LIFE CHANGING
This story is the second of two articles on gastric sleeve surgery. For Shelley Oesterling of Butler Township, surgery was the last ditch effort. She'd tried it all: diets, exercise regimens, group programs. She'd lose a bit, then gain it all back eventually.Kelly Jo Best-Conti, coordinator of Butler Health System's bariatric program, is most patients' first point of contact there. Oesterling's story isn't uncommon, she said. They call the phenomenon “yo-yoing.”“People usually see me when they have failed all other diet and exercise programs,” Best-Conti said.Oesterling met with BHS staff, then launched into a laundry list of tests, screenings and weight loss techniques. Generally, insurance policies require verification that a patient is working out, dieting and otherwise trying for six months before such a surgery is covered.People like Oesterling get mental evaluations, nutritionist help and sleep studies, to name a few.“This isn't something you jump into,” she said. “This is a lifestyle change.”Lori and Mike Noble of Butler Township experienced the same. Both got a gastric sleeve Oct. 15. They wanted to recover together, and even turned their eventual weight loss into a mild competition.Before their change, Mike in particular had rough eating habits. He works a high-stress cyber security job at Alcoa, and would spend the whole day without eating. Then, he'd come home at night and eat enough for several people. He could solo a large pizza, easy, he said.“Used to be I could demolish a gallon of milk a day,” Mike said.But when he and Lori signed on for the surgery, they also signed up for 1,200-calorie a day diets, starting immediately.“If you want to have pizza for dinner, you have to plan your whole day around that pizza,” Lori said.The surgeryThe act itself of gastric bypasses and sleeves isn't quite as invasive as one would think. Small cuts are aided by a camera, leaving only a little scar behind on the patient's abdomen.
Dr. Meng-G Martin Lee, a Butler Health System bariatric surgeon, explained that in a sleeve surgery, a device is used to cut and staple the stomach, removing the discard by squeezing it out of a small incision.BHS keeps its patients in the hospital two nights after the surgery. Patients are weaned onto solid foods slowly, after weeks of liquid-only diets followed by pureed-food diets.The surgery removes 75 to 85 percent of a patient's stomach.Besides the stomach being physically smaller, the change affects hormone balances in the stomach, according to Best-Conti, significantly lessening feelings of hunger.What comes afterCranberry Township resident Jim Royal, the football player, who was in the first story in this two-part series Tuesday, lost about 140 pounds in a year.Oesterling dropped 90. Mike and Lori are still shedding pounds.They've all developed their tricks. Oesterling uses only tiny bowls, and she keeps a plastic Easter egg in her kitchen to remind her about how much her stomach can comfortably hold.Royal rises at about 3:50 a.m. each day to walk. On his last birthday, he made a day out of it and walked 14 miles. For portion control on the go, he eats little cups of baby food.Lori hits a weight-machine and the treadmill in the mornings. The Nobles switched out their kitchen sets for miniature pieces, too.Lee said it's the overwhelming progress he sees that makes him enjoy his job. “The majority of patients go through a transformation,” Lee said. “Sometimes we don't even recognize them between appointments.”Lee's patients all agreed that there's a stigma attached to such surgeries. Lee said he believes the stigma is fading, but his patients all hear the phrase “the easy way out” sometimes.
“There was nothing easy about it,” Lori said.Many local bariatric patients attend a BHS support group. Royal said the monthly meetings are like a “booster shot” for him.Royal in particular has many happy stories to tell. There's the time his wife accidentally packed his 13-year-old son's pants in his suitcase, and he managed to squeeze in and wear them to work all day.And then there was the time his daughter simply hugged him. “She said dad,” Royal said, wiping his eyes. “I can get my arms all the way around you.”
