Justin Willoughby was reunited Tuesday with McKean County
Visiting Nurse Association staff who, in August 2003, helped him
start on the path to losing more than 400 pounds in a span of about
27 months.

Ron and Diane Willoughby joined their son for the reunion at the
VNA offices at 20 School St. to mark national Home Health &
Hospice Month.

The 19-year-old’s panic attacks and anxiety contributed to his
weight, which in 2003 was 799 pounds. His panic disorder made it
difficult for him to get to the doctor’s office, while his weight
made physically leaving his house difficult.

The connection between Justin Willoughby and the VNA began with
a visit to the doctor’s office.

After missing several appointments, the young man was told by
his doctor, Anil Pradhan, that if he didn’t come the next time, he
wouldn’t have a doctor. He made the next appointment, only to be
told he needed to go to a Pittsburgh hospital.

Diane Willoughby said Pradhan was worried about her son’s
health. “He said he hoped he didn’t die by the next day,” she
recalled.

The teen’s parents said that the next day, 15 to 20 firefighters
helped get their son into an ambulance. Once in Pittsburgh,
however, he was told that because of his weight he’d have to go
through a rigorous rehabilitation in Erie. Since there were no
openings in the Erie program then, Justin Willoughby was sent
home.

Back in Bradford, Pradhan referred his patient to Melody
Pollock, VNA physical therapist, and Deborah Rice, VNA occupational
therapist, to physically prepare the young man for gastric bypass
surgery slated for the week of Christmas 2003.

Linda Wankel, VNA director of nursing, said she was “behind the
scenes,” coordinating the care for the teenager.

Laura Mansour, RN, former VNA staff member and current charge
nurse at The Pavilion at BRMC, was the first to visit Justin
Willoughby when the VNA began caring for him on Aug. 28. She
performed his weekly bloodwork.

“After the first visit, I wondered how were we going to help
him,” Mansour remembered. “At the time, he was having so many
problems.”

“When I first came, I saw a 16-year-old boy trapped in his
room,” Pollock said. “He was sitting on his bed and asked me to
help him up.”

Pollock said that she had helped him walk the roughly 20 feet
from his bedroom to a love seat in the living room.

“His foot went through a floorboard,” Pollock recalled. “But he
didn’t fall. He kept going.”

Pollock said when he made it to the love seat, her client was
breathing heavily and had a fast pulse.

“When he was just starting out, he was on four liters of oxygen,
which is a lot of oxygen for a young body,” Wankel said.

Pollock said they monitored his oxygen during exercise so he
wouldn’t over-exert himself.

In building up the young man’s endurance, Pollock said, it took
him a month to walk his first mile in laps between his bedroom and
living room, but by the time he reached his first mile only eight
days later he had walked three more miles in laps.

Since he could not weigh himself at home, Justin Willoughby said
he first knew he was losing weight when his clothes began fitting
looser.

Early on, he was also afraid to leave his house because he might
fall down on the cement steps leading down from the house.

“I couldn’t even lift my foot up,” Justin Willoughby said.

So, the VNA staff helped build a deck to make it easier to leave
the house. Anna Snyder, MSW, medical social services worker, helped
get funding for the deck and for the family’s expenses on their
trips to the Pittsburgh hospital.

“Because of his limited endurance and mobility, Justin had
trouble caring for his own body,” Rice said. “He was unable to get
into the shower. His brother had to give him a sponge bath. I
remember when we were able to walk to the kitchen sink for the
first time, and he was able to wash himself from the sink.”

Pollock and Rice also helped the teen learn to make compromises
and substitutes in his diet.

“You have to discipline yourself to do it,” Justin Willoughby
said. “Every little calorie counts. It adds up through the
day.”

Eventually, his parents and brother joined him on his new diet.
He began throwing away some of the junk food his family kept in the
house.

“We used to have a lot of fatty foods in the house,” said Ron
Willoughby, who recalled his son telling the family “If you guys
keep eating this, I quit.”

His parents said that as a family, including older son Chad, the
four have lost more than 700 pounds between them.

“I walk by food now and smell my clogged arteries,” Justin
Willoughby said.

He said his longterm goal is to weigh 200 pounds or a little
less and to be able to lift more weights.

Justin Willoughby said he had wanted to lose weight but didn’t
know how to start until the VNA staff showed him.

“You have to want to be motivated,” Wankel said. “You don’t
often see people this motivated.”

From August to November that year, the VNA staff went from
wondering how to help Justin Willoughby to being amazed by his
progress.

About four months after the VNA started helping him, he no
longer needed their help. And he no longer needed the gastric
bypass.

The surgeon “said I lost more weight than people that have gone
through the surgery,” Justin Willoughby said.

The young man, who turned 19 on Nov. 5, said his total weight
loss is now up to 408 pounds. He said he was down to about 380
pounds, but after a week of fasting done through his church, he
gained back about 10 pounds of fluid weight.

But, he said, even if he gains a little bit of weight back here
or there, he knows that everybody’s going to gain weight from some
muscle mass and fluid weight.

“My goal for Justin was to do some normal activities,” said
Rice. “When I first came, all Justin did was watch TV, play video
games and sleep. I was trying to bring some normalcy in his
life.”

“One session, I talked to Justin about goals,” Rice said. “He
didn’t have any. And so he finally set a goal. He said that day
that he wants to write a book. And I thought that was an
unrealistic goal. But now, anything’s possible.”

“We’re here to provide medical care for people in the home that
can’t get out of the home, similar to Justin,” Kathy Pascarella,
director of the McKean County VNA and Hospice, said.

Even now after being discharged from formal care, Diane
Willoughby said, Pollock still keeps in contact with her son and
still gives him a motivational push.