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Surgeons: Prof. Dr. R. Weiner and Team (Dr. Winterberg, Dr. Stubbig, Dr. Pomhoff), Clinic Sachsenhausen/ Frankfurt a.M. - Germany
Surgery Date:04/27/02
Pre-op weight/ BMI: ~341/BMI 51
Current weight/BMI: 220.5/BMI 33 (as of February 11, 2003)

Left: Pre-op; Right: Post-op

by Iris:

The year 2002 is just born. I am 35 years old, married happily für 16 years, have a 7 year old, sweet daughter, 4 jobs, 2 businesses, I’m a workaholic and successful. But at the same time I am at the far end of a dead-end-street.

It‘s long gone that I have been a athlete. It’s long gone since no one has frowned openly at me or secretly whispered behind my back. It’s long gone that I didn’t have to convince people by my achievements instead of good looks.

I am fat. I mean really fat. Aprox. 341 pounds being about 5”9’ height. Unfortunately I don’t know my exact weight. I have Diabetes II, mygrane headaches, asthma, a so called fat-liver and a constant pain in my bones. They gave my 4 more years to live.

My god, then I’d be 40 and my daughter 12 years old. Should that be it? Is that all?

I am hungry for live but still feel like damned for eternity. I feel I can’t make it back down to a normal weight without help. So many diets and successless attempts to loose weight. I have a strong willpower, am diligent, and smart., but my weight, my life-long trauma, I cannot control.

Making this conclusion was good though, for I was seeking help over the internet, found the the Morbid Obesity Surgery and Prof. Dr. Weiner at the Clinic Sachsenhausen in Frankfurt, Germany.

I literally sucked up all the info I could get and soon it became clear to me, that I was going to have the BPD with DS done. The BPD is a serious surgery, but I made this decision for my life and my life only and I was going to go this way no matter what.

So I had the surgery done laparoscopically April 27th 2002 by Prof. Dr. Weiner, as well as some other things which needed to be done surgically.

In addition to the BPD with DS-Surgery, I had a cyst removed from one of my ovaries and a hernia taken care of. Also Dr. Weiner removed my gall-bladder that had troubled me for a while.

Thanks to the fact that the surgery was done laparoscopically, I recovered pretty fast and was back in my chancery after 9 days...even though this seemed to have been rushed.

Unfortunately I was one of the few who had problems at the beginning and was throwing up anything I would eat during the first 3 month. Gradually I was able to eat more and more kinds of food over the time up until now. There is no rule, I have to try everything again and again.

Food I was able to keep down yesterday I am not able to eat today and vice versa.

Today, 9 month post-op I avoid red meat and basically eat veggies, fruits, salads and pasta. The amount of food I can eat is way below what my 8-year-old daughter can consume. I always eat to be full and the kind of food I like to eat, just not as much as before. I measure by tablespoon.

The inability to eat certain foods, the throwing-up, being disgusted by food, the more or less liquid stool, stomach or intestine cramps of the first few month are NO topic anymore and have not been an issue for most of my “BPD-colleagues” at all. I was just a little sensitive it seems.

The rumor about this surgery (constant pain and inability to work) is crap in my opinion. I have no restrictions whatsoever and work 80 hours a week again. I have lost 55 kg and am healthy. Yes, healthy indeed in all ways. All I do is take my vitamins every day ( as I have done even before the surgery).

My BMI has dropped from 51 to 33. I have become a new person and nobody is looking at me or whispering after me for another reason but admiration, if they recognize me at all that is.

O.K., my skin is flapping and I won't get around having a plastic surgery done sometime. Me being so big for so many years has consequences concerning the skin.

Would I do it again? YES- anytime!

I don’t see problems in the surgery itself if it is done laparoscopically. The problems lies within ourselves, our medical history and our individual status of health.

It becomes really difficult after the surgery, when the craving and the greed is back. When I try to go back to my friend (and enemy) food for comfort and I find myself unable to do so because of my “new“ stomach which restricts the amount of food I was going to gobble down.

It is hard, during the first couple of months, sitting in front of the plate and just being able to eat 5 spaghetties or 1 apple a day. Sometimes I would sit at the table and cry because “I just want to EAT!”

That’s the difficulty with our soul. It fights hard, but you have to get through it. They are mentally very difficult times, those first few month until your head gets clear and the soul calms down, until it knows that you are not starving to death and even small amounts of food can make you content.

During these times I always had a benevolent contact to Prof. Dr. Weiner and found friends among other morbid obesity patients. They helped me with their own experience make it through the rather rough times.

I thank Prof. Dr.Weiner for taking care of me, Helge, Gaby and Andrea for their friendship, and all the others for encouraging me.

Sometime the “I-am-starving-to-death” panic will cease and you become a gourmet. Just buy, eat and cook the finest food (rather buy less and good then buy a lot and cheap).

My growing inner contentness also brings back the self-esteem and secureness. I can and may eat everything I desire and my BPD helps me keeping the amount of food low.

I barely eat sweets because the little I can eat should be healthy and so I leave out the “empty” calories (although I still drink sweet sodas wich embarasses me).

But in the end, I can look at a visible, physical success. I wear clothes 8 sizes smaller. I can go shoppping and look forward to clothes that don’t resemble tents. I know that my face looks like and my body is showing curves *laugh*. My social environment seems friendlier and more obliging then ever and when I bought a new bracelet for christmas the jeweler was sorry for not having a size small enough for my now “petite” wrist. Who would’ve ever thought!

“Be carefull not to burst” were words heard more often in my “fat” past.

I have still not reached my goal yet but still life is rushing in on me and through me again, which I had never believed possible anymore some time ago. I will have to learn to live more, work less and dare to do things I haven’t dared to do for so long. But step by step I am winning back life and breathe it in, way down into my soul.

Damned in all eternity? NO! That was a different person named Iris not so long ago.

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