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By SUSAN ASCHOFF, Times Staff WriterGastric bypass surgery helped Kathy Bailey lose more than 100 pounds, but each day she deals with the realities of her choice.
TAMPA - Kathy Bailey decided to undergo surgery to lose some of the 327 pounds that made her miserable for most of her life. Three years later, she is healthier and happier but not as thin as she anticipated.
She weighs 203 pounds and would like to lose another 25.
Though short of her goal weight, she says the surgery remains a life-changing experience.
"I didn't lose the monumental amounts of weight they said I would, but I got my health back," says Bailey, 56, a software consultant in Tampa.
She has battled excess pounds on her 5-foot-2 frame since her first pregnancy at 19, when she gained 60, and through a succession of diets, from Atkins to Weight Watchers. She cut daily calories to 600. She once lost 145 pounds. Each time the scale crept back up.
She was morbidly obese when she had gastric bypass surgery on May 28, 2003, at Tampa General Hospital. A surgeon divided her stomach and rerouted her intestine, creating a stomach about the size of an egg. The St. Petersburg Times chronicled Bailey's experience.
Today she appears considerably smaller, almost petite, compared with her size before surgery. She recently talked about what has happened to her since then over dinner: a single spare rib, baked potato and ear of boiled corn.
"The bypass gave me my life back. It allowed me to live a normal, productive, prosperous life," Bailey says. "It allowed me to fit in airplane seats, to follow the skinny hostess through the restaurant."
Much of her motivation for risking major surgery was obesity's dangerous health effects. She no longer takes insulin pills for diabetes, her blood pressure is normal and her joints rarely ache now.
She eats less because she must: Her tiny stomach holds a couple of ounces. There are three meals and three snacks a day, perhaps a protein shake for breakfast, a couple ounces of cheese and some crackers for lunch, or a salad.
If she eats the wrong food, she pays dearly.
"Like the fettuccine alfredo. I love it. I can't have it," she says. "I just had to get my family to understand that when they bake pumpkin pie, I can't have it."
High fat and sugary foods make gastric bypass patients violently ill. Bailey's heart races, she sweats, shakes, cramps, vomits and suffers diarrhea. Her sister did not understand the severity of the penalty until she found Bailey in the bathroom, almost too sick to speak. She was baking a cinnamon chocolate cake, at her sister's request, and had tasted the icing.
"I still get the munchies," she says. She carefully considers what to choose. "I can have popcorn. You know what I have trouble with? Rice! I think it's because it's not chewed well enough." To aid digestion, bypass patients must chew their food thoroughly.
Last year, about 170,000 weight-loss surgeries were performed in the United States compared with 20,000 in 1995, reports the American Society for Bariatric Surgery. Celebrities from American Idol's Randy Jackson to NBC Today's Al Roker have talked publicly about theirs. Since Bailey's bypass, Medicare has added the procedure to its coverage.
"The lifestyle changes you have to make when you have the bypass are still a very big part of my day," she says. "I have to make sure I'm drinking water, that I'm getting enough protein, taking the vitamins, the calcium and the vitamin B-12 shots."
Daily life does not stop for diet complications. Bailey's mother, Nancy Bailey, who filled a cupboard at her house with protein shakes and worried and waited during her daughter's surgery, died in October 2004 of uterine cancer. "I miss her terribly," says Bailey.
In October, Bailey had surgery to repair a hernia and remove the apron of skin which formerly encompassed a much-larger stomach. She suffered an infection. Her body is still not a pretty sight, she says. She is not yet ready to undergo more surgery to deal with sagging skin. She has dropped eight dress sizes, to a 16, but must roll up her slacks because of her body shape.
She has found good friends in the weight-loss surgery support group at TGH. Some have printed cards to present at restaurants, explaining they have a medical condition requiring they eat small portions and could they order from the children's menu.
"I gave up sugar, alcohol, carbonation and caffeine. Actually, none of it was hard," Bailey says. She detests vegetables, as she did before surgery, and she will always miss alfredo.
She does find deterring saboteurs a little easier. Before, people would be hurt if she declined a piece of birthday cake or a doughnut brought by a co-worker. Now she tells them, "No, thank you. I can't because of my new plumbing."
Susan Aschoff can be reached at (727) 892-2293 or aschoff@sptimes.com.