Fields chooses gastric sleeve surgery to lose the unwanted pounds

LEFT: Sharon Fields at a prayer breakfast in 2017. RIGHT: With a new look and
a new attitude, Sharon Fields wears jeans for the first time in 10 years.

The most that Sharon Fields has weighed was 405 pounds. The weight was a heavy burden that she could no longer carry around on her five-foot frame. So she decided to do something about it.

“I’d made up my mind that it was time for a change. I have grandchildren and I want to be around for them,” said Fields, a community activist and administrative assistant for Agape Child & Family Services.

Fields’ resolve was strengthened when she learned that she could shed the unwanted pounds by undergoing gastric sleeve surgery. But first she had to prove that she could lose weight consistently before a bariatric surgery team in Tijuana, Mexico, would consider her for the weight-loss procedure.

Because Fields had gained an inordinate amount of weight, the doctors explained to her that a liver-shrinking plan was necessary to mitigate the risk of complications after the minimally invasive surgery.

“For 30 days, I could only eat a 4-oz portion of fish, chicken or turkey each day,” she said. “I also had to replace two meals a day with two protein shakes.”

The pre-op was successful. Fields loss the required weight to shrink her liver and was now prepared to head to Tijuana, a cultural mecca bordering San Diego, Calif. She left Memphis on a Tuesday (Sept. 26, 2017), had gastric sleeve surgery performed that Wednesday, and made it home the following Saturday.

Gastric sleeve surgery is a tool to reduce the size of the stomach to help chronically obese patients lose weight. The patient is placed under general anesthesia while a certified bariatric professional makes a small laparoscopic incision into the stomach to remove up to 85 percent of it.

This type of surgery can take less than an hour. Recovery generally takes about 15 days. Results, though not guaranteed, can vary for each patient. Rapid weight loss occurs when patients maintain a regimented diet plan.

 “I started seeing results immediately. My face and neck changed the same day,” said Fields, dropping 15 pounds the first week after the surgery. Before the month was out, she’d loss 45 pounds.

The weight was falling off rather quickly. “After 90 days, I went through a stall,” she noticed. “Then I started losing inches. Then I started losing more pounds. I loss 115 pounds in 10 months.”

Fields weighed in at 288 pounds less than two weeks ago. “I want to be half the size I was,” she said. “I want to be down to 200 pounds. I just want to make sure I’m healthy, though.”

Lugging so much weight around caused Fields’ health to wane. Her knees ached and she tired easily. If she had to walk a short distance, her breathing would become sporadic. She would have trouble catching her breath. She also had all the symptoms of sleep apnea.

“I wasn’t diagnosed with sleep apnea,” she said, “but I couldn’t sleep nonetheless.”

When looking back over the years, Fields recalls picking up weight when she was in her 30s. She said her weight gain was caused by emotional damage that bedeviled her at the onset of adulthood.

“I was in the 350-pound range for the last 10 years,” she said. “And I was close to 400 pounds about six years ago.”

The diet fads didn’t work, she said. She’d tried SlimFast, juicing, and other over-the-counter weight loss products. Still, the weight would come back. “I would lose 10 pounds and gain 15. I wasn’t consistent.”

Fields felt self-conscious, unattractive. Plus-size clothes were available, she said, but too expensive. However, depending on the setting and those close to her, she didn’t worry so much about the weight.

“My church family…my job…they just accepted me,” said Fields, assistant pastor of evangelism at the Pursuit of God Transformation Center. Her immediate family has been supportive too – her three adult sons, two grandsons, and granddaughter.

After the surgery, Fields’ new image started coming into focus. Now this active, single mother can see the results unfolding before her eyes – and she likes what she sees.

“I still have to eat right,” she said. “Gastric sleeve surgery helps you with portion control. If you don’t follow the plan, you can gain the weight back.”

Fields is determined not go down that road again.

Black Panther Party co-founder Elbert ‘Big Man’ Howard spent a lifetime fighting for people

Elbert "Big Man" Howard in 2012. (Photo by Wikipedia)

Those who knew Elbert Howard from the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, or befriended him when he lived briefly in Memphis, referred to him as “Big Man” – not so much because of his six-foot, 250-pound frame, but largely because he stood tall on principle and commanded attention when he spoke out vehemently against injustices.

“He wasn’t just a large and imposing figure, it was the heart that he had for service,” said the Rev. Willie L. Henry Jr., a former member of both the Black Panther Party and The Invaders, a local Black Power youth movement somewhat akin to the Black Panther Party’s mission.

 Henry said he met the affable Mr. Howard in Memphis when Mr. Howard worked as a furniture salesman.

On July 23, Mr. Howard died in Santa Rosa, Calif., at the age of 80 and left behind an enduring legacy and indomitable spirit that encapsulate the man and the Party that he helped to shape into a formidable organization.

Santa Rosa is an hour’s drive from Oakland, Calif., where it all began in 1966 for Mr. Howard, Bobby Seale, Huey Newton, Reggie Forte, Sherman Forte and Bobby Hutton, the charter members of the Black Panther Party.

Mr. Howard fought until the end for human rights for all people, Carole Hyams-Howard wrote under her byline in the San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper about her husband and his legacy.

“Thanks to all of you who helped him, encouraged him, were patient with both of us, and loved him,” she wrote.

On Saturday, Aug. 25, Mr. Howard’s family, friends and comrades from the Party, both former and current members, will celebrate his life and legacy in the Bobby Hutton Grove in deFremery Park at 18th and Adeline St. in West Oakland, Calif.

The grove of trees was named for Bobby Hutton, who joined the Black Panther Party at the age of 17. He was killed in April of 1968 by Oakland police officers near deFremery Park.

Oakland had become a bastion of deep-seated angst that black residents were feeling about the police during that era of hostilities and civil unrest. Sporting tams to one side and taking up arms in a militaristic show of force, Mr. Howard and his comrades were prepared to defend the black community.

Although history has recorded much of the tumult and deadly confrontations between the Panthers and law enforcement, Mr. Howard and his comrades nevertheless continued to focus on the mission.

He alone was responsible for setting up a free medical clinic for sickle-cell anemia and a work-study program for parolees, his wife said. The Panthers also created a free breakfast program for poor school children.

“No where in history did a few people with determination and a few resources have such an impact on a lot of people across the country,” Mr. Howard reflected in a story in Memphis’ Tri-State Defender in 2006.

The first editor of the Party’s newspaper, The Black Panther, Mr. Howard was a prolific writer. He wrote about the inequities and economic depravation that often relegated black people to sub-standard living conditions.

He also spoke “truth to power” – to use a familiar cliché – and carried the Party’s message of “Power to the People” across the world. In fact, he would say, “Power belongs to the people.”

As the Party’s international spokesperson, he penned articles, wrote books and lectured extensively on some of the horrid conditions affecting African Americans and improving black America’s self-worth on treks to Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean.

“When Bobby Seal needed a defense during the trial of the ‘Chicago Eight,’ it was Big Man who kept things going,” Henry pointed out. Seal was charged with conspiracy and inciting a riot during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Mr. Howard was an active member of the Party from 1966 to 1974. After the police raids, jailings and killings, the Party was reduced to tatters. But the big man’s activism and penchant for social and economic justice never waned.

Condolences and tributes were published in the San Francisco Bay View for Mr. Howard, including those from his daughter and cousin.

“He spent his life fighting for the people…all over the world,” said Tammi Moore Miller, Mr. Howard’s cousin.

Mr. Howard meant so much to Tynisa Wilson. “Today, I lost someone so special, so great – my daddy,” she said.