Formerly Fat, Latterly Lapsed 4

By the fall of 2019, weighing 500 pounds and coming up fast on 60 years of age, a broken man financially, physically and mentally, Paul Mason was back in England, in taxpayer-funded housing, with round-the-clock care. Journalist Adam Aspinall wrote for the Daily Mirror:

The world’s former fattest man is begging the NHS to save his life after being admitted to hospital four times in the past five months.

Speaking from a secret location, a desperate Paul told the Mirror: “The NHS have saved my life time and again. I could be dead without them. I’m determined to get my health back so I don’t let them down — I just need them to help me one last time… I have thought about taking my own life but I cannot let it come to that.”

In mid-2021 his medical situation was worse. Along with the gastric bypass needing repair, and the broken stapled parts inside him, and the wrecked knees, now one hip needed serious attention. But meanwhile, the COVID pandemic had drastically changed the social and medical landscapes. Of everything they needed, everyone was getting even less than ever before.

With all those problems, plus the misery of arthritis, Paul Mason was in constant distress. So he did what he always had done — he ate more. Reporters Adam Aspinall & Holly Hume quoted him as leading off with potato chips:

Crisps have always been my go-to snack. I use them to keep the edge off because I’m in terrible pain through the arthritis and I have a doctor who will not give me any proper pain relief. She said I’ve just got to live with it.

On top of that I wasn’t getting the minerals I needed due to my gastric bypass needing to be altered and that made by depression worse which led to me becoming very unhappy.

Despite the doctor’s caution with pain meds, Mason attempted suicide by overdose. Then, toward the year’s end, the long-awaited documentary, 10 years in the making, was finally wrapped up and released. By now Mason was a significant figure to many people who empathized with his struggles against obesity, and possibly with his unrelenting tendency to be his own worst enemy. The television premiere of “The World’s Fattest Man — 10 Years On” garnered wide attention.

By this time, he was living by himself in what the British call “sheltered housing.” He had gained even more weight and seemed, in his public pronouncements, to solely blame the pandemic for his epic backsliding. Reporter Jaymi McCann quoted the ITV synopsis of the production:

This unique documentary, filmed over 11 years, charts how Paul Mason from Ipswich took his life to the extreme, reaching nearly 80 stone (1,120 lbs.) as his food addiction became out of control.

While surgeons try to fix his body as his weight is on a rollercoaster, the question needs to be asked: is the real battle in his mind? Can therapy provide an answer to his compulsive eating?

At last, Paul, once the world’s fattest man, is going to face his demons in order to tackle the addiction which has devastated his life.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “World’s fattest man begs NHS to save his life with £100k weight loss surgery,” Mirror.co.uk. 09/29/19
Source: “Former world’s fattest man Paul Mason took overdose after pandemic weight gain,” Archive.ph, 11/03/21
Source: “Paul Mason now: What happened to the ‘World’s Fattest Man’ as ITV documentary catches up 10 years on,” Inews.co.uk, 11/03/21
Image by Leonard J. Matthews/CC BY-ND 2.0

Formerly Fat, Latterly Lapsed 3

But the plans that Paul Mason and Rebecca Mountain had made for their mutual future soon dissolved. (For the backstory, see our previous posts about Paul Mason). Mason got tired of small portion sizes, healthful foods, and no potato chips. He was bored and went back to night eating, which is never good. The couple tried a Paleo diet, against which he rebelled.

Basically, he cheated on his lady — not with other women, but with carbs. Ms. Mountain told journalist Emma Parker:

I came home and there was a big loaf of bread in the refrigerator. We had an agreement that we were not going to tempt each other. I felt he wasn’t taking my feelings into consideration. In the weeks after, he went back to his old habits.

Despite their broken engagement, Mountain and Mason continued as roommates until some point in 2018. A real downward spiral began when another woman offered to take him in, and he moved. He told reporter Adam Aspinall,

I met someone out there and we became friendly, she said she had a spare bedroom and offered me a place rent free so I said, yeah OK.

She started demanding things like money for cigarettes, and she took opioids and demanded my prescription from me. I was trapped.

This is what led to me stealing, she would give me a whole A4 list of stuff and would get me to go in the supermarket and steal it — I did not have any choice — it was like an entrapment situation…

I got arrested and taken to court but I paid the fine, there is no outstanding warrant or anything like that…

Apparently though, the thievery was more extensive than he made it sound, but that belongs in the upcoming Addiction discussion.

Another rupture

In 2019, at age 58, Mason was back up to 500 pounds and planned to return to his homeland. His gastric bypass needed adjustment. At least eight of his stomach staples had been defeated by the brute force of his eating and needed surgical repair. His joints were wrecked from the weight they bore in the times when he could walk, and he needed bilateral knee replacements. He told social media friends that during his five years in the U.S., he had made wrong decisions and earned negative consequences.

Mason called his second roommate a “bad influence” and admitted that through his own fault, he had let his visa expire, and also acknowledged that he needed therapeutic counseling on a regular basis. He wanted to go home, but a lot of his fellow Brits did not want him back. Journalist Terri-Ann Williams wrote,

The former world’s fattest man has denied he is a scrounger as he is set to return to the UK to receive £100,000 of NHS care — as the US won’t pay for his treatment…

Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said that bypass patients know they have to reduce their food intake and think more carefully about what they eat.

He added: “Paul’s health problems are therefore his fault. The NHS should not be forced to clean up this mess… As far as I’m concerned when he moved to America he forfeited his right to NHS treatment.”

