Half the man he used to be

Some doctors say bariatric surgery works if a patient loses more than 40 percent of excess body weight — something Deuel has done.

“Any way you slice it, we did what we set out to accomplish,” Harris says. “If Patrick wouldn’t lose another pound, I’d think he had been a success. ... Anything else I get out of him is gravy.”

Or, Harris says, look at it this way: “He’s lost two NFL defensive linemen.”

When Deuel loses more weight, Harris plans to remove his panniculus, an apron-like layer of abdominal fat. It makes walking feel like he’s carrying giant sacks of flour. That surgery could trim another 40 to 70 pounds.

It was Deuel’s hometown doctor who called Harris last year after she arranged for her patient to get emergency care for neglected dental work and realized he needed more help.

“It was clear we had a dying patient,” Harris says. “I told him, ’We don’t have weeks. We have days or hours.’ I said he could die in the bed ugly or accept admission (to the hospital).”

Even now, Deuel says he thinks he could have lost weight without surgery.

At the hospital, Harris’ medical team had to design extensions for an operating table.

By last October when Deuel had surgery, he had dropped more than 400 pounds, a lot of that water.

Troubles began as a baby
Harris says Deuel’s weight problems are not simply from overeating.

“I’m absolutely convinced the basic, overlying cause for morbid obesity is genetic,” Harris says. “There’s some nature, some nurture. But it’s like wanting to have blue eyes and having brown eyes. You can’t fight it. We desire food more, we get hungry quicker. ... Every gene in your body says, ’Feed me now.’ “

Dr. Samuel Klein, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at Washington University’s School of Medicine in St. Louis, says it’s likely there’s a genetic predisposition to obesity, but that has not been proven. About 40 percent of weight variability, he says, is related to genetics.

To hear Patrick Deuel tell it, his troubles began when he was still in his baby carriage.

Deuel says he was 3 months old when diagnosed as morbidly obese (some medical experts say there’s no way to make that assessment so young.)

He clicks onto childhood photos on his computer and, in his high-pitched voice, narrates a life story measured in alarming numbers: The kindergartner in cap and gown, 90 pounds. The chubby-cheeked Boy Scout, 240 pounds. The thick-necked, 13-year-old, holding a whipped cream confirmation cake, 275 pounds.

Deuel points out the less obvious, too: His little red wagon had extra sturdy wheels, his pants’ legs were rolled up because he could fit only in men’s clothes.

His mother, Betty, said doctors offered little guidance beyond suggesting nonfat milk but recalls one telling her son: “If you don’t get some of this weight off, you’re not going to live to be very old.”

Neither parent was fat, though one of Deuel’s grandfathers weighed more than 300 pounds.

Deuel’s mother worked in a health-food store and says she prepared healthy meals — lots of salads and squash — and they tried the Weight Watcher’s diet, but it didn’t help much.

She knew how abnormal the situation was, but “there’s a point where you say, ’Am I nagging so much where I’m making things worse?’ I did believe you can overdo it,” she explains. “I had someone ask me one day, ’Couldn’t he just eat less?’ Well, he did.”

By high school, Deuel was 300 pounds, but found his niche, lending his tenor voice to choirs and his trombone-playing talents to bands. He only lasted one semester in college, then began working a variety of restaurant jobs where meals were free.

“There was too much to choose from and I made a lot of rotten choices,” he says.

Deuel tried all kinds of diets — and lost 300 pounds on one, but quit because he couldn’t afford the supplements.

“I just thought one of these days somebody is going to come out with a diet that works or one of these red-hot science fellers is going to come up with a pill ... you take and lose 100 pounds,” he says.

Deuel knows how Pollyannish that sounds. “Every dieter,” he says, “is wishing for that day.”

In the mid-1980s, he fell and hurt his back and ended up on disability, making him even more sedentary.

'I've reached my goal'
But there was one positive turn in Deuel’s life. Through a newspaper personals ad in which he described himself as “physically challenged,” he met Edith Runyan, a divorced school guidance counselor.

On the phone, he bluntly told her he weighed about 700 pounds.

When they met, she found his sense of humor appealing. “He had a positive attitude about life even though he had been kicked in the teeth a lot emotionally,” she says.

They married a decade ago — Deuel weighed 750 pounds — and his weight gain continued, his waist expanding up to 90 inches. Vertically, that would be about 7-foot-6, or the height of Yao Ming, the Houston Rockets star.

Deuel had to be weighed last year at a feed mill on a scale designed for trucks.

Now, he can move gingerly with two walkers; he does ’laps’ around his house, moving from the living room to the kitchen to the laundry room and back.

He still can’t attend church. “I don’t do steps yet,” he says.

Deuel hopes to become a motivational speaker and though he first talked about reducing to 240 pounds, he now says maybe he’ll settle for more — it depends how he feels.

He already has plans for the future: He’d like to go fishing, attend a football game, and yes, drive to McDonald’s for an Egg McMuffin.

“Just being able to go out and do what I want to do — when I get to that point,” he says, “I’ve reached my goal.”

And his timetable for that?

“At least 15 minutes before I die,” he jokes.

He pauses, smiles and reconsiders.

“Maybe a half-hour.”

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