800-pound-man-kicked-out-of-hospital-for-ordering-pizza

when I was working in one hospital, we had a morbidly obese man (650 lbs.) in the hospital who refused to stop ordering in fast food (his family would bring him in McDonald's, and boxes of doughnuts, and pizzas, etc) and he refused to eat the hospital food. The doctors came in and told him that he would die, guaranteed, within six weeks, if he continued to eat that food. He said that he absolutely would not stop eating the food, even if he would die. He was only in his forties. The doctors asked him if he cared more about the food than about his family, and he said that if he had to give up eating that food to go on living with his family, then living would not be worth it. They told him that in order for him to be allowed to stay in the hospital, he had to sign a DNR, and also that he would be on comfort care (the hospital would provide absolutely no medical care at all to him, other than to make him comfortable, such as pain medication). He willingly signed it, and so was allowed to stay. He continued to eat the food (his family had to bring it to him, and they did). He died about five weeks later.
He wasn't addicted to food. He had developed such an unhealthy relatioship with the food to cover up some other painful experience in his life that he would rather die than give up the food and face that pain - and that's exactly what he did.

15. Divisive Topics Are Better Suited For Groups, Not the Main Forums

Divisive topics and posts, particularly those that seek input from or are relevant only to a select group of users, are better placed within an appropriate Group rather than the Main Forums. For example, topics relevant to only one religion should not be placed on the main forums but rather within a group related to that religion.

Hi guys!

Due to the above guideline, I had to delete a really interesting 'side-bar' discussion out of this thread. Divisive topics (like politics, religion, etc) tend to cause arguments on the forums and should be kept to groups. Rather than close this discussion down, I went on a huge delete spree. In some (a few) cases I was able to edit posts to remove content, but thanks to the multi-quote thing Vanilla does (where ALL the quotes inside of a quoted post come over too), I ended up having to remove some posts that weren't in conflict with the above guideline simply because they had quoted (somewhere along the line) a post that did have to be removed. Nearly 60 posts in this discussion were deleted, so it would have taken forever (no really, forever) to check/find each quote and edit posts... so I only did that with the easy ones (because I have to head to work... should have left already).

Anyway, please keep this discussion off of politics. If you'd like to have a political discussion here, please find or create a group for it.

I hope you guys are having an awesome Friday!
JustSomeEm

elphie754 wrote: »

Kalikel wrote: »

UltimateEscape wrote: »

The CHEAT meal got him into trouble!

"He (Assanti) tells ABC6 he lost over 20 pounds. To reward himself for that small victory, he decided to have a "cheat meal," ordering a pizza from his favorite spot, Tommy's, in Cranston.

http://www.abc6.com/story/30212276/800-pound-man-looking-for-a-second-chance-

No, everyone who diets doesn't do that. Pizza is part of the program for some, but not for all.

If he wants to eat Tommy's pizza, then he should do that, but not waste the time of experts who are trying to help him learn to be a healthier person.

I dislike the way they're trying to make this the hospital's fault.

If it's a voluntary thing, not a locked unit where rules are enforced, then people have to agree to abide by the rules. If not, out they go. Make room for someone who wants to be there and do what they're told is best.

This guy needs to be on a locked psych unit where he gets professional help and where rules are enforced, so he cannot order pizza. His "I'll just drive around until someone helps me" dad obviously cannot help him and his problems are big ones.

100% this.

The have locked psych wards for other eating disorders (anorexia/bulimia), drug addictions, mental disorders and such. I would say this is a situation where a locked ward would be beneficial, however it should be a voluntary commitment into such ward.

This was my first reaction as well.

Playing the blame game is unproductive in general, but in this case there's more than enough to go around for everyone to share it. Someone who got to 800 lbs has a serious eating disorder and should have been in a strictly institutionalised environment to monitor intake. I can absolutely distribute some blame to the hospital. He occupied a bed for three months with no useful results and they let him. He ordered food into his room on (probably) a daily basis and the reception staff waved it through. The nursing staff must have seen him eating it because maintaining that much weight would require eating for several hours a day. They also did nothing. Presumably the administrators were happy to collect the insurance company's fee for the bed for 90 days then booted him out when the cheques stopped arriving.

So the insurance company got its premiums, the hospital got its fees and the patient paid out several hundred thousand dollars for less weight loss than a co-ed doing Jenny Craig. He's the big loser but being mentally ill it feels cruel to lay too much culpability on him. He needs the right hospital environment, not a cynical cash-grab clinic, major psych therapy and he needs his enabling family well away from him.

