S05.E02: Ashley R.'s Story

[gunderda]

She had a job?? I totally missed that.  

I also wondered if she had something else going on inside her body that would cause her to gain extreme weight.  Just her overall appearance at different stages in her life reminded me of the people who just grow larger than the average person.  Being so tall probably helped her out a great deal. 

[aliya]

First, I will be the first to admit that I what I am about to say makes me the worst person on the planet. OK, moving on...every time Ashley mentioned her family, I wanted to shake her. 'First time I've been away, what will I do, my family, my family...'  Maybe if your family didn't enable you so much, maybe if you weren't 30 yrs old and living with your husband and your parents, you wouldn't be almost 700 pounds. It seems that most (not all, I recognize that) of these people are not just close to their family, but are enmeshed with them. Somebody is a caretaker, somebody gets the 30,000 calories a day, somebody goes to work or drives the car or whatever so the 600 lb person can just sit around and eat. Maybe if they didn't have people catering to their every whim, they wouldn't be in the position they are in.  I don't know. I just found it to be too much.

That said, Ashley seemed like a nice person, and really took the program seriously. I didn't have anything against her at all, I just wished she'd stop thinking about her family and thinking about making her own way in the world.

Second, what was with the rims? The tires were stolen or did they wear down the tires to the rims with her weight? (I know nothing about cars except to put gas in them.)

[auntjess]

Didn't they steal the wheels with the tires.
I wonder if TLC had bought new tires for the trip, so they were good ones.
Wondering why he doesn't have a license.

[HelloOutThere]

1 hour ago, aliya said:

It seems that most (not all, I recognize that) of these people are not just close to their family, but are enmeshed with them. Somebody is a caretaker, somebody gets the 30,000 calories a day, somebody goes to work or drives the car or whatever so the 600 lb person can just sit around and eat. Maybe if they didn't have people catering to their every whim, they wouldn't be in the position they are in.  I don't know. I just found it to be too much.

That said, Ashley seemed like a nice person, and really took the program seriously. I didn't have anything against her at all, I just wished she'd stop thinking about her family and thinking about making her own way in the world.

Second, what was with the rims? The tires were stolen or did they wear down the tires to the rims with her weight? (I know nothing about cars except to put gas in them.)

 

Totally get what you're saying. Ashley's family dynamic seemed very traditional Hispanic. Big family, lots of kids, most still living at home after 18.  It's an extremely close dynamic that is almost...tribal. My mom is Mexican and her side of the family is like this. My opinion is that overall it's a loving environment if not a little intense to those not used to it. Definitely different than the typical baseball and apple pie American family. BUT this intense love can easily cross over into enabling when someone is sick like Ashley. And it's extra bad enabling since the entire dynamic is so intense. 

Hopefully that was coherent. 

And LOLOLOLOL at your question about the car (not at you, but at the idea Ashley was so heavy she wore the tires right off the car!! Hahaha). For the record, the wheels and tires were both stolen, not just the tires. Thieves jack cars up, place blocks underneath it, unbolt the wheels, take them, and leave the car there..."on blocks" as they say. The round things that were left on Ashley's car in the lot when it was on blocks were the brake rotors, which sit behind a car's wheels and are much smaller that the diameter of a car's wheels, as you saw.  Usually cars with custom wheels are targeted, and her car had the stock rims on, so it was really a low blow of a crime.

Still chucking at the idea that she wore the wheels down into nubs ?? But I myself have wondered if some of these 600 lb people's tires have ever blown out from overloading a car. Cars have payload limits that are less that many people think. Throw someone like Ashley, mom and her sisters in a car and it's most likely over its specific weight limit. 

[operalover]

The whole family was overweight. Someone said upthread that the sisters were normal weight- no they were not, they were both obese and very young and heading toward major problems. I guess they felt they were thin next to Ashley. Look at the wedding photo. All of them are huge.

