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The 850-pound woman in Texas who decided to have gastric bypass surgery? Died last night of a massive heart attack, almost two weeks after the surgery. Turns out the risks are much greater for people whose body mass index is over 60, and hers was 137.5....
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And while there's no part of this story that isn't depressing, I've decided, she had to know the risks going in, and she had to have accepted them. Sometimes the dice aren't kind.
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You might say that she had to know the risks going in. This brings up the story of someone on LJ that I knew through someone else. This guy was 350+ pounds and DESPERATE to have gastric bypass. I don't know what efforts he'd made before that point, but he wanted the surgery more than anything. I think he was about 27 years old. But he was already having issues with his heart, and his doctor told him it would be far too risky to undergo the procedure. He insisted that they're his risks to take, and still his doctor wouldn't budge. He went to another doctor who said the same thing. Finally he went to a doctor who either didn't find the heart issue or sugarcoated the impact it would have, and he performed the surgery. I think it was two months afterward, when 60+ pounds had poured off, that he had heart complications and died. I mean, two doctors told him that the risks were too high, but he truly believed in his mind that this was the ONLY WAY he could ever lose weight and be happy. That's beyond tragic.
A lot of people do fail at the old diet-and-exercise routine. And you know, a lot of it is personality. Some people need someone there to hold their hand every step of the way, to feed them properly, to take them out walking, and to not allow temptation to even come NEAR. Obviously not everyone can find someone to do that for them, so what's the solution? Counseling can only do so much. And you can't MAKE someone build a strong sense of determination that would help them better themselves if they don't feel that kind of strength inside. It's very, VERY hard to shake feelings of failure; look at people who lose maybe 10 pounds, eat a candy bar, and then beat themselves up over it saying they have no willpower and give up entirely.
But above all, I think so many overweight people fail to understand that losing the weight will not make them happy. Gastric bypass might be successful for them, but their mindset doesn't change with surgery. And when the primary reason why they couldn't lose the weight was mental, where does that leave them afterwards? I say it a lot: I'll always be a fat girl inside, because that's how I grew up and developed and how the majority of my life was lived. You might not be pummeling your self-esteem any longer, but there are years of bruises and scars that take a long, long time to heal. No surgery will ever fix that.
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Because obviously poor diet will cure a 94 lb tumor.
That was bad enough malpractice- it was only lucky that was a very determined woman, convinced something was wrong.
What killed me? Was that then they asked her if she was going to lose the rest of the weight now.
I wanted to beat the crap out of the morning show hosts on her behalf. I know exactly how much work it took to drop from 300 to 240, and how much exercise and little food it is taking to maintain where I am.
The idea that the moral to take away was that she should loose more weight just killed me. Grrr.
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...
That's just nutty.
I'd say it's probably easier to lose weight for the woman now that she's not carrying around a 94 POUND TUMOR but yeah, that wouldn't be the first question I'd ask the woman. That's an ordeal right there, never mind tackling weight loss. Although in the doctors' defense, soft tissue exams of any type are REALLY difficult to perform on someone that large. Still, that she kept coming back with symptomatology, that's just ridiculous that it took that long to get someone to hunt down the issue.
At least she kept going and insisting that something was wrong. Most people would hear the "lose weight" thing even just ONCE and not go back. Grossly overweight people KNOW that they're overweight. I know many people who hate being nagged by their doctor about their weight that they avoid the doctor at all costs.
And 60 pounds is tremendous, kudos :)
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How people relate to you, what they say, what they expect, all change. I mean the first time I stopped a car in traffic and got a "hey baby" was by turns amazing and scary as hell. It's worse when you've never been skinny and never thought of yourself as attractive.
It's hard work, and it's something I work on daily. The nice thing is that with time as my confidence grows it's a bit easier to stay out of "fat head" mode. Little steps at a time move me forward. But it's never going to be gone.
Congrats on what sounds like a great job over time. :)
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And serious congrats. That's awesome.