds. My weight loss plateaued and over the years I regained 93 pounds. In February 2023, I began my new journey at 520 pounds. Through Weight Watchers, intermittent fasting and a GLP-1 medication, Wegovy, I've lost 207 pounds.

Having been obese for almost my whole life, it's been difficult psychologically seeing myself smaller. For the longest time I couldn't see it in photos despite my clothes sizes falling and tasks becoming easier to do. My body has changed faster than my brain.

My health has improved. My A1C is 5.2. Blood pressure is under 120/80 while my total cholesterol is 126.

I'd been feeling good about my progress, though I'd been having some strange symptoms of dizziness. I was referred to a cardiologist for a Lexiscan and echocardiogram. Last week, I went to get my results and was wholly unprepared for what the doc had to say.

"You've had a heart attack." What? How? When? He couldn't tell me when it happened but he showed me on a heart model where the scar tissue was on my heart. The news threw me for such a loop I didn't know what questions to ask. This was nowhere on my radar screen. But it did explain some of the peculiar symptoms I'd had over the past year.

This journey has never been about looking good, having a beach body or vanity. It's been about health. And I'm determined to soldier on. My plan always called for me to lose as much weight as I could and when I plateaued, I would have weight loss surgery. I have plateaued, so surgery is currently scheduled for Nov. 14.

I never intended to make any of this public because despite sharing my opinions on this page for decades and how crazy I am on social media, I'm still a very private person. I don't crave the spotlight. And there's a lot of shame involved with obesity. Plus, GLP-1 medications like Ozempic, Wegovy and Zepbound and weight loss surgeries are still controversial. People have opinions, and I'm not interested in hearing them.

But people have noticed my weight loss and this latest cardiac development has really focused my mind.

While the cardiac news has shaken me, I still am thankful that I live at a time where there are so many advances to assist morbidly obese people to lose weight. In fact, we've all won the human lottery. Think about it. In the 300,000 years of modern homo sapiens history we were fortunate enough to be born now and in America. I'm grateful to modern medicine to be alive today.

Collectively, (and I hope my brothers won't mind me saying this) at our heaviest, the four living Wade brothers weighed a combined 1,900 pounds! All of my brothers have lost weight and are healthy and are living their best lives. And then there's me: last fat man standing. But I'm on my way.

With my history, I shouldn't be here. But I am and I plan on staying on the planet as long as I can. Our dad used to always say, "It's a blessing just to be here" and I try to live that every day. Peace.

Kelvin Wade, a writer and former Fairfield resident, lives in Sacramento. Reach him at [email protected].