Grieving mother’s heartbroken plea after 8-year-old son suddenly dies in his sleep

By
Monica Pop
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When little bundles of joy are welcomed into the world, they become the center of their parents’ lives and everything revolves around them from that moment on. Moms and dads out there put their personal needs on the bottom of the list of priorities as their children’s needs become their number one concern.

Unfortunately, sometimes, no matter how hard they try, parents are powerless to help their children. Tragedies struck and their world bursts into pieces, like a shattered glass. The pain of losing a child never fades away and things don’t get easier as time passes by, they just learn how to live with their grief.

Jessica Brandes is an Oregon-based naturopathic doctor who has a heartbreaking story to share. She’s a mom of twins, Oliver and Wiley. Unfortunately, Wiley died in his sleep in 2019 as a result of what his parents believe to be SUDEP (Sudden Unexplained Death of Epilepsy).

The heartbroken mother shared her story on her LinkedIn account in hopes of making other parents realize just how important it is to make their children number one priority in life and spend most of their time by their side.

Courtesy of Dr. Jessica Brandes

“I am a mother to 8-year-old twin boys, Oliver and Wiley. I am bound to this identity the same as I am wife, doctor, daughter, female. Things that are unchangeable in my mind.

Our son, Wiley, recently died. Our culture is trained to give people space around an event like this. It’s considered rude to ask what happened and why and so the only words left are ‘I’m so sorry.’ We are grieving intensely, but one of the best things we can do is share our story with you. If you can handle it, please ask us about our son’s life and his death. We heal in small bits while talking about it. If you haven’t had a chance to meet with us in person, then read his story here,” Jessica started her post.

“In general, he was happy and healthy and had been to his pediatrician, eye doctor and dentist all within one month of his death. He was smart, artistic, ambitious and funny, an incredible dancer, excellent taste in music and movies. He had the most gorgeous blue eyes; was tall with huge feet and seemed to be outgrowing everything within 2 weeks. He was mature and understood complex world concepts like religions and different forms of politics. He had been to 10 countries and had lived in London for 18 months of his life. He had driven a car and kissed girls and fell in love with one. He never knew heartbreak and while we will forever know that pain, I think it’s incredible that he loved and never experienced the pain of romantic rejection,” the heartbroken mother continued.

Courtesy of Dr. Jessica Brandes

Jessica then described a situation when she learned her son had some health issues. During a trip, he was asleep, and suddenly fell down experiencing a seizure.

She and her husband took him to the doctor who ordered an EEG. After they ran a number of tests, Wiley was diagnosed with Rolandic Epilepsy. The good thing was that his condition would be outgrown over time. He wasn’t given any medications and the only thing Jessica and her husband were advised to do was to keep his quantity of sleep as regular as possible as his condition was triggered by his sleeping cycles.

Family and friends were alerted of Wiley’s condition and they all knew what to do in case of a seizure.

Courtesy of Dr. Jessica Brandes

“9 months later, Wiley seemed to be sleeping quite late. I looked in on him and saw a peacefully sleeping child cozy in his bed after a long day of summer fun. He was not sick. There was no indication he was even slightly unwell. He went to bed tired and happy, well-fed having eaten his favorite meal and was sleeping next to his best friend,” Jessica wrote.

In the morning, when she realized Wiley had been sleeping for too long already, she went to check on him. Oliver was playing on his iPad while Wiley “was under a blanket and his feet appeared mottled.”

“That was the moment. The moment I knew what was coming next. My eyes tracked up his legs as I pulled the blanket back and I traced the deep purple color of lividity. This extreme color change indicated to me my son had been dead for at least 8 hours. I felt for a pulse and somehow felt surprised by the cold skin I touched. There was no emergency, no opportunity for intervention where I could have changed the outcome. He was gone and I knew events would move very quickly. I started to call 911, but hung up because there was a more important call I needed to make.”

Courtesy of Dr. Jessica Brandes

Jessica called her husband J.R. and said the words: “Wiley’s dead.” In the next moment, she told Oliver that his friend was dead and people gathered in the house, after which the sirens followed.

First responders arrived with their equipment, but Jessica knew there was nothing to be done.

