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Surgeon: Dr. Pomp and Dr. Gagner, New York, NY
by Lori:
My first real memory of feeling bad about my weight is at age 5. I was being measured for my first grade school uniform and distinctly remember the lady from the uniform company saying I was too big for my age. Other early memories include having to shop in the “husky” section for clothes and being embarrassed to wear shorts or a bathing suit. My father tried to bribe me to lose weight by paying me a dollar a pound and my mother always tried to help me by cooking from the Weight Watchers plan and buying lo-cal snack foods. This was all well before the age of 13. I was always the heaviest girl in my class all through grade school and high school. Looking back at pictures now I think I looked darn good at age 17 at about 180lbs. (If I could be that weight for the rest of my life, I would never complain about it.) I was a very active and healthy fat girl until quite recently. I swam, hiked, and played varsity tennis and softball in high school. I continued to play tennis in college and then in a competitive league until two years ago when I reached 280lbs. I even played (doubles only) up until the seventh month of my first pregnancy! I never had any co-morbidities, but I was always depressed about my weight. I hid my misery very well. I was always popular, always laughing, excelling in school and work, always the strong one, the good friend, the loyal confidant. Nobody, not even my family, knew how full of despair I was. Three of the most important days of my life, my wedding and the births of my children, although happy for the most part, were overshadowed by this weight that haunted me all my life. I hated my wedding dress, hated myself for not being able to lose weight for that momentous day, hated my bridesmaids for being normal, hated the wedding video and pictures. My pregnancies were filled with fear - deemed “high-risk” because I was morbidly obese. I could not get a clear sonogram picture, could not see the little fists and knees making my tummy bulge out from the inside. Both my children were delivered by c-section. Of course, the risk for that is higher when you are morbidly obese. If I were normal, could I have had natural deliveries? Maybe not, but I will never know. I do know that now, after two c-sections, I cannot even try for a vaginal birth. Throughout the past twenty years, I failed repeatedly at dozens of diets, commercial WL programs, fads, fasts, shots, exercise, etc. including my most recent attempt using weight-loss drugs (phentermine and xenical.) I am tired of feeling like a failure and I am terrified for my health. Although I still have no real co-morbidities now, I know it is only a matter of time before I do. I am only 35 years old and I do not want to think about what 40 will hold if I continue down this path. I have a wonderful husband and two beautiful children and I want to be here to enjoy life with them for a long time. My six-year-old daugter has never had a mother who felt good about herself. I have avoided her school trips and all outdoor activities since she was in nursery school. My 19-month-old son is a bundle of energy and never walks anywhere. He only runs! I dread walking in front of the house with him because I am afraid that if he gets away from me and runs toward the street, I will not be able to catch him. I want to be healthy. I want to be normal. I want to swim, run, play tennis, dance, go boating and be able to keep up with my kids. I want to live life to the fullest. These are the reasons I have decided on WLS. I was willing to accept the life-long restrictions of RNY until I discovered the BPD/DS on Melanie Magruder's patient page on the AMOS site. Then I found a local post-op, the wonderful Jill Sokol, whose success inspired me to continue the journey I just started. All the beautiful souls I met on the DS mailing list have bolstered my resolve, educated and supported me more than I would have thought possible. I have my pre-op consult scheduled for 6/13/00 and for the first time in my life, I have hope for the future. I admit that am terrified of the risks of surgery, especially of blood clots. Hearing about people who have passed away or had severe complications after WLS is sobering and scary. I am fully aware of the risks, but I believe the risks of not having WLS are far greater. I have decided to put myself in God's hands and trust that He has led me this far for a reason and He will protect me on the rest of my journey to a healthier happier life. If you pray, please include me and my family in your prayers. Update April 2001: I am now eight months post-op and I have lost between 80 and 85 lbs. My surgery went well - no complications, only 3 days in the hospital and back at work after 4 weeks. I was a little disappointed in how exhausted I felt for several weeks after surgery. I had two previous c-sections and a lap gallbladder surgery and bounced back very quickly from all three. I expected the DS to be the same, but it was not. The fatigue lasted for about 8 weeks. It was nothing that I could not deal with, but I just had unrealistic expectations. I went back to work a little too soon and ended up having to leave my office several times in the mid afternoon to go home and nap. Overall, my experience was not bad at all. I did have some back pain, which was handled well by vicodin for about two weeks after I got home. I did not complain about it to my surgeon, which was a mistake. I just assumed that it was from the hard operating table or the hospital bed. I learned, after the fact, that it might have been pancreatitis. If it was, it resolved itself after a couple of weeks. If diagnosed, I could have gotten relief a lot sooner by going NPO (nothing by mouth) and getting IV fluids. I have been very lucky in that I can eat a wide variety and quite normal quantities of food without negative bathroom problems. I think my weight loss is quite slow compared to some other people. My brain tells me that I should not really mind being slow because it is probably healthier for my body to lose slowly and steadily, but, of course, I am impatient to see what the results will be when the "weight loss window" closes. I sometimes fear that my "plateaus" may actually turn into dead ends. I guess many people go through these fears and doubts because all in all, it just seems too good to be true. I have gone from a size 32 pre-op to a size 18 in stretchy pants and skirts, and 20 in fitted trousers and jeans. I am thrilled with my choice of surgery. I