Because God made everyone different from another, thier bodies will react differently
from one another when they decide to have this surgery.
One person may come out of it perfectly fine, and their best friend could have
more complications than they had before the surgery. Another person could end up dying from complications from this
surgery. You never know how YOUR body will react for YOU!
The following are a couple of stories from real people who have had this
surgery. These are their stories. Please read these before you make any decision one way or another and pray as
to whether or not this surgery is right for YOU!
This is Barbara's story...
Would I Do It Again?
I have been asked “If you could
turn back time, would you still have the surgery?”
I am not sure how to answer that question. I had some very
serious co-morbidities. I was losing my vision to a condition called pseudo-tumor cerebri or intercranial hypertension. Basically
my body was producing too much spinal fluid. This fluid was putting pressure on my brain, causing headaches, whooshing noises
in my ears, and causing my retinas to swell. I have lost some of my peripheral vision. What I have lost will never come back.
Eventually I would have lost all of my vision. Psuedo-Tumor Cerebri occurs in morbidly obese females of childbearing years.
It does on occasion occur in males but that is rare.
I only have one kidney. I could not
take the standard medication for the treatment of the pseudo-tumor as it gave me kidney stones.
My morbid obesity made me a walking
time bomb. Diabetes runs long and hard in
my biological family. I was not officially diagnosed with diabetes. However, it has been speculated that I did have Type II diabetes prior to my surgery.
I experienced multiple opportune infections.
This is a common occurrence in individuals with diabetes. Frequently I experienced skin infections, kidney infections,
and ear infections. I reached the point that I couldn’t fight off any infection without being in the hospital on intensive
IV therapy. Sometimes it was for an ear infection. I have lost a significant amount of hearing in my left year because
of ear infections. These infections were so virulent that they would spread to my mastoid bone. The fear was
it would cross to my brain. I am told I would benefit from a hearing aid. I just haven’t really wanted it .
Sometimes I was hospitalized
for a kidney infections that were causing my kidney to fail. For me, Getting sick meant that I would spend
days in the hospital to the tune of thousands of dollars. I lived in constant fear of the common cold. I developed allergies
to many of the super-antibiotics that were required to treat my infections. To this day the slightest amount of pain,
or stuffed up nose, or any other bodily oddness throws me into a huge anxiety attack. In the past it could have literally
meant life or death to me. I am trying to learn to relax when I become sick with the cold or flu.
I still get kidney stones. I have
had at least three since my surgery. They do seem to pass on their own. I cannot take calcium because of my pre-disposition
to stones. I am post-hysterectomy and not taking calcium is really having some detrimental effects on my body. Not sure what
to do about it at this point in time.
My pseudo-tumor is completely gone.
My vision has changed some and I have needed glasses for when I am on the computer or reading. That is most likely to old
age rather than a disease process.
There were some things about the gastric
bypass surgery that I didn’t know. At the time of my surgery there were no Surgical Solutions, or Risk & Benefits
Class. I had done lots of research online and spoken to many patients from around the world. I had heard the pros and
cons. I thought I knew what I was getting into. I was wrong!
I had my initial consult on January
8th 2001. I watched a little video and told my surgeon I wanted LAP surgery or not at all. I had filled out the patient
forms and listed my co-morbidities. A short exam was performed. I was not asked to provide any type of medical documentation
other than the forms I had filled out. I did not submit any previous medical records at all.
I didn’t see my surgeon again
until March 2, 2001. When I saw him I was being wheeled into the operating room and told the staff that I would like
to talk to my physician before my surgery.
“Have you changed your mind?”
I was asked in a rather annoyed tone of voice.
“No, I just wanted to say hi.' I replied feel intimidated.
“Oh,
hi.” I was wheeled into the room.
The morning of my surgery they did
blood work. Other than that no tests were ordered. Further, I hadn’t provided any medical documentation regarding my
conditions. My insurance approved my surgery based
upon my weight of 322 pounds. No one ever asked for medical documentation, nor was I aware it was needed. All my insurance
needed was a documented weight and letter of medical necessity. I worked for a company that was headquartered in Europe and
administered their on insurance plan. My job was working on programming
webpages for Intel on a contract with the company.
My request was approved when I walked
into the door of my surgeon’s office. I just needed things finalized by the letter of medical necessity.
There were some things about
this surgery that I didn’t know. First of all I didn’t realize that there was a high incidence of renal failure
with the gastric bypass, especially in the Laparoscopic approach. No tests were performed to evaluate my kidney pre-operatively.
I had no business undergoing the Laparoscopic Gastric Bypass. A much safer approach for me would have been open. My kidney
did quirk out for about 12 hours following my surgery.
“I am going to do everything
I can to save your kidney.”
“I have only one!” I fearfully replied.
“I know that and I am trying
to save it!”
My surgeon did save my kidney. Huge
amounts of IV fluid were started. A catheter was put back in and things returned to normal. It scares me to death that I didn’t
realize the jeopardy I was in when I underwent
the LAP surgery. I had no business having the lap surgery. I should have been informed. However, it all turned out ok, sort
of.