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Sex with World’s fattest man Paul Mason ‘great’ says ex — but he cheated on her with bread,” Archive.ph, 06/07/19
Source: “World’s fattest man begs NHS to save his life with £100k weight loss surgery,” Mirror.co.uk, 09/29/19
Source: “Former world’s fattest man — who now weighs 40 stone — denies he is a scrounger,” DailyMail.co.uk, 05/27/19
Image by Nathan Cooprider/CC BY 2.0

Formerly Fat, Latterly Lapsed 2

On a day in 2010, Paul Mason lay on the largest available surgical bed, and yet fat still cascaded off both sides. He was prepped for a bariatric procedure called a keyhole gastric bypass. Because of his pre-existing conditions, mainly morbid obesity, his chance of living through any surgery was only 50/50. Nobody knew how much anesthetic it took to numb such a huge body without killing the patient.

How did he get there? In the most immediate and literal sense, as told by the GQ journalist Justin Heckert:

[F]ive paramedics in yellow suits wheeled Mason out of his home on the bed where he lived. Using a motorized winch, they hoisted his extra-wide reinforced stretcher into the back of the supersized ambulance that the Suffolk branch of the NHS had scoured all of Great Britain to find…

Engineers had realized before he arrived that the operating room probably wouldn’t be sturdy enough to hold him. After consulting blueprints, they ultimately installed metal supports beneath the floor.

The following summer, at age 50, Mason made the news again. Having lost enough weight to fit into a wheelchair, he was out and about, and suffered a fall when about a mile from home. When paramedics arrived, they treated a head injury, and the fire department transferred him into a reinforced ambulance using specialized lifting equipment.

Some time later, Sarah Lyall wrote for The New York Times about Mason’s life when in his mid-50s. Despite having lost about 650 pounds (which is more than a quarter of a ton) he was in the undesirable position of having about 100 pounds of loose skin hanging off his body “like a living shroud.” It often developed infected areas, and he still had to be in a wheelchair most of the time.

Transatlantic cousins

Not a doctor in England was willing to take on the task of excising such a massive amount of tissue. Thanks to media attention in the USA, plastic surgeon Dr. Jennifer Capla heard about Mason’s plight and offered to do the surgery pro bono if he could get to New York. Meanwhile, another American woman, Rebecca Mountain, had seen a BBC documentary about the (former) world’s fattest man. She visited Mason in England and invited him to stay with her in Massachusetts.

So, in mid-2015, about 56 pounds of sagging skin were removed from the patient by Dr. Capla and two other doctors who also waived their fees. The following year, another 20 pounds (or so) of skin were removed from his arms and hips. That may not sound like much, but seeing it spread out on a table is a shocker.

Between Mason and his hostess, a romance developed. When they appeared on a TV show together, she proposed to him on air, and they became engaged. In a later interview, Ms. Mountain reminisced about the enormous emotional attraction the two had shared, and their very satisfactory intimate relationship. She recalled how happy Mason had been when they went out for a movie date, because for the first time in years, he could fit into a theater seat.

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “How the World’s Heaviest Man Lost It All,” GQ.com, 03/07/17
Source: “Fattest man hurt in his wheelchair,” Trem.media/news/uk, 07/03/11
Source: “Losing 650 Pounds, and Preparing to Shed a Reminder of That Weight,” NYTimes.com, 04/25/15
Source: “Paul Mason celebrates ‘feather light’ arms after surgeons remove 10lbs of loose skin,” IpswichStar.co.uk, 09/07/16
Source: “The World’s Fattest Man: 10 Years On, review: do documentaries like this really help?,” Telegraph.co.uk, 11/02/21
Image by Emma Forsberg/CC BY 2.0

Formerly Fat, Latterly Lapsed 1

Paul Mason, born a subject of the British queen, has lived one of the saddest obesity stories of all time, and also one of the most frustrating. His biography has caused people to mutter, “How much help does one person deserve, anyway?” and brought to mind other questions such as, “How does a person, unable to stand or walk, obtain mind-boggling amounts of food?”

An excessive number of news stories have been published about Mason’s personal journey, as well as TV shows and documentaries. Anyone who cared to has been able to view nude photos of him at his most corpulent, inspiring such comments as “Exactly what body part is that?” Despite or perhaps because of this intensive coverage, the timelines of his weight fluctuations and personal life are sometimes confusing.

Apparently, the most he ever weighed was around 980 lbs. However, another source says his max was in the neighborhood of 80 stone, which would be well over a thousand pounds — 1,120 to be exact. Bear in mind, it is very difficult to weigh a large, mostly bedridden person.

The narrative

In 2001, at a relatively modest weight of around 600 pounds, Mason needed a hernia surgically repaired. The local fire department had to demolish a wall and use heavy machinery to extract his bed. Hospital authorities informed him that if he did not survive the surgery, neither the morgue nor other facilities would be able to deal with the situation. For cremation, his remains would be sent to a slaughterhouse.

The administrators even had to write up a special consent form. Twenty years later, Mason told a reporter that this had made a big impression, but in light of many subsequent events, it is hard to connect the dots.

At any rate, Mason remained at that hospital for around two years, and seems to have been a cheering influence, and even the life of the party at times. He was then moved to a retirement home where, Justin Heckert reported, health care workers would sneak him extra food. At 800 pounds, he was moved to a custom-built house. At this point, he was regarded by some as a public enemy who soaked up around $115,000 per year of the nation’s insufficient health care funds. Heckert wrote,

He spent his entire disposable income on food. At one point he gained more than 150 pounds in six months… He never even got a real night’s sleep — his life was a series of catnaps from which he would awake to eat, 24 hours a day…

Mason applied several times for gastric bypass surgery, and apparently, the government finally decided that it would be less expensive than continuing to cover the expenses of a pretty much inert mass.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “How the World’s Heaviest Man Lost It All,” GQ.com, 03/07/17
Image by DocChewbacca/CC BY-SA 2.0