I have an aunt who had a bypass and lost weight at first but then gained it all back and now she is the same weight she started so I think it is possible to go back to where you started. 

I keep thinking what did they do all day? They are not working so they sit in the apartment all day? I guess they go out to get groceries although when she was recovering and he didn't drive, how did they do that? Maybe they could walk to a place or take an Uber. He did have a job before they moved which is why they said he could not go on the first trip- he had to work. Then he stops working to take care of her. I think someone realized they never left the house and the car was never driven so they took the tires off. Cafoni!

[IvySpice]

Quote

Wondering why he doesn't have a license.

Yeah, either he's undocumented or had a bunch of DUIs.

Agreed that Ashley's mom and sisters needed the diet almost as badly as Ashley did. It was nice to see how much they all enjoyed each other's company. That was not a big dining table, and they were all crammed in around there happy as fat clams. In my family, some of us would take our plates to the couch if we were smooshed together that way.

Also, saying that your patient's symptoms are likely psychosomatic does not have to be "dismissing" them, though that's what the patient will hear if you're not careful. Psychosomatic symptoms are real. Ashley's pain is exactly the same whether it has a gastric or psychiatric source, and it deserves the same care and attention from a medical provider -- just a different one.

Edited January 14, 2017 by IvySpice

[AZChristian]

8 minutes ago, IvySpice said:

Yeah, either he's undocumented or had a bunch of DUIs.

In California, even undocumented people can get a driver's license (if they are willing to provide additional info to DMV).  Or they can get insurance based on their Mexican license or matricula.  Ashley's family may have been law-abiding folks who would not let him drive without insurance, and they wouldn't or couldn't add him to their policies.  Just conjecture on my part.

[kgg]

Ashley seemed like such a nice person!  And her family wasn't a bunch of a-holes, either.  Yes, they enabled her for years, but when it came time for Ashley to change, they *all* changed.  I think that is completely vital to prolonging success.

[Aw my lahgs]

2 hours ago, AZChristian said:

In California, even undocumented people can get a driver's license (if they are willing to provide additional info to DMV).  Or they can get insurance based on their Mexican license or matricula.  Ashley's family may have been law-abiding folks who would not let him drive without insurance, and they wouldn't or couldn't add him to their policies.  Just conjecture on my part.

I think IRL he drives, but they didn't want to show him on camera driving.

[Awfarmington]

I'm not a car person but weren't they driving a Charger? It seems as though a few of the other subjects have also driven Chargers. And also big nice trucks. Even the families that appeared to be on assistance. Does the show provide these vehicles for use during filming? 

While I'm nosing into their finances, how do they afford so much take out?!  We recently started tracking where all our money is going, by writing all purchase down. Hitting the drive through, Chinese take out and pizza was a huge money waster, and we don't even pick up food daily. It's amazing how much one spends on without realizing it. 

[pdlinda1]

I would like to know if the show will follow up with the subjects from this season.  I know in past seasons they start compiling a "follow-up" show and i believe it takes years to see the struggles of the subjects as they lose more and more weight. We didn't really get to see Ashley's metamorphosis to any great extent and I was thinking how much effort she is going to have to continue to make before she could even be considered for skin-removal surgery.  It's really unfortunate that the totality of her circumstances are glossed over in seeing the show (even the 2 hr show) and it's hard to gauge if she and her family are prepared for the YEARS and YEARS of consequences from getting into the super-obese category.  

[Aw my lahgs]

16 minutes ago, pdlinda1 said:

I would like to know if the show will follow up with the subjects from this season.  I know in past seasons they start compiling a "follow-up" show and i believe it takes years to see the struggles of the subjects as they lose more and more weight. We didn't really get to see Ashley's metamorphosis to any great extent and I was thinking how much effort she is going to have to continue to make before she could even be considered for skin-removal surgery.  It's really unfortunate that the totality of her circumstances are glossed over in seeing the show (even the 2 hr show) and it's hard to gauge if she and her family are prepared for the YEARS and YEARS of consequences from getting into the super-obese category.  