Because Wiley was a minor, police arrived and blocked the path to his room. When Jessica’s husband arrived home, he wasn’t allowed to enter and see his son. It took 2.5 hours for the police to investigate the place.

“J.R. walked our son out of the house with the Medical Examiner and then one by one, the cars all drove away just as quickly as they had arrived leaving J.R., Oliver and I standing in our driveway in a completely different world then the one we had woken up to,” Jessica wrote.

“If you think of brains as being the computers of the body, Wiley’s just turned off. No known trigger, no warning. It just shut down and without a brain, there is nothing. Wiley’s cause of death will take approximately 4 months to officially declare. There is no proof of SUDEP and so everything else even remotely possible must be ruled out. I take solace in the fact that it was peaceful. Wiley was warm and happy and asleep in his favorite place next to someone who loved him. If I were to design my own death, it would be exactly that.”

Courtesy of Dr. Jessica Brandes

The family of four is now learning how to be a family of three, and that’s heartbreaking. However, Jessica says their family and friends shouldn’t be afraid of mentioning Wiley whenever they want.

“If we’ve learned anything at all, it’s that life is fragile, and time really can be so cruelly short. We wish a lot of things were different, but mostly, we wish we’d had more time. If you are a parent and have any capacity to spend more time with your kids, do. When it ends, there’s just photos and leftover things and time is no longer available to you. It is priceless and should not be squandered. Take your vacation days and sabbaticals and go be with them. You will not regret the emails you forgot to send. From now on, if you email or text me and my reply takes longer than expected, know that I am with the people I love sharing my time, creating my new identity, and I encourage you to do the same,” this brave mom ended her touching post.

Rest in peace Wiley, you will be forever missed.

arty

Photo of Florida deputy carrying girl struggling to walk up stadium stairs at football game goes viral

By
Monica Pop
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Being kind is the best policy. It is because of people who are willing to go an extra mile for the well-being of others that this world is a better place.

A photo from the Florida State University football game which took place in November of last years has gone viral for all the right reasons.

A woman named Britney Howard was a spectator at the game. She was hoping to have some enjoyable time, but ended up getting even more than just a fun day at the game. At one moment, Howard noticed an incredible sight. A young woman was having troubles climbing the steps and finding her seat, but an angel in the form of an officer stepped in.

Deputy C. Hall approached the girl’s mother and asked if it was okay for him to carry her daughter to her seat.

“I just wanted to take a minute and recognize Deputy C. Hall that was working the Florida State football game Saturday night. This young girl that has difficulty walking was struggling to get up the steps to her seat so he asked her and her mother if they would be okay with him carrying her. He walked at least 30 rows up to her seat and did not hesitate one bit in offering to do so,” Howard wrote along with the photo she shared on Facebook.

The Leon County Sheriff’s Office was proud of the deputy’s kind deed and praised his action.

Thank you, Deputy C. Hall. People like you restore our faith in humanity.

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Auschwitz survivor who was kept at gunpoint and forced to dig his own grave celebrates 100th birthday

By
Monica Pop
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Not many people get to live to be 100, but Nat Ross, an Auschwitz survivor, is one the few lucky ones.

This brave man celebrated his milestone birthday surrounded by those who mean the world to him; his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Ross has been through so much in his life. When he was around 20 years old, the German Nazis took him to a concentration camp as he was one of the many Polish Jews the Nazis launched a campaign of terror against following the German military defeat of Poland in September 1939. Those were days filled with horror, but one particular incident has hunted Ross his entire life.

Fox 10 News/ Facebook

He was ordered to build a sewer system. While working on it, he came across some potato scraps which he tried to hide and eat in order to survive, but then the Nazis caught him stealing the scraps and punished him in the worst possible way.

Ross’ granddaughter, Dana Arschin-Kraslow, went into details of this awful and scary event and explained: “Every few weeks the Germans forced the prisoners to throw their clothes into a pot of boiling water to disinfect the clothing they were wearing, and my grandfather found a way to throw in a few scraps of rotten potatoes that he found. He sewed it into his uniform and that’s how he got nourishment.”

Fox 10 News/ Facebook

After realizing what Ross did, they forced him to dig his own grave.

“When he was almost done digging, they asked him to lay down on the ground to see if his body fit,” Dana told Fox 10 Phoenix. “When he did, the guards told him to keep digging. And there was a gun to his head this whole time.”

