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Michael White: Part Two
| Thursday, Jan 10 2008 11:18 AM
Last Updated: Friday, Jan 25 2008 5:43 PM
PART ONE ... PART TWO
Michael White stands with some of the other candidates for Associated Student Body council as the rest of the school filters into the gym at Bakersfield Christian High School in early May.
“My gut is going to be wrenching all weekend,” he says, all smiles. “I’m so nervous.”
One by one, the other candidates give their takes on what Bakersfield Christian High School needs. Now it’s Michael’s turn.
He climbs up to the podium, flanked by red, white and blue balloons.
The entire student body stares back.
“I know a lot of us here get really good grades,” he says. “Why not get awards for that?”
The now 17-year-old in front of them isn’t the same person they saw six months before, or at least, not as much of the person he was before. Michael is more than 100 pounds lighter than he was in November 2006 when he had bariatric surgery.
At 16, he was the youngest person through the Bariatric Solutions program at San Joaquin Community Hospital to have the invasive surgery. But his parents felt it was their best option to save their son’s life.
At 480 pounds, Michael’s health was deteriorating rapidly. He had high cholesterol and blood pressure, borderline diabetes, dwindling kidney function and more.
Now, day by day, his health is improving as the weight comes off.
As Michael gets further into his student body president speech, he speaks faster, louder and with more passion. He talks about all the great things the students can do despite being so young.
He quotes 1 Corinthians 12:9: And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
“He uses the weak to lead everyone else,” Michael says. “I would seek to grow God in all that I do.
“Make your decision ... Vote for Mike White for president.”
With a questioning eyebrow, all 326 pounds of Michael gets on top of the upside-down painters bucket submerged about a foot into the kiddie pool.
“You sure I should stand on top of that?” he asks, if only to himself.
But he grabs some Fun Noodles and clobbers his brother off the opposing bucket during one of Valley Baptist Church’s “water nights” last spring.
And for the first time in recent memory Michael is able to participate without taking rests.
“Even when I was really, really big, like before my surgery, I would try to participate,” he said. “But I wasn’t able to run.”
The extent of Michael’s transformation was reinforced a couple weeks earlier during his six-month evaluation.
He’d lost more than 150 pounds.
When he weighed in at 442 a month before his surgery, his body was almost 71 percent fat. Now he’s at 33 percent.
His chest measures 51 1⁄2 inches around, compared to 62 inches six months before.
His waist now: 48 inches. And then: 61 inches.
“You’re melting before my eyes,” said Sheri Seal-Bailey, director of Bariatric Solutions. “That’s way ahead of schedule.”
Standing behind a curtain, Michael and two other men watch as photos of their former selves flash on the screen at a reunion for Bariatric Solutions patients in mid-October.
Through the opening in the curtain, a red carpet stretches to the stage.
Mohamed Muthana, 25, and Nicolas Gonzalez, 30, have also undergone bariatric surgery. Photos of them with friends and family, on vacation, much skinnier and looking much happier flash on the screen behind the stage.
“Look at what I’m wearing,” Muthana comments.
“I’ve gone through so many clothes this past year,” Michael says. “It was almost as much as the surgery to get more clothes.”
The three’s stories are told to the audience in the Holiday Inn Select ballroom. After the slide shows, each is brought up to the stage, ushered by raucous applause.
“I didn’t know there was this many people who had surgeries,” Michael says after being honored.
He wears a tuxedo rented for him by Bariatric Solutions, which is a good thing because none of his old suits fit him anymore. Michael hovers around 300 pounds — 180 pounds less than what he was almost a year ago.
He sits with his family and listens with the 450 people in attendance as actress/comedienne Jackie Guerra discusses her weight loss story.
Guerra, a svelte 130 pounds, knows what it’s like to wear twice that. She underwent bariatric surgery in 2004.
“They kept telling me it was my fault,” said Guerra, who played Selena Quintanilla-Perez’s sister in “Selena.” “I always felt something was wrong with me. It was exhaustive.”
Guerra tried the prepackaged food diet, cabbage soup diet, the color diet. (Every day you eat food of a different color.)
Then her 52-year-old aunt “killed herself dieting.”
She dropped dead after spending her life fluctuating between 200 and 350 pounds, Guerra says.
“When she died, the doctor came to me and said you’re next,” she says.
Guerra wraps up her talk, and everyone claps.
“Can I have chocolate cake now,” Michael Sr. asks mockingly.
“That’s not my dad,” Michael Jr. replies, shaking his head.
Michael’s mother, Gail, finishes fixing spaghetti as Shamu, the family’s large cat, runs through the kitchen.
“He’s getting gastric bypass next week,” Michael Sr. jokes about the cat.
Both Michaels, Gail and Dustin, Michael’s 10-year-old brother, sit down to eat.
Gail and Dustin fill their dinner plates with the spaghetti with meat sauce, while Michael Sr. and Jr. portion out about a fourth of the plate.
Michael Sr. eats his spaghetti with a plate of pickles.
After bariatric surgery your tastes change. What you want to eat shifts one day to the next.
To undergo bariatric surgery means more than just going under the knife. Your mind has to change too, Michael Sr. says. And once you know you can’t eat as much as you want, the more you notice how much other people eat.
“Everything revolves around food,” Michael Sr. says. Thanksgiving feast, Christmas dinner, birthday cake, Halloween candy — everything is celebrated with food. “Everyone says it’s lunch whether they’re hungry or not.”
Michael eats his few forkfuls of spaghetti.
“Right now, I’m really thirsty.”
He’ll have to wait a few more minutes until there’s more room in his retrofitted stomach to fit some milk.
Eating when he’s not hungry is still a battle for Michael Jr., he says.
But if he eats too much, he’ll have to deal with the consequences of stomach pain or diarrhea.
He gets these even when he hasn’t eaten badly.
The family finishes its meal. Michael Jr. gets up to get a glass of milk.
He would normally go to the gym to work out, but he’s coming down with a cold.
His father says he would like to open a gym for obese people someday.
“Heavy people don’t want to go into a gym with all these tiny, tiny teenagers with tight, tight pants on,” he says.
With every step on the stair machine at Body Xchange gym, Michael looks like he’s falling down.
His face contorts. His leg muscle’s strain.
But with every step, he’s getting a closer to how healthy he wants to be.
Michael comes here five days a week, usually after school or after dinner.
He has his pick of the equipment.
He knows he’s getting healthier, but that doesn’t make pushing through a workout easy.
“My legs are hurting. My arms are hurting,” he says. “Right now, I just want to go home and take a shower.”
After the treadmill, some weights, then he walks over to an ab cruncher.
Eighty pounds of resistance. Ninety pounds. Then 100 pounds.
Eleven reps each.
His dad showed him how to exercise before Michael underwent his surgery more than a year ago.
This is one healthy habit that’s getting passed down father to son.
“Nobody’s health is perfect. Perfect is just a philosophy,” Michael Jr. says. “God knows what’s perfect.”
