Not long after moving to Ohio, I noticed a lump in my belly button area. It wasn’t very large but as the days went by, it got a little bigger. We asked Lisa’s mom about it since she was a nurse, she said it could be a hernia and suggested I see a doctor. I made an appointment and the doctor confirmed it was an umbilical hernia and scheduled surgery.
After the surgery, my doctor informed me that most of the fat in my body was located under the wall of my abdominal muscle and was filling up my body cavity, surrounding all of my major organs and was even beginning to compress my lungs. The hernia was caused because the fat pushed up against and tore the abdominal muscles. Lisa and I had previously noticed that my stomach wasn’t flabby; it didn’t shake around like most overweight people’s stomachs do. Mine was hard and felt like muscle but it was large and stuck out like I was really fat. The doctor said this was a very dangerous condition and I really needed to lose weight. I asked about the stretch marks on my stomach and sides and he said they were the result of me gaining weight too fast, stretching the skin. We would later find that this was a major indicator of a serious health problem, unfortunately this doctor didn’t recognize it.
Meanwhile, Lisa’s problems continued to get worse. She was seeing a doctor who was able to refer her to a specialist dealing with infertility and who was also trained to remove fibroid tumors. Lisa had surgery to remove the fibroid tumors in early February. Since she was very sore, her mom came up to help with the recovery. After a couple of weeks, Lisa was doing better and that was good because I had accepted a new job and we needed to make yet another move.
As a result of the buyout of Columbia Energy Group by NiSource, I had contacted all of the companies that I had previously interviewed with when I first graduated from Virginia Tech. Again, I received several job offers and the decision was made to move to North Carolina to work for Corning Cable Systems. We would be leaving Ohio the end of March, 2001.
Our Move to North Carolina
1 In you, Lord, I have taken refuge;
let me never be put to shame;
deliver me in your righteousness.
2 Turn your ear to me,
come quickly to my rescue;
be my rock of refuge,
a strong fortress to save me.
—Psalm 31:1-2
With the severance package I received from Columbia Gas Group, we moved to the Hickory, North Carolina area to begin a new phase in our life together. We bought a house in a new development in Conover, North Carolina and I began working for Corning Cable Systems in strategic planning. Lisa took a position as a teacher in a private school as a first grade teacher. Our lives seemed to finally be settling down, allowing us to put down roots.
My weight was still bouncing around sometimes 230 – 240 pounds, sometimes peaking up to 250 – 255 pounds. I continued to workout, lifting weights and walking several times a week. We lived on a circle that measured a mile around and I would walk at least two laps a day, trying to get in up to four laps a day every morning before work at a pace of twenty minutes or less per mile.
We searched for and finally found a church home at Christ Alive Church. This was a small church that was meeting in the band room of a local middle school. During our time there, I took ministry classes to learn more about the theology of the charismatic teachings and ended up getting my license in the Assemblies of God. We experienced many miracles of God in both of us and to others in the congregation and watched the church grow to several hundred people and the ability to purchase land for a building.
In December of 2001, we were blessed to find out we were finally going to become parents. By the end of January, we knew we were going to have a boy and on July 9th, 2002, Noah Scott Williams made us happy new parents. Now I had an even more important reason to get healthy. I was a new dad and had a family to take care of. On April 23, 2005, we had a second son, Joshua Tate Williams and on April 30, 2007, we had a little girl, Abigail Joy Williams. With the addition of three kids and all the events that go with raising kids, our lives got very busy. But our lives were also enriched with the special blessings that raising kids brings. My family became one of the main focuses and my motivation for getting healthy.
Unfortunately, my health did not improve, despite how hard I worked. In fact, what I had feared most was beginning to come true, that my continued high weight would lead to serious health problems. In 2002, I was diagnosed with high blood pressure and put on medication. One pill a day to start but eventually increasing to two pills a day. In 2004, I was diagnosed with diabetes and put on Metformin to help control my blood sugar. My body was getting less and less healthy every year. My wife and parents were very concerned about my health. My mom would tell me that I had to do something or I might have a heart attack or stroke and leave my family without anyone to take care of them. Lisa was always helpful, helping me watch what I was eating and making sure I was exercising.
The most frustrating part of this was that I was exercising and even though sometimes I ate more than I should, it was not sweets and the normal bad or unhealthy foods that most overweight, unhealthy people were known for. Most people didn’t believe me.
They would give me advice, “Just cut down on the late night snacks, cut out junk food, you have to watch that sweet tooth.”
This wasn’t my problem. I didn’t snack or eat junk foods. My lunch and dinner helpings were sometimes too large. But considering my workouts, this should have more than offset any weight gain. I did notice that I began to feel more and more stressed. I seemed to always be on edge and this lead to emotional eating.
I remember visiting one doctor’s office requesting that they look at my hormones to see if there could be something wrong. Before even seeing the doctor, the nurse told the doctor my request in the hallway.
He said, “Look, I’m not taking extra time and money to run any test. It is simple. He is eating too much. He needs to eat less and workout more.”
Apparently, the doctor thought I couldn’t hear him through the walls of the exam room but I could. When the nurse came back in, I told her I heard the doctor’s opinion and didn’t need to wait any longer to see him. I just got dressed and left feeling totally frustrated and alone. I felt like no one believed me or would take the time to help me find out what was wrong.
In 2004 after being diagnosed with diabetes, I started noticing that I was more tired than normal and lost some of my sexual desire. I talked to my doctor about this and was diagnosed with low testosterone. In fact, the test showed my level was so low that it would be equal to what an eighty-year-old man would be expected to have. He put me on a gel at first but moved me to monthly shots soon after. This helped with my energy and desire but no further testing was done to find out why my testosterone was so low at the age of thirty-one.
This was an unfortunate pattern of care that I had been receiving from the medical community. Doctors were treating each problem separately. No one was looking at the whole picture to say, does this all fit together to show something other than a lazy, overeating, obese person. No one was listening to me when I told them how I was working out, or how I was watching my diet or that I was not eating sweets. They just looked at me and saw what they thought was an overweight, non-exercising, obese person who was irresponsible, lazy and killing himself with food.
My weight was even affecting the way I was treated at work. I joined Corning Cable Systems in a very competitive MBA program that brought highly capable graduates into the strategic planning