As he was kept at gun point, a prisoner collapsed. One of the Nazis turned to the man, killed him, and told Ross: “isn’t today, your lucky day.”

“That grave was 100 percent intended for my grandfather, but the rest of his life he had to live with that guilt that it ended up being for someone else,” Diana added.

Speaking to Fox 10 Phoenix, Ross said that he witnessed few prisoners taking their own lives because of the horrors they suffered, but he had a strong will to continue living. “I wanted to live because I wanted to tell the story,” he said. “Of how humans can suffer. I wanted to live through it.”

Luckily, all that is far behind him. After he was released from the concentration camp, Ross has lived a happy life. He lived in New York for many years before he moved to Florida where he worked and resides even today.

Happy birthday, Mr. Ross.

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19-year-old takes twin brother with special needs to his senior prom

By
Monica Pop
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“Siblings are the people we practice on, the people who teach us about fairness and cooperation and kindness and caring – quite often the hard way.” – Pamela Dugdale.

There’s no bigger blessing in life than having a brother or a sister you can lean on whenever things get hard. What makes siblings special is that we get to share with them out happiness and our sadness, but most of all our childhood, the most special period of everyone’s life.

Brianna and Carlos Colon are twins from Massachusetts. What is special about these two is that they were welcomed into the world at 24 weeks, weighing a pound and a half each. While this didn’t affect Brianna in any way, it caused health issues to Carlos who was left blind. At the same time Carlos has autism, but that didn’t prevent him from fulfilling his dream of graduating from high school.

Brianna on the other hand, graduated a year earlier and is now attending Bryant College.

She has always been very supportive of her brother, and she proved that once again on his prom night. As it turned out, Carlos didn’t have a date and was likely to miss the most important night of his life. Brianna, whose prom was canceled because of the pandemic last year, offered to be Carlos’ date.

“I’m lucky to have experienced it this time with him and somebody that I love very much,” she told Boston 25 News.

Needless to say, Carlos was over the moon and had the time of his life.

“Just because he’s blind and autistic doesn’t mean he can’t have fun. I’m glad he got to experience it and he danced a lot, so I’m really glad he went and all that,” his loving sister said.

It’s truly amazing to see how much Carlos has accomplished. He thrives and has a fulfilling life because he’s surrounded with special people who are there for him every step of the way.

However, although he graduated from high school, he’ll stay at the school until he’s 22 to be part of the Life Skills Program. His dream is to attend the Perkins School For The Blind. With the help and the support from his loved ones, especially his twin sister, Carlos will certainly accomplish everything he sets his mind to.

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Cindy Landon recalls last days of late husband Michael Landon’s life

By
Monica Pop
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The role of Charles Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie remains until this day one of the greatest father roles in the history of film. The series itself taught people how to live humble life as “it is the simple things that matter most.”

However, before this iconic role, the actor behind it, Michael Landon, landed another role in a long-running series that would help him make a name for himself, that of Little Jose Cartwright in the western show Bonanza.

Landon was much loved by fans for what he had to show on the screen and his talent earned him a number of awards, including a Golden Globe nomination in 1979 for Best actor in a television drama series for Little House on the Prairie. The show won 4 Emmys and additional 16 nominations. That spoke a lot of the popularity of the show and the cast who became America’s sweethearts practically overnight and kept the status even 37 years after the final episode aired.

LittleHouseonthePraire.com

What is very interesting about Landon is the story of how he found himself in the acting business. As a pretty handsome young man, he worked at a gas station near the Warner Bros Studios in Los Angeles where he caught the attention of a talent agent, Bob Raison. However, before he got inside the studio to film his debut TV series Telephone Time, this young man, whose original name was Eugene Orowitz changed it to whom we know today as Michael Landon.

Landon played plenty of roles in famous movies, including Highway to Heaven, and got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1984.

The heartthrob tied the knot three times, but it was his third wife Cindy Landon whom he called the love of his life. The two remained together until Landon’s tragic death in 1991 at the age of 54. Landon was a father of nine children and all of them agree he was the dad everyone would ask for, caring and loving, a true interpretation of Charles Ingalls.