GaleHawkins wrote: »

The sad thing this guy can not live in an SUV for years to come. I was talking to a guy that smokes and one doctor told him if he did not stop smoking that he would stop seeing him. It seems doctors are in their right to withhold service after the patient proves to be noncompliant.

I to not get the going on TV/news media part even if there was $$$ involved.

As someone that works in media, yes there was most likely a cash payout given to the father/son in return for their story. So the guy got paid to badmouth a hospital that kicked him out (rightfully IMO) for violating the terms of his agreement.

To the people that think we should continue to fund this man's (NOT BOY/KID) hospitalization;
Programs like these are generally run on public funding with some supplementation from donations. They ask for applicants to fill the 5-20ish spots in the program that they have available. They get hundreds of applications and only take as many as they can before putting the rest on the wait-list or outright rejecting them. The out of pocket cost for the person applying is generally nothing to very minimal amounts. He was given 3 months to show that he was committed to the program and making an effort. He failed. Why some people would have those hundreds of wait-listed people continue to wait so this self-centered spoiled MAN can continue to cheat and not care about the program is beyond me. Does this man need help? Yes. Should we continue to give him help after he repeatedly showed not only that he did not want the help, but a contempt for the help he was getting? Absolutely not.

GaleHawkins wrote: »

The sad thing this guy can not live in an SUV for years to come. I was talking to a guy that smokes and one doctor told him if he did not stop smoking that he would stop seeing him. It seems doctors are in their right to withhold service after the patient proves to be noncompliant.
I to not get the going on TV/news media part even if there was $$$ involved.

Yes and no. A primary care doctor and specialists are not required to accept every pt that seeks their services, although it is rather rare. The one exception is emergency care. There is a law called EMTALA (emergency medical treatment and active labor act) which states that a person has the right to receive medical attention and stabilazation for an emergency or if they are in labor.

Lots of people are killing themselves slowly. There's COPD patients still smoking, diabetics with tingling toes letting their sugars run rampant, alcoholics with liver disease, and bankrupt gamblers. I think we can delude ourselves for quite a while that we can still pull out of the death-spiral, after one more hit....compulsions are powerful things.

Here's a man who has habitually rewarded himself with food. He achieved a milestone, and he went straight to the reliable reward.

jgnatca wrote: »

As the relative of mentally ill family members, involuntary incarceration is a big deal. One has to prove that the person is not able to make informed decisions about their own health. Even though this man's thinking about food is disordered, is he delusional about the consequences if he continues to eat this way?

Not in Florida. That Baker Act! I have a thunderstorm phobia. It's rather silly, but I won't go near Florida in case a public display of hyperventilating terror causes some concerned stranger to have me taken away in one of those nifty jackets with the tie-tie sleeves.

atypicalsmith wrote: »

Unfortunately, mental illness seems to be at the bottom of the list of health/governmental services. My thinking is that obese people are at the bottom of the list, as they could not physically go out and do a mass shooting. I personally don't get why the obese people's families are contributing to this. Someone mentioned the son would scream and disturb the neighbors to coerce his father into getting the food he wanted. Well, let him scream. Let the neighbors call the police. Let the police arrest him. Let the landlord kick them out. BUT STOP BUYING/FEEDING HIM FOOD OVER X NUMBER OF CALORIES! That is, if the father cares about him. Sounds like he doesn't, putting him into one hospital after another. Mental illness should be the top priority of health care these days.

I would agree with you, but seeing as our top shrinks in the USA helped our government torture people, maybe some of them need help first.

Kalikel wrote: »

I think jgnatcha is talking about permanent commitment to a state facility, not just a quickie lock-up. If you throw a fit of crazy in McDonald's and they call the cops and the cops see the crazy and cannot stop it, they're going to take you to the hospital, where you'll be locked in a psych unit. Nobody has to go to court.

At least one person got locked up after threatening to kill themselves and others on a board much like this one. They had no idea it could be traced, but the cops showed up at the door and took them to the psych unit (where they really belonged.)

You can be locked up for any number of crazy things. Being permanently committed takes some work. A lot of people have to say, "This person cannot function in society and is a danger to themselves and/or others." But a quickie commitment is nothing and happens like 1000 times a day, every day.

Ah, okay. Still, I imagine even a 'quickie' visit to the psych ward must be terrifying. I don't intend to risk it for anything in the world. Too much to live for out here, with all you other lovely free range crazies.

Being 800 lbs is surely worse than death.