am so happy that I did not have the RNY or VBG. I hear about so many complications and restrictions with both of them. I have only lost half of my excess weight at this point, but life is so much better already. In December, I went to Disney World and rode on the rides for the first time in many years. In February, I went sledding with my children (ages 6 and 2) for the first time ever. In April, I went to Tampa with my family and put on a bathing suit and shorts for the first time in four years. I went swimming. I rode on a carousel on my own horse, not just standing next to my children as I used to do. I have flown on business every month for the past six months without a seatbelt extender. I was able to put the tray table down and use a laptop computer on the plane. I still need to lose another 80 lbs, and I really want to get there, but if I never lost another ounce, I could honestly say that I would feel healthier and happier than I have since I was a teenager. The quality of my life has improved tremendously so far and I am looking forward to a normal, healthy and active future with my husband and kids. Update November 17, 2001: 8/01: On my 1 year anniversary, we took a family vacation to Disneyland. I rode on all the rides with my children, hung out at the hotel pool (in a bathing suit!) without being self-conscious and walked in the parks from morning till night without a single back, leg or foot pain. The best part of this trip was meeting the wonderful SoCal post-ops and some other out of town friends who met in LA for a couple of days of bonding and eating great food. It was amazing to connect with these people in person after spending close to two years supporting each other through the research, pre- and post-op phases of this miraculous surgery. 9/01: I broke 200 lbs and finally weighed less than my husband for the first time since we met in 1985! 10/01: I actually dressed up for Halloween for the first time in 15 years. I wore an off the shoulder, size 16 ball gown as Belle from Beauty and The Beast. (My husband was The Beast.) I felt like a kid again! 11/01: As I sit here writing this update, I am wearing size 14 pants. When I look at these clothes, I cannot believe they are mine. I can shop in any store and buy “off the rack.” I can bargain hunt in Target for $14 jeans or go to Nordstrom’s and buy a $300 ball gown. I feel healthy, strong and full of life and I am eternally grateful for the brilliant surgeons who gave me this gift of new life and the wonderful post-ops who educated and supported me along this journey. What does the future hold: Who knows? I will be thrilled if I continue to lose weight and would love to end up around 140 lbs wearing a size 8/10, but if I never lost another pound, I truly would not mind one bit. I can run up two flights of subway steps without breathing hard. I can play with my kids for hours without getting tired. I can stand up through a whole mass, while singing, without back pain. I am no longer afraid that I will die young of a heart attack or any other MO co-morbidity. Life is good and it keeps getting better every day! January 2003: When I find myself getting upset about the weight I didn't lose, I often come to the DS patient page and look at my picture to remind myself just how much I did lose…and how much I gained. I really do have a whole new life… a normal non-weight obsessed, non-diet obsessed, non-food obsessed normal life. I can do things and go places with my family without thinking about my weight being a problem. In December of 2002, we flew from Florida to the Bahamas in a 19-seat jet. There is no way I could have even considered doing that at 318 lbs. I honestly don't think I could have fit through the airplane door. While there, we had a dolphin encounter where I actually wore a bathing suit in front of perfect strangers. That never would have happened when I was wearing a size 32. My health has been pretty good, except for ongoing battles with anemia. I am currently on a schedule of iron infusions every other month. I started out with weekly infusions about a year ago, so things are improving, albeit slowly. My other labs are good and the volume and variety of food I am able to eat is normal and still amazes me to this day. I have no serious "bathroom" issues, except for stool odor, which only really affects my family early in the morning. I make sure I use the bathroom in the house that no one else will use and also take Devrom and use room fresheners to try to minimize the problem. One more negative thing I do notice is that when I get sick, it hits me much harder than it used to prior to surgery. For example, a stomach virus that affects my husband and kids for 48 hours may last 5 days with me. A regular cold that I wouldn't think twice about in the past really knocks me for a loop. I don't know if this is related to the surgery or the anemia (or just plain getting older) but I feel that my resistance to illness and my ability to fight it off is not as good as it used to be. I'm not sick often, thank goodness, but when I am, it's usually a relatively rough time. That being said, I would do this all over again in a heartbeat. I am still thrilled with my choice to have the BPD-DS instead of some other form of surgery. I never try to convince anyone researching WLS as to which type to choose, but I always encourage people to see a surgeon who does both the DS and the RNY in order to get a non- biased opinion. It is very discouraging to me to think that people choose to have RNY or Lap Band without even knowing that the DS is another option for them to consider. To me, post-op DS life is good and I look forward to it continuing to get better yet.
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I have been overweight all my life. In my baby book, my mother proudly wrote: “Lori has tripled her birth weight in one year. She loves to eat!” We lived in a mother-daughter apartment below my wonderful Italian grandma until I was three. My mother used to tell cute stories about me having dinner downstairs in our apartment and then going up to see grandma for another whole dinner. My toddler pictures show an adorable chubby me with dimpled chipmunk cheeks just made for pinching. My annual grade school photos tell the tale of my going from chubby to plump to fat to obese. My face was still normal through high school; my features were not obscured by fat until I was well into my twenties. So of course I heard that awful phrase that is probably so familiar to many of you: “You have such a pretty face…if only you would lose some weight.”