After his passing, Cindy spoke of his battle with pancreatic cancer and how he turned to the nature and changed his lifestyle thus became a vegetarian. He was also undergoing chemotherapy sessions, but his tumor doubled in a short amount of time and spread to his liver, so not much could be done.

“I could feel every nerve in my body,” Chris, one of his sons with Cheryl Lynn, said in an interview with People in 1992. “Like it was all lit up. I was the father, and he was the son, I had to help him up the stairs. I am sad sometimes…when I think that I never said. ‘Sorry.’ I never looked at him and told him that I was sorry he was losing his life.”

Landon was a very considerate man and he was aware he was losing the battle so he and his wife made sure they prepared the kids for what was coming. It was reported that he read them a book titled Butterflies and explained how his body would be like a cacoon and his spirit would be a butterfly looking down on them.

During his last minutes on Earth, Cindy was by Landon’s side and she recalls his lasts words were “I love you!”

“I think it was watching him go through the whole process that prepared her”, LeslieLandon, daughter of Lynn Noe said in an interview with People.

Cindy spoke of the time she first laid eyes on Landon during the set of The Loneliest Runner where he was the star and she was an extra. ”I looked at this man and I just thought he was the most extraordinary man I had ever seen,” she said in 1998. ”It was not just his look, but there was something about his personality, about how he carried himself. There was a charisma about him and a strength that was just incredible.”

“People thought he was extremely serious, but that wasn’t Michael at all,” Cindy told Closer Weekly in 2019. “He was excited about his work, but he always came home happy. He was a fantastic father who was curious about everything and loved to teach the children.”

One of his daughters, Jennifer, who followed into his footsteps, recalls how Landon was very much respected by everyone in the family and how there was “a tremendous amount of discipline implemented in the house,” but yet, her dad always made things fun.

“He had this ability to make you feel like something magical could happen or that you were on the edge of a discovery,” she said speaking to Closer Weekly.

Today, Cindy is the president of the Michael and Cindy Landon Foundation. She has been involved in events for Doctors without Borders, Free Arts for Abused Children and is an advocate for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. She also works as a director and producer.

Cindy is a huge animal lover and has a number of rescue dogs she takes care of and a 250-pound Mexican hairless pig saved from a lab.

In February, she posted a photo of her dear husband taken years ago and wrote, “Wow I took this photo many years ago.. I found it going through my storage .. it ended up in a coffee table book.” In July, paid him another tribute, “July 1 we said goodbye to you. You left us way to soon. You will always and forever be in our hearts. Memories last a lifetime.”

Rest in peace Michael Landon, you were an acting legend loved by many and we will always remember you as such.

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Lexi and Danny Reed weight loss: Here’s their incredibly inspiring journey

By
Monica Pop
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Determination is a trait very few people possess. The truth is that not everyone can achieve their goals and dreams, and the reason why is the lack of motivation and giving up easily. However, once one changes their mindset, the sky is the limit.

Lexi and Danny, a couple from Terre Haute, Indiana, had been friends for around ten years before they started dating. At the time they tied the knot, Lexi weighted 480lbs, and Denny was 279lbs.

Although he weighted less than her, Danny didn’t lead a healthy lifestyle and he only gained more and more weight over the years.

“He never saw me as my size, asked me to change, or made me feel as anything other than beautiful,” Lexi wrote on Instagram. She, however, admitted that she has always been an emotional eater, and the two ate over 4,000 calories a day, mostly through fried food.

Danny admitted that vegetable was almost never part of their meals.

Source: fatgirlfedup/Instagram

Then, back in 2016, they both decided enough was enough. One situation made Lexi aware of her current situation. She was obese and she wasn’t healthy, and that needed to change. “I had long been looking forward to going to an amusement park and riding the roller coaster,” Lexi recalled. “But when I got to the beginning of the queue, I was told I was too heavy. I couldn’t go. It was so incredibly embarrassing.”

This was her wake-up call. She knew her life was in her hands and that she needed to make a change. Of course, both her and Danny were aware that change doesn’t happen over night, but they were willing to do whatever it takes in order to lose weight.

Source: fatgirlfedup/Instagram

Speaking of their unhealthy eating habits, the couple revealed, “We often went to Asian eat-all-you-can-buffets. Then we went home and ordered more fast food.”

