For Julie Murphy, being overweight was familiar. After all, the whole family was great. But she was determined to deal differently.
"My mother would never go anywhere with us-she was always so ashamed because she was so overweight," says Murphy 57, who is from the Eastern Tennessee. "I was determined that I was not going to be like the mother. I was not going to turn me off my children's life."And she did not. Even at 268 pounds, she arrived at her games, recitals and her school functions. It was not until she had grandchildren that things get harder.
"I had been diagnosed with diabetes, I had arthritis on both knees, I went out easily," she says. "I had grandchildren now, and I wanted to be able to do things with them."
Murphy decided that the best course of action for it was to go through gastric bypass surgery. This shrinks the size of your stomach, so you can not eat as much as before. The surgeon also re-routes, or ignores, part of your digestive system so you do not absorb so much food. "I knew I had made the right choice, and I said I did it for myself, I did not do it for anyone," she says. Then, in March 2004, she went under the knife. And only 1 day later, the problem began."I'm in the hospital, post-op, and you will help me in bed," says Murphy. "She kind of throws me back and I pull all the muscles in my stomach."
Just after that, it has kidney stones, a known complication of weight loss surgery. Then there were low levels of potassium, which kept it in the hospital for 8 days. She also needed her purse - the small amount of stomach she had left - stretched five times different because she could not stop vomiting when she ate. "My last name is Murphy," she says. "It's like Murphy's law - anything that can go wrong will go wrong."Weight Loss Journey - What You Might Not Know About Weight Loss Surgery
Murphy says despite all the complications she faced, she would make the same decision again.
Her diabetes is gone, and it is below 45 kilos-although she has lost more than 100 pounds at one point. She recovered a little weight, she says, because she snacks very often, and developed a thyroid problem unrelated to surgery.
"I had to fight the whole journey later, and I had every small turnaround repeatedly, but in the long run, it was worth it," says Murphy.
She says she is able to move more easily, she feels better in general, and has great blood pressure and cholesterol numbers.
Still, 10 years later, she says she can not eat a lot at a time - a few tender meat bites or a small hamburger at dinner - or else she runs the vomiting.
And she says she could never have imagined the psychological questions she would face.
"It's a huge eye opener, even when you come back and see the photos of yourself, you're like," I did not realize it looked like this, "says Murphy." But you still have problems. You will never overcome the fat person. "
Lin says the bottom line for people considering the surgery is that it can be saved by life, but do not understand without understanding the journey.
"You really need a strong support for something like that, and it's far from easy output," he says. "It's a complete change in lifestyle."