I think the lap surgery is a wonderful
tool. At the time of my surgery it was a new thing. They had only been doing it about a year. My surgeon told me that he was
still learning. I was ok with that as long as I had the LAP performed instead of the open. My concern wasn’t the scar
on my belly. My concern was that I am a single mother and couldn’t afford the down time. I had heard online that the
LAP approach didn’t produce as drastic amounts of weight loss than the open.
I beg to differ. I have seen studies
that show the weight loss is equal. I also beg to differ on that point. It has been my observation that the LAP approach
produces a greater weight loss than the open approach. Patients are instructed in classes, at least in Salt Lake City, that
the surgery is exactly the same. Guess what? It isn’t. Some minor technical differences between the two approaches
does exist.
The creation of the pouch in the lap
approach is done on more of a vertical angle. In the open it is more horizontal. I may have this reversed. I need to go back
and check my notes on this. With the way the LAP pouch is cut the anastomosis doesn’t soften as much as it
does in the open.
If you learn of someone who is having
frequent bouts of vomiting, the need for repeated dilatations of their stomach opening, or vomiting regularly a year or more
after their surgery, odds are very high they had the lap surgery. Check it out yourself and ask which approach they had. You
will run into the occasional open patient with these problems but they are rare.
I knew at the time of my surgery that
if I ate too much that I would throw up. I knew that at some point in time my pouch would mature and I would be able to keep
down 6-8 ounces of solid food. Never did I hear anything about horrible problems with bowels. I find it very troubling that
the possible complications of the surgery and longterm results are only visited briefly in the pre-surgery education process
of most surgeons. Many are afraid that if patients understand the complications they may choose to not have the surgery. If
an individual choses to not have the surgery after they have been educated then they do so with a true informed consent.
Weight loss surgery is not like buying a new car. The salesmen ship in this industry needs to be eliminated. This is about
health not about some commodity or diet plan you buy off the shelf.
Here I sit typing at my computer almost
three years later. If I eat anything solid I can just count on the fact that within an hour or less I will have violent
vomiting attacks. Granted puking my guts out isn’t as gross as it was before the surgery. There is no nasty tasting
bile, usually. Sometimes there still is. Vomitting makes life hell. I am still very on soft foods. I struggle
with energy levels. My weight is within the normal range but I have to be careful. I don’t want it to drop too low.
I also have to be careful because the types of food I can eat are very high in carbohydrates and could quickly make me gain
if I don’t monitor myself closely.
No one told me that the potential
existed that I would spend the rest of my life puking my guts out if I tried to eat solid foods. Things like lettuce, vegetables,
meat, the things that are supposed to be good for you I can rarely eat. When I do eat them it is like engaging in masochistic
behavior. It is horrible. I cannot describe to you what the past few years have been like.
Last year around this time Colleen
Cook founder of BSC took me for a birthday lunch. There we split a tuna fish sandwich. It was an incredible sandwich. It stayed
down no problem. Tuna was a new thing with me from that day forward! It didn’t make me puke. I found that I could
keep canned fish down like Tuna and Salmon. Wow was I on a fish kick. I totally blame Colleen for the resulting problem.
Gotta blame someone don’t ya?
I also have Rosceia on my face. It
causes a red pigment to my skin among other things. My Rosceia went nuts. My face was suddenly becomming very red for
no apparent reason.
I was asleep on the couch when my
son came home from work. I wasn’t feeling well.
“Hi Mom.”
“Honey I don’t feel well,”
I responded totally exhausted.
My son took one look at me and went
into a huge panic. “Mom we have got to get you to the hospital.”
“No, I am just tired.”
“Mom you look like you weigh
322 pounds again!” He was screaming at me at the top of his lungs and took a mirror off the wall. “Look!”
I remember dropping the mirror and it shattered all over the floor.
My memory after that is blurred. I
know he practically had to carry me to the car. I just felt so tired I could barely move. I do remember yelling at him to
stop driving like a lunatic.
“Shut up mom! I think you are
dying!”
I know he carried me into the Emergency
Room. We didn’t wait long. In fact I was taken back, hooked up on IV’s , a heart monitor, and a crash cart rolled
into the room, and placed on oxygen before they even knew my name. I had to be on steroids for two weeks afterwards. My face
had swollen so badly that both of my eyes were black and blue. Why? I had gone into anaphylactic shock from the fish. They
figured I only had minutes to live when I arrived at the ER.
I am told I probably always had some
type of allergy to fish. However, any tolerance I had to it was lost when I went close to two years without eating it. The
red on my face wasn’t Roscecia it was actually an allergic reaction. Way to go Colleen! It isn’t my fault I made
it a staple in my diet right up there with cheddar cheese. What a bummer the one meat I can keep down I am violently allergic
too. Oh well, it really isn't Colleen's fault.
Today I can’t even undergo an
MRI or Cat scan without them drugging me up on medication to prevent a reaction to the iodine in the contrast. Even a small
amount makes me very ill.