In order not to give up, Lexi decided to document her journey on her Instagram account “Fat Girl Fed Up.” At the beginning, not many people followed her, but now, in 2021, she has over 1.2 million followers who admire her determination and praise her hard work.

Source: fatgirlfedup/Instagram

Another thing that made this couple change their lives for the better was the fact that they struggled having a family considering their weight.

“We were fed up with the life that we were living and all the things that we weren’t able to do together as a couple. We also feared if we didn’t get our health under control, we would never be able to start a family,” Lexi said.  

The first step towards a healthier lifestyle was hitting the gym. Going there wasn’t easy for Lexi, but nothing could stop her at that point. “I started going there when I got a free trial and — since it was never really crowded, my machine faced the wall (so I didn’t feel like everyone was watching me), and I found a machine called the CrossRamp that didn’t hurt my joints at 485 pounds — I fell in love with it.”

Lexi and Denny made a rule they swore to follow. “No eating out, no soda, no alcohol, no cheat meals, and working out for 30 minutes five times a week.” Initially, this rule was only supposed to be followed for a month, but once they started eating healthy, there was no going back.

Source: fatgirlfedup/Instagram

Believe it or not, both Lexi and Denny look like completely different people today. They have always been happy, but now they are also healthy.

“Danny and I are still working very hard every day to achieve our goal,” Lexi says proudly. “We’re not there yet, but, still, I’d never thought that we’d even get this far. It’s just incredible. Many small steps can go a long way.” 

Source: fatgirlfedup/Instagram

Their journey serves as inspiration for many. The couple appears on shows every now and then where they speak of their achievements and what it takes to not give up.

“Every day is a non-scale victory and a reminder of how far I’ve come. Like, I loved myself even at 485 pounds, but just to be able to wake up and do whatever I want to do and go wherever I want to go… I don’t feel like I’m a prisoner in my own body anymore,” Lexi says.

“Start small — small changes add up to big results — and focus on each day, not how far you have to go,” she adds.

Source: fatgirlfedup/Instagram

We are so happy and proud of this couple. They are a proof that hard work always pays off.

arty

This is why Michael Landon’s ex-wife refused to attend his funeral

By
Monica Pop
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Few actors would ever reach the fame of Michael Landon, truly one of the greatest actors who have ever walked this Earth.

Best known for his roles in the iconic TV series Bonanza and Little House on the Prairie, Landon was much appreciated by audiences from all over the world. His role of Charles Ingalls made him the most famous American TV dad ever.

It is because of him that many actors who were part of the series made names for themselves.

Besides being a huge name in the film industry, Landon was also a father to nine children whom he had with three different wives.

When he and his second wife of 19 years, Lynn Noe, announced they were splitting, the news came as a shock to many, including his children and co-workers, especially because the reason for the split was Landon’s infidelity. While still married to Noe, he started dating Cindy Clerico, who would become his third wife.

Speaking of Landon’s divorce, one of his fellow colleagues, Mellisa Sue Anderson, who played the role of Mary Ingalls and was still a child at the time, told Outsider, “For us, as kids, it was a real blow. Although we knew he could be difficult at times and had his flaws, we never dreamed he was capable of inflicting that kind of pain on his real family. For me personally, I had held him up to a higher moral standard. He had really let me down.”

Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

In an 1985 interview with People Magazine, Landon was sort of forced to open up about his personal life and his wife Cindy who was 20 years his junior.

“You don’t dissolve a relationship to go to bed with someone 20 years younger. You have to have major differences and a deep-rooted need to stop a relationship after as many years as I was married,” he explained.

“I would have done anything to make that relationship continue, but I could not. It’s not just difficult for the wife. It is painful for the husband too. But it is far better than letting it stay the way it was.”

Kypros/Getty Images

Cindy was by Landon’s side until the last day of his life.

In 1991, Landon was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and died just three months later at the age of 54. He had undergone chemo treatments and turned to vegetarian diet, but the tumor grew bigger and spread to his liver.

He and Cindy prepared the children for his passing. They started reading a book titled Butterflies and he explained to them that just like the cocoon, his spirit would turn into a butterfly and he would watch over them from above.

Before he passed away, he whispered “I love you” to his wife.

Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

Landon’s funeral was attended by over 500 people, among which former president Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy Reagan.

According to Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie on Little House, Landon wanted his funeral to be the time during which his family and friends cherish the time spent with him instead of grieving.

“Michael had insisted his funeral be funny, and he got his wish,” she wrote in her book Confessions of a Prairie B*tch.

“Some people had wondered if Michael would have a religious funeral when he died. He did. It was Jewish.

“But even the rabbi made fun of him: ‘Michael was not religious, in the traditional sense of the word,’” she added. “He spoke of Michael’s response when the doctors told him that the chemo treatments would destroy his beautiful mane of hair. He said, ‘I’m rich, I’ll buy a hat.’”

Youtube/SueAnn Bellucci

The funeral was held on July 5, 1991, at the Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary in Culver City, California.

However, one of the people who weren’t among the attendees was his ex-wife Lynn Noe.

Back in the day, Noe spoke of her relationship with Landon and of the time he left her for Cindy.

“I was too busy being the kind of wife he wanted me to be. I lost myself little by little, I made Michael my god,” she said during an occasion.

“We speak without talking. Our conversation consists of, ‘When will you pick up the children?” Noe added, saying that she wasn’t angry with Cindy. “If it hadn’t been Cindy, it would have been somebody. He had reached that point in his life.”

It was reported by IMDB that the reason why Noe didn’t attend Landon’s funeral was that her divorce from him “had already been like a death to her.”

arty

This is what Ashley Bratcher from ”My 600-Lb Life” looks like today

By
Monica Pop
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Different people cope with their stress differently. While some tend to do relaxing things such as taking long walks or chatting with friends in order to redirect their thoughts and distract their mind from their problems, others turn to destructive measures, such as overeating.

It’s not uncommon for people to find comfort in their food, but sadly, as much as it cheers them up for some time, it has long-term negative effects on their overall health.

Source: Youtube/ My 600-lb-life

27-year-old Ashley Bratcher of Texas, who is a wife and a mother, gained excessive weight as a result of eating unhealthy food whenever she wanted to run away from the pain she felt after her mother abandoned her and her siblings when they were still very young.

”If my mother had been paying attention I think she could’ve changed a lot of stuff that was going on. As the oldest one, I felt like I had to protect my brother and sister because they were really little. So I let it happen to me, so it wouldn’t happen to them,” she explained.

Source: Youtube/ My 600-lb-life

When she finally told herself enough is enough, Ashley weighted 725 pounds. In hopes of finding a way out of her situation, she applied for the TLC’s show My 600-Lb Life and got in touch with one of the best weight loss surgeons there are, Dr. Younan Nowzaradan, who has helped hundreds of people gain control over their eating habits and their lives.

The first thing Ashley was told was that if she continued with her lifestyle, she wouldn’t live past 30. It was the wake-up call she needed in order to take things into her own hands and start her change.

Ashley wasn’t able to do even the simplest things. Instead, her 5-year-old son did everything for her. ”He’s my legs, he helps me with just about everything. Without him, I’d be lost,” she said back in 2016 when she entered the show.

As much she was doing that for her, she was also doing that for her son.

Source: Youtube/ My 600-lb-life

Before Dr. Now approved of her gastric bypass surgery, Ashley was put on a calorie-restricted weight loss program. To everyone’s surprise, she managed to lose whopping 123 pounds. Her surgery was a huge success. Ashley lost 255 pounds and was finally able to get control of her life. “This whole journey has been not only a physical rollercoaster, it’s been very a much an emotional rollercoaster,” she told People.

In 2018, Ashley appeared in the show My 600-Lb Life – Where are they now?

She shared with the viewers that she weighted under 300 pounds and didn’t use food as comfort any longer. She regained her self-confidence and was able to do all the things she couldn’t do in the past, like going shopping, and taking long showers.

Source: Facebook / Ashley Bratcher

Ashley shares photos of herself on her Instagram account. She has a lot of followers who admire her dedication and hard work. “Surgery is just a tool. It does not change your mindset,” she says.

Ashley’s husband, Jack, with whom she recently celebrated their 12th wedding anniversary is her huge support.

Source: Facebook / Ashley Bratcher

We are so happy for Ashley. You go, girl!

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