It looked like her episode was taped very recently, so we'll have to wait a couple of years for a more accurate follow up.

[aliya]

20 hours ago, pdlinda1 said:

it's hard to gauge if she and her family are prepared for the YEARS and YEARS of consequences from getting into the super-obese category.  

Years and years is no lie. As I mentioned elsewhere, I am a FB friend of Paul Mason, previously the fattest man in Great Britain. It has been years since his bypass. He has had skin surgeries, been in and out of the hospital iwth various other weight-related issues; it's been a rough road. Even the patients with relatively good outcomes take years to get there.

20 hours ago, Awfarmington said:

While I'm nosing into their finances, how do they afford so much take out?! 

I've been wondering about that, too. The days of the 15 cent McDonald's burger are long gone (I just dated myself here).  For most of these patients, it seems that they are low income. On one hand, you still have to wonder where they get the food money from, on the other hand, when you aren't paying student loans, when there's no car payment, if you don't have some of the expenses of middle class life such as a gym membership, red peppers for $2, multi-grain bread at $3.40, wi-fi, private school for the kids, after school programs, professional licenses, etc. I guess, at almost any income, you can afford $30 a day in fast food. 

i guess this is a function of the weight and being too shy to physically go into the grocery story, but most big markets have a deli, salad, rotisserie chicken, pizza, Chinese, etc. section. Why don't they ever go into these places where the food is some what healthier and probably cheaper (1 chicken for the whole day probably equals the price of a big chicken sandwich, side, and soda)? Since they often have a runner who does the shopping for them, why don't they ever get this kind of food? 

[dahling]

On 1/13/2017 at 10:06 PM, aliya said:

 Why don't they ever go into these places where the food is some what healthier and probably cheaper (1 chicken for the whole day probably equals the price of a big chicken sandwich, side, and soda)? Since they often have a runner who does the shopping for them, why don't they ever get this kind of food? 

Because they don't want it. They are addicted to unhealthy food and carbs, carbs, carbs. Would you ever ask an alcoholic why they didn't drink diet coke instead of liquor? 

[Ocean Chick]

I should think that their horrible diets have dulled their taste buds, so all they crave now is salt, sweet and fat.  Giving them plain vegetables or lean meat is not going to cut it, as they can't taste anything there.

[notyrmomma]

What I don't get is why they can't park the car and walk into a restaurant to sit down and eat, especially in Ashley's case where she had to keep stopping anyway.  Some of those road side, truck stop-ish restaurants are fantastic and loaded with comfort food.  I think all of them eat like crap on the way to see the doctor is probably because the show encourages them to do so and mostly because they are "last supper-ing" before they are put on a strict diet.

[ClareWalks]

2 hours ago, notyrmomma said:

What I don't get is why they can't park the car and walk into a restaurant to sit down and eat, especially in Ashley's case where she had to keep stopping anyway.

A lot of the previous folks are ashamed to get out of their car to eat, so they'll drive through and park somewhere. I don't remember if Ashley specifically said this, though, but I remember Brandi and Kandi doing it.

[operalover]

I always overate the day and night before joining Weight Watchers..so I figure it's like that why start until you're forced?

[Ocean Chick]

I believe the main reason these people don't stop and go in to a "real" restaurant or diner to eat is that they know every bite that goes into their mouths will be watched and judged by the rest of the people in the building.  Even if they order a salad, people will judge the amount of dressing they use.  Or the amount of veggies on the salad.  Or croutons.  They know people will talk about them behind their backs.  Will say hurtful things to their face.  If they sit and eat in their cars they can at least pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist or see them eating.  They are already stressed to the max and probably in pain from the trip and fearful about moving to someplace where they don't have friends and family around, so adding mental anguish on top of all that, with a heaping spoonful of humiliation, is just too much.

