Mike J.

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Mike J. 23 years, 10 months ago

For my Profile entry regarding my RNY, I will refer you two excerpt from two sources, which I will place here. One is a letter to a amn named Jay Carty, which I will post later. the other is from a research paper regarding the Psychosocial Implications of WLS, which is the Cornerstone project for a proposed Master of Science Degree in Family and child counseling, which I am including now. In regards to why this paper is of importance to me, a lot of what I have written comes from firsthand experience. On August 28, 1997, I attended a lecture given by Dr. George Zorn of Pacific Bariatric Surgical Medical Group in San Diego at Mercy Southwest Hospital in Bakersfield. I went with my parents, as my father was also recommended for weight loss surgery by another surgeon. At that time, I was weighed, and my weight was five hundred and thirty-one pounds. (On the day before the surgery, I was weighed in at five hundred and twenty-five pounds, and has a seventy-two-inch waistline.) On September 30, we went to San Diego for our battery of tests, following which, we were herded off to a psychiatrist for our psychological evaluation. After twenty minutes of very superficial interview I was declared mentally and emotionally fit for surgery. (My father was denied for different reasons and would die in 1999.) Nonetheless, I was approved, and on January 16, 1998, I underwent the RNY, and needless to say, I began to lose weight immediately. By my one month checkup, I had already lost thirty pounds, fifty-nine pounds by February. However, another problem had arisen in that I was severely in debt from being basically unemployed for three years. I tried to find work, but no one would hire me because I still weighed more than four hundred pounds. Coupled with the fact that I could have been evicted from my home at any time, it made for a very volatile situation. As all of this was occurring, another problem was developing. As the fat was coming off, my emotions started to emerge, including a very intense anger toward various people who had wronged me. I did my best to contain my rage, and was successful enough in keeping it under wraps to the point that I was suicidal only three times in that year and that any acts of violence were averted, even when my newly-found girlfriend at the time was nearly killed in a car accident. Nonetheless, things continued. By November, I had lost two hundred pounds. (Over the next year, I would lose only sixteen more, and I have regained at least forty.) I had a job offer in Salinas and I needed to take it. I stayed there until March of this year when unemployment forced me to return to Bakersfield. All of this has opened up a new set of factors, including deep feelings of frustration and loneliness. I am currently working through these things in my mind. This topic is very near to me, as it is to my fellow postops. There are at least two thousand RNY recipients in the Kern County are alone, according to Dr. Mary Murphy, M..D., FACS. As I am taking this course, I am continuing to work through these issues in what has become an odessy of self-discovery and healing. There are still many more questions to be answered, but in my postop life I have been privileged to find great fulfillment in those who are traveling this road with me. I have had the privilege of being involved in a support group and starting one in Prunedale, CA, north of Salinas, which has now grown to an average attendance of thirty people. I have also had the privilege of being involved in an online support group sponsored by the Association for Morbid Obesity Support, where I have been able to share much of what I have learned with preops and postops from around the world, as well as the U. S. and Canada. I need to learn more. I need to be freed from the pain in my heart and by seeing myself freed, I can help to bring freedom to others in their struggles. I want to be able to put what I have learned to work for me by earning an MFCC and to be able to give the presurgical psychological evaluations and to counsel other postops and their wives and families in the hope that they have a better and more solid emotional and social life. And this is why I am both interested in this subject and why I am taking this class. Thank you for taking the time to read this paper.

Robyn P. 23 years, 10 months ago

You are doing so well! Congradulations! Keep your focus! God Bless You!

kylakae 24 years, 3 months ago

<table border="0" width="100%"><tr> <td width="15%"><center><IMG SRC="http://www.dwarfworks.com/kyla/pictures/heart92.gif" width="95" height="116"></center></td><td width="85%" valign="middle"><b><font face="Lucida Sans" color="#9900FF">Happy re-Birthday, Mike! Its been four years since your WLS. Congratulations on your awesome weight loss! I hope this anniversary finds you feeling happy and healthy. Please stop by and update your profile so we'll know how you are doing four years post-op!</font></b></td> </tr></table>

careywatkins 24 years, 10 months ago

Hey Mike! It's been 3.5 years since your WLS. How are things going?