For almost the first year following
my surgery I lived almost exclusively on liquids. At my year mark I was down 170 pounds. I slowly progressed to beans and
cheese and soft foods. I have tried to eat more solid foods but have finally decided it was time to stop torturing myself.
The road for me has been rough. I
haven’t found this to be an easy way out at all. I have had problems with my bowels.
Just when I think they are better I find they are all messed up again and I am sick and can barely keep liquids down. Then
I have to go through some rather interesting things such as enemas, suppositories, magnesium citrate, etc…just to get
them move. My bowels back all the way up to my small intestine. The pain when that happens is horrible. The nausea is unbearable.
However, if you want to become rich you may want to invest in Fleet Enema stock. I heard there market value recently went
through the roof because I now buy them in boxes of three no fewer than 5 boxes at a time. INVEST NOW!
The social and emotional changes are
huge. I recently chose to end a lifelong friendship with my best friend. Since the time of my surgery she has been very rude
to me. When I was fat she liked me just fine. Finally one day last week after her telling me off for not dropping what I was
doing to come fix her computer as I did in the past, I lost it on her.
I told her I was sick and damn tired
of abusive people in my life who liked to use me as their door mat and expected me to be at their beckon call at the drop
of the hat. I was tired accomplishing the impossible for them just because they asked. I told her I was completely fed up
that everyone expected me to give and give and give but if I dare ask for anything back I was painted as a scum. I told
her our friendship was now over and hung up the phone. I am learning not to give more than I have got to give.
Getting comfortable in one’s
own lose skin after surgery isn’t the easy transformation that people anticipate. When I was 322 pounds I was very awkward
in the world. A morbidly obese person interacts with the world very differently than a thin one. At this normal weight I am
even more awkward than I was at 322 pounds.
I am used to being invisible. People
never saw me. Now they acknowledge that I exist. Men flirt with me and open doors. This is in spite of my being and individual
that is so unattractive they should put a bag over their head. In the past I was just a hunk of flesh.
Body image issues are very real. When
I weighed 322 pounds I would have been thrilled to weigh 222 pounds, then it was 199 pounds, I kept dropping lower and lower.
I look in the mirror and I am not sure what I am seeing. Do I look fat? Do I look too thin? Do I look normal? Gauging
your body post-operatively and accepting your appearance afterwards poses many challenges.
The man who has waltzed into my life
wants me to gain about 10 pounds so I will look healthy, other than that he says I am drop dead gorgeous and have a great
body. He hasn’t seen me with my clothes off, he doesn’t know what he is talking about.
My recent employment adventure really
went a long ways to sabotage the accepting of my appearance. I find that sad, especially since I worked for a group of surgeons
who really should “GET IT” when it comes to the emotional changes an individual experiences post-operatively.
They are clueless and are desirous of staying that way. They just want to do the surgery. I guess I had some high expectations
for the support I would recieve and the understanding I would get from my medical follow-up. I should have asked more questions
to make sure I was getting what I was hoping for.
One of the surgeons presented a study
at the Recent ASBS convention. He reported that he had one individual that he “knew about” commit suicide. One
of the leading psychologists from ASBS confronted him about that in a question and answer session. She asked him what he was
going to do to prevent those types of things in the future.
”Oh, we just refer them out!”
Now I ask you how many psychologists
do you know who totally understand the inside and out of weight loss surgery, the emotional and social adjustments that the
patient has to go through etc? Not many. Few have seen rapid weight loss and the rapid transformation the surgery brings.
There are those who are trying to understand. If the surgeon isn’t even willing to educate himself, and entertain innovative
ideas about support and education how can they expect to help their patients? They can’t.
I have talked to numerous individuals
who are reporting extreme depression, suicidal ideation, increased anxiety, etc. They don't understand why they feel the way
they do. They should be feeling wonderful! After all, they are finally thin. Unfortunately, the changes are very hard. Much
support and education is needed to help make the adjustment.
Would I do it again if I could turn
back time, knowing what I know now? I am not sure.
If someone came to me and offered a reversal of my surgery would I allow
it? I am not sure. I might. I do know my quality of life would be poor without the surgery. It is poor now. It
is just a trade off. I traded my old set of problems for new ones. Which is worse? I am not sure.
I do know that I would do things very
differently. I would ask more questions. My surgeon wouldn’t get away with “Oh hi” and away we go. I am
not a hunk of meat in a meat packing assembly line. I had questions about my personal health and how it related to the surgery.
I allowed those questions to go unanswered.
I would want to make sure there was
support and education available to me. I would want it from people who did understand all the issues and would be willing
to take the time to help me solve problems as they occur or at the very least listen.
I know I wouldn’t choose the
same surgeon or any of his partners. They may be good at doing the surgery but really have no skill when it comes to post-operative
support or education. Those things are so critical. I would make myself informed about health issues and the types of postoperative
services that were being offered. I assure you I would do something different than just go through with the surgery blindly.
Choose wisely. Don’t go with
what is the cheapest. Make sure you understand all the issues and how they will affect you as a human being not just your
digestive tract. This is a big surgery, it has a major impact on your health. Invest your dollars wisely.
Here's another story from another lady who had this surgery and her story...
