Ever since they came on the Salt Lake City airwaves in the mid-90’s, 101.9 The End has been my radio station of choice. “Utah’s Rock Alternative” plays most of the music I love, and I’ve always loved the morning show. Jimmy Chunga has predominantly been the head of the morning show, and although he’s opinionated and a little full of himself, it usually makes for an entertaining radio show.

Every morning, Chunga and Tysen have a segment called “What’s Happenin’ Hot Stuff,” which is named off of a scene from the 80’s movie “Sixteen Candles.” Listeners can call in with a funny pseudonym (like ‘Ian the Token Gay’) and talk about what’s going on in their lives. Some will say it’s their birthday, some call to rant about something that’s happening in news or politics, a few call to say how much they love Chunga, and others call in just to be heard on the radio. It’s meant to be a quick call, usually less than 20 seconds each, and usually it’s pretty light and airy,

As I was on my way to St. Mark’s yesterday for my pre-surgery class, I decided to call into the show. Now, I probably TRY to get on the show every month or so, but I always get a busy signal. I was pretty surprised to get through, which kinda made me lose my train of thought. Chunga answered “Good morning! What’s happenin’ hot stuff?” And I said “Hey, this is Nicole the Blogger” (kinda lame, I know, but I couldn’t come up with anything more awesome on the spot).

I told him I was on my way to the hospital for some tests because I was having weight loss surgery next week. He said “Oh cool, are you getting the lap band?” and I answered, “No, I’m actually going for the gastric bypass.” Immediately his tone of voice changed, and he got all snarky on me. He started talking about how he “doesn’t advocate that surgery at all” and how he’s had some friends who have had really bad results and complications. He kept cutting me off, said it was gross that I’d be blogging about it, then hung up on me.

I was a little thrown off because when I tell people that I’m having the surgery, the response is usually pretty positive. Many people who are “against weight loss surgery” are still nice to me about it. Chunga made me feel awful about this very difficult decision I’d come to make, and it’s been a 3 year process to this point. He doesn’t know a thing about me, even though I have been on the radio with him in the past (and he was super nice). With how much he advocates plastic surgery and liposuction, I thought he would be less abrasive about weight loss surgery. I guess I was wrong. He wins a “douche bag award” with me, and apparently I’m not the only one who thinks so because I easily found this Chunga Douche picture of him on a Google image search.

The truth is, many people who have bad results with gastric bypass surgery are ones who weren’t a good candidate in the first place. Or, they didn’t follow the eating plans religiously enough and went back to their old eating habits too quickly. I do have a blogging friend Sue, who had major complications with her surgery. I was scared silly as she went through her hospital drama, which coincidentally went on as I was beginning to gather my medical records in preparation for my own surgery. It hasn’t been an easy road for Sue, but I am super proud of her. It’s definitely given me some things to seriously contemplate as I’ve made the decision for surgery.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is…don’t call into a radio morning show about weight loss surgery unless you’re ready to be publicly berated! If you want to people to mind their own beeswax, don’t get near the hive.