[gunderda]

And they likely wouldn't fit in the chairs/booths in the restaurant. And Im not saying that to be mean.

[IvySpice]

Those of us who are also Intervention fans know that the addicts always want to load up before the trip to rehab...same thing.

[Pers]

On 1/17/2017 at 2:59 PM, IvySpice said:

Those of us who are also Intervention fans know that the addicts always want to load up before the trip to rehab...same thing.

I agree. When my gastric sleeve surgery was scheduled and before I started my liquid diet, I had a lot of "last suppers". 

Edited January 22, 2017 by Pers
Words

[Elizabeth9]

Idk...after being naked on national television while a family member scrubbed my ass, I don't think a few strangers in a Denny's would bother me?  

[notyrmomma]

2 minutes ago, Elizabeth9 said:

Idk...after being naked on national television while a family member scrubbed my ass, I don't think a few strangers in a Denny's would bother me?  

Or a few strange truck drivers at the Flying J buffet (my husband introduced me to them once about 15 years ago when he was a truck driver...O.M.G. it had every kind of food you could think of).  Have you ever seen some of the truck drivers?  Some are as big as she is! lol

[Maggienolia]

On 1/11/2017 at 10:02 PM, eejm said:

Good point, and you're right.  I hope in this case Daniel really is committed to Ashley.

I hope so too but they said that he doesn't drive/can't drive and did he work?? It sounded like he was as dependent on her/her family as she was on him. 

And yes, how tall is she??? DANG! She has to be at least 6'.

[notyrmomma]

On 1/12/2017 at 5:37 PM, mamadrama said:

My mom had the surgery 9 years ago. Unfortunately, she gained all of her weight back. However, even 9 years later she STILL has nausea. In addition to using the scope to look at her stomach and stuff, he should have looked at her gallbladder. It is a proven fact that many patients with the surgery end up having gallbladder issues-to the point where some surgeons even recommend (controversially so) removing the gallbladder at the same time. My mom had hers removed 3 months after her gastric bypass and it definitely helped the nausea and vomiting, although she still has it from time to time. 

It actually depends on the person. It definitely can stretch back out to its original size. For the first 3 years post op, my mother was only able to eat several small meals a day. Now she eats big meals, the same way she did before the surgery. In fact, she had to have some intestinal surgery last year and there was a complication. The surgeon had to talk to me in the middle of the operation and he and I got into an argument. Because her stomach was so large, he refused to believe she'd actually had gastric bypass. She lost 400 pounds and then gained it all back. 

I stumbled upon this from Dr. Now's own website about the vertical sleeve gastrectomy (VSG) - NOT the bypass: http://drnowmd.com/hos/Pages/TreatmentPages/Sleeve.html

Quote

Overall Decrease in Hunger and Cravings
The portion of the stomach that is removed is responsible for secreting Ghrelin, which is the hormone responsible for producing the sensation of appetite and hunger. By removing this portion of the stomach, the level of Ghrelin is reduced to near zero, actually causing aloss of or a reduction in appetite. Currently, it is not known if Ghrelin levels increase again after one to two years. Some patients report that some hunger and cravings slowly return. Studies indicate that the cravings in a Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy patient 3 years after surgery are much less than those experienced with Lap Band patients. This probably accounts for the superior weight loss experienced in the long term with the Gastric Sleeve.

Also, with the Gastric Sleeve, the removed section of the stomach is actually the portion that stretches the most. The long vertical tube-shaped stomach that remains is the portion least likely to expand over time. It creates significant resistance to higher volumes of food.  The physics of retaining a sleeve-shaped portion of stomach are beneficial as well. Resistance is greatest the smaller the diameter and the longer the channel. Not only is appetite reduced, but also very small amounts of food generate early and lasting satiety (fullness).

This is why I believe that he is scaring people who have had the VSG (Ashley and the twins from the premier) into believing it is easy to stretch your stomach back is just for the cameras.  It is my pet peeve when a person who should know better spreads myths and probably scares people off of this otherwise life changing (life saving) surgery because people will think-what's the point?  My stomach will stretch back!  NOT TRUE and this pisses me off! 

