Matt Sullivan never sat in a booth at a restaurant, ever. When you weigh 390 pounds, a booth is a tight, humiliating squeeze.
But now he loves booths. Now he weighs 185. "You've got a table open? No, thanks," he'll tell the hostess. "I want a booth. I'll wait."
Oh, and how about this: He had to learn how to run again. When he went out on a tennis court with his new body, "my muscles just forgot how." He watched his 12-year-old son and imitated him.
Matt, 53, was the guinea pig. He is one of 12 Sullivan children, most of whom grew up in Warminster or Willow Grove. As kids, the siblings were divided into Fat Sullivans and Skinny Sullivans, though most were Fat Sullivans. "We were a large family of large people," Matt said.
When Matt told Dion, 44, the baby, just 364 pounds, that he was having weight-loss surgery, Dion said: "You're insane. No way I'm going to think about doing this to my body. You talk to me in a year, and I'll see if you think this is still a good idea."
A year later, Matt called. Dion had the surgery April 21 and is already down 80, a new man.
"When he [Matt] didn't die," said Greg Sullivan, 45, another brother, 357 pounds, "I figured, all right, I'll look into it."
Greg had surgery in early March. He has dropped 115 so far.
Five Sullivan siblings now have had weight-loss surgery at Abington Memorial Hospital and eight relatives in all, including one spouse, a daughter, and her husband.
The first four had surgery more than a year ago and have lost 640 total pounds. The next two, Greg and Dion, have shed 195 more so far, making 835.
The seventh relative, Dion's wife, Amy, had the surgery two weeks ago, and the fifth sibling, Francine Stafford, 50, at 270 pounds, just had it Monday.
"I didn't want to be left behind," Francine said.
Nadine Sullivan, 58, went third. She said she had been a camel: Were famine to strike, she would have been the last person alive, because her body held on to every calorie. Five times she dieted and lost 100 pounds, basically through starvation and liquid diets, but the moment she stopped dieting, or just looked at food, the weight came back, and then some, so she'd end up fatter than she had started.
She's down from 330 to 158. Type 2 diabetes, gone. Hypertension, gone. High cholesterol, gone. "I'm starting to feel like being fat was a dream," she said.
