Lynn Sperry’s Success Story

”I am a 49-year old man, married and the father of five grown children. Bariatric surgery has given me the weight loss tool that I had been looking for, for so many years.

Since my surgery, I no longer have cravings for tons of food. I started at a size 66 pants, and at a whopping 500 pounds. Frankly, in the months before my decision to have the surgery, I didn't care if I lived or died. Don't get me wrong, I love my family, but I was tired. Everything I did was a losing battle against gravity.

The one thing I cherished was my three times a week "swim" at our community pool, which I did under the guise of "exercise". Actually, I would paddle back and forth, and fanaticize what it would be like to not hurt every time I stood up. When I was out of the water, my joints protested painfully every time I would stand. My back hurt, almost constantly. I was taking one 500 mg Vicoden daily for the pain. My feet were a mess, because having Type II diabetes had brought me a wonderful malady called neuropathy, which is a gradual numbing of the extremities, in this case, my toes and the soles of my feet. It gets that way because the diabetes is ruining the blood vessels, and the nerves are affected.

It sucks, dying bit by bit. That was what was happening to me. I was dying slowly, and I guess the sum of it all was that I was becoming marginalized. I had a job, thankfully, that let me sit at a desk. I no longer attended my church meetings, social events, or whatever because I felt and looked terrible. I would take a short walk to the car, and be out of breath. I would plan my life between home (my recliner), work, and home again.

I had sleep apnea. If you don't have it, don't get it. When you go into a deep sleep, your throat closes off and you quit breathing. The lack of oxygen makes you almost wake up, sometimes two hundred times a night. You never get enough sleep. I would fall asleep while driving, or even during a phone conversation. Eventually, I was diagnosed with it, and received a C-PAP machine, a clunky, noisy device that lets me sleep soundly. I never left home without it. Sleep apnea caused an enlarging of one of my heart valves.

My blood pressure was quite high. I was taking two drugs to combat it. My blood tests also revealed that I had high cholesterol. This required another pill in addition to the two pills I took for diabetes.

I have a family with many of the same problems that I had. My wife was quite heavy, as was my twenty four year old daughter. My sister and father were also quite heavy. One day, my sister Marnie called me and told me about a conversation she had had with Carnie Wilson, the daughter of Beach Boy legend, Brian Wilson. Carnie's success with bariatric surgery is well known, and apparently she had even had the surgery broadcast on the Internet in 2000. Wow. She looks great now. Well, my sister wanted to undergo the surgery, and was gung ho for it. I was horrified that she'd do this and die from complications or something. My sister was (as was I) always trying out some new, incredible diet-of-the-month, guaranteed to make you lose weight fast!

Well, I started researching the subject of weight loss surgery, and pretty soon was convinced that this would work. The premise is simple: The surgery makes eating large, high calorie meals uncomfortable. That's all it does, for all the complexities it presents. Yet THAT was the key to my problems. I could always lose the weight, but I always reverted to eating large amounts again. My wife and daughter thought that the idea was wonderful, and we started investigating.

One weekend, while my wife and daughter were in Fresno, they heard on the radio about a surgery center there that was doing the procedure. Dana called, and was given a much earlier date than the six weeks we had from another doctor. We went in and had our interview, saw a video that our doctor had prepared about the procedure and the effects of the procedure, and took a pre-operative exam. The fact that we had friends that would put us up in their nearby home, made Fresno the place we chose.

Things were getting a little too real for me. I was about to be cut open, and my innards were going to be rearranged differently than the good Lord had seen fit to give me.

Another of my daughters told me about a man that I had known years ago that had the surgery several months before. I called him, and got an ear full. It seems that our lives and health patterns were very similar. Like me, he also had been depressed and felt hopeless about losing weight. He had the laparoscopic RNY procedure, and was enjoying wild weight loss. His top weight had been 570 pounds, 70 pounds heaver than I was at the time. At the time of my first conversation, he had lost 175 pounds.

Well, that pretty much corked it for me. I was much relieved to learn that someone I knew was successful at it, and went ahead and scheduled the actual surgery. It took place July 6, 2001 at the Fresno Community Hospital Bariatric Unit. My BMI was high enough that I got a bariatric bed, a contraption that is the ultimate aid to really heavy people. It has a built in scale, which read 499 1/2 after surgery. That's the weight I count down from, one quarter ton.

Nine months later, I have just ducked under 300 pounds, to 295 pounds, for the first time in about 20 years. I am loose in a size 50 pants, and can sqeeeeeze into a size 46. My wife and daughter both had the surgery at about the same time as me, and they have BOTH lost in excess of 100 pounds. We walk over two miles a day, and I actually ride a bicycle near the beach, something I would not and could not have done nine months ago.

So far, here are some of the good things that have happened:

Advice? Something someone in my support group said. "It's time we grow up."  We have taken responsibility for our health and blame no one but ourselves any more. We also need to take responsibility for our success.. I'm having fun doing it. It's fun to find new protein bars that taste good. We already have a protein drink we like, and doctor it up with fruit every morning.

Bad things? Well, I do have a lot of excess skin flopping around. My hair is thinner, but then it was thinning back then too. I still have the "Head Hunger" for sweets. I have to watch that, but I've found that if I abstain from them, the craving goes away in a day. My will power is a little better than it was, but still nothing to write home about. I have to maintain a constant vigil. One good thing is that, if I binge, it isn't a big one. I can't binge big anymore.

If you are interested in this surgery, or if you have just had the surgery, seek out and attend a support group. There are many around the country. My group that I attend, W.O.W. (for War On Weight) is a group composed of people who have had the surgery, or are going to have the surgery. We are affiliated with no particular doctor or clinic.

If you read this, and want to talk it over, email me at lyttlelynn@aol.com . I'd like to talk to you. And get Barbara's book. It is the most complete treatment of this experience I've read. It is full of things that I have already experienced, and things I haven't but might.

Still not convinced? Just before writing this, I returned home with my wife from a three mile HIKE at Point Lobos. I went because I wanted to, and now I can.”

I love life again.

Lynn Sperry