Of course, if a person is determined to eat, he or she will, and the quickest way to gain weight after the VSG is small but frequent high calorie meals.  But if you are serious about it and are able to stick to three high protein meals and maybe a small snack or two, YOU WILL NOT GAIN IT BACK!  I am 2 1/2 years out, I know I have pushed my sleeve to its limits many times, but yesterday I still couldn't eat more than 1/4 of a veggie burger (with bun) in one sitting and I'm still at goal weight (although I'd like to try going down another 10).

[Thriftykins]

On 1/24/2017 at 7:45 PM, notyrmomma said:

Or a few strange truck drivers at the Flying J buffet (my husband introduced me to them once about 15 years ago when he was a truck driver...O.M.G. it had every kind of food you could think of).  Have you ever seen some of the truck drivers?  Some are as big as she is! lol

I always wondered how trucker pulled this off. There are Department of Transportation regulations on how high your blood pressure can be.

[Rancide]

On 1/14/2017 at 9:55 AM, IvySpice said:

Yeah, either he's undocumented or had a bunch of DUIs.

Not necessarily.  I have an in-law who doesn't drive because of epilepsy.  His condition isn't even all that bad, but in our state, you can't get a license unless you're 12-months seizure-free.  He sometimes goes years at a time between seizures, but when he has one, he's unlicensed for at least the next 12 months.  

[mysticalflute]

On 1/14/2017 at 11:55 AM, IvySpice said:

Yeah, either he's undocumented or had a bunch of DUIs.

 

I don't have a license and I'm not undocumented or someone with DUI's. I just don't feel comfortable with the thought of driving a car because of an accident I was in when I was in high school. I don't even really like being in a car anymore.

[auntjess]

Getting ready to get on a plane and fly to Houston again with Ashley. 
In my defense, I only rewatch the ones that don't outrage me. 
That means Penny and Steve and Justin are on my "never again" list.
Where is Ashley from?  Detroit maybe?

[auntjess]

As you may have surmised, I was getting Ashley R.  mixed up with Amber R., whose episode I don't see on the schedule.
But this Ashley had one of the most loving families, and I hope she continues to do well.

[Otter]

3 hours ago, auntjess said:

As you may have surmised, I was getting Ashley R.  mixed up with Amber R., whose episode I don't see on the schedule.
But this Ashley had one of the most loving families, and I hope she continues to do well.

I get them mixed up too!  Too many Ashleys.  But I loved her and her family.  I really liked Amber's family too although Amber would get on my nerves with her "I'm such a failure" shtick.  She's loved unconditionally.

[lenny]

On 1/11/2017 at 8:01 PM, okerry said:

Though we've seen more than one very patient caretaker husband on this show who was seeing other women on the side. Not saying this one is doing that, or that I can even blame these men when their wives are entirely unable to meet their needs - but things are not always what they seem.

I like Ashley and her family but like so many others, she seems stunted emotionally. Her family leaving her after surgery was a good thing. I'm sure it was hard for them all but she's a grown woman and should be relying on her husband to fill a majority of her emotional needs. In the scene where her mother was talking about leaving, Ashley tearfully said she couldn't get through recovery without her mother. If I'd been her husband I would have said "what am I, chicken soup?". But the day after her mother had left Ashley said she didn't know how she would get through it without her husband, a more mature emotion. The time in Houston away from family is good for her. She needs to develop grown up relationships with her husband and family.

[auntjess]

Someone has mentioned how tall she is, and I noticed that one of her sisters is also very tall.

[auntjess]

Just watched the Ashley repeat again, and noticed that she probably has the thinnest legs of any that I remember.
There was the one woman whose weight was almost all in her legs, and Ashley's is almost all in her stomach, and very little in her legs.
No point, just things you notice on rewatching.