My name is Lisa Pietsch and in December of 2001, my life was changed completely. I had a Roux-n-Y Gastric Bypass. There was a great deal of pain involved in this decision. Surgery and recovery are painful. Having a stomach that only holds one ounce and accidentally drinking two ounces of water is painful. The physical pain, though it can be excruciating, passes. The real pain is in the feeling of betrayal and judgment by one’s friends and family. People who I expected to support me surprised and hurt me by accusing me of “taking the easy way out” and calling me lazy. Making this decision was anything but easy. I weighed 265 pounds and no matter what diet or exercise program I tried, they didn’t work. I had gone past the point of no return.
Years of yo-yo dieting had taken their toll on my body and it had become an efficient surviving machine. No matter what I did, I couldn’t lose an ounce. My joints were aging faster than I was because of the stress put on them just carrying around my mass. My blood pressure was too high. My cholesterol level was unhealthy and I was staring diabetes in the face. At 34 years old, I was expecting a heart attack any day. Making the decision to have weight loss surgery wasn’t taking the easy way out, it had become my only option for survival.
I’m not physician, dietician, personal trainer or other health care professional, but I have learned a great deal through experience. What I am going to share with you is my personal experience with weight loss surgery. I’ll tell you what it is like to be obese and invisible, the health problems that the obese deal with, the options that we explore and try just to be “normal”, what we go through to make the decision to have weight loss surgery, the changes in our lives both before and after the surgery and what the rest of our lives are like because of it. I hope you’ll continue reading and perhaps even learn something from my experience.