Tricia’s Story – Gastric Bypass Patient

Tricia is one of our gastric bypass patients. She says she has struggled to maintain a healthy weight all of her life. She says she used to try every "quick fix" weight loss program in the book before meeting with Dr. Northup. In this clip, Tricia talks about bariatric surgeon Dr. Northup and the Mercy Healthy Weight Solutions staff, and how she is very thankful for their help in getting her on track and on a more healthy weight loss routine.

TRICIA: I have struggled with maintaining a healthy weight all my life. It has been a struggle for me. I have been an emotional eater. I have been a binge eater, and my family history is such that all of my family has been overweight. I think I've tried just about every single weight loss program and always in to that quick fix. In my 20s, I, you know, was able to gain and—or lose very rapidly, and my metabolism was different. And certainly now as I am aging, my metabolism is slower. It is much harder—it was much harder to drop the weight, and I think as Americans we're always looking for that quick fix. We're always looking for that magic bullet. And in recognizing that this is taking all of my life to get to, it needs to be a slow process. It needs to be a tool and a process that’s going to teach me different habits and a different way of life. And so that’s what a lot of what attracted me to this program. It wasn’t a fast decision. It was a decision that certainly took a lot of time and talking to my friends and family and because it was a big decision. It wasn’t something, obviously, that was a snap decision for me. But in going to my first meeting with Dr. Northup and the team, and talking to him about what my life had been like and what my struggles had been like, and him giving me some advice as far as his recommendations for me, really kind of—have sealed it for me. I came away from that first meeting very excited about the opportunity that this could be a tool that really worked for me. And he was a genuinely caring person, and I felt comfortable with the rest of the team. I was able and they encouraged me at every step of the way, that if I had questions or concerns to call them, and I had called them and gotten responses back from them. I felt like this was a team that could be supportive of me in the beginning and gave me instructions and good education prior to my surgery, and then certainly after, has been again very supportive of me and very willing to answer questions and to be in tuned to what I was going through. I think what has impressed me the most so far, is that my friends at work and my friends outside of work have kind of rallied around me and my weight loss and better health, and they are also kind of joining the bandwagon in that I've walked in a 5K walk. I'm doing another 5K walk in a week, and so, those are things that I never would have been able to do prior to surgery. I wouldn’t have been able to do it. As a result as well, I am not taking my metformin, which is my Type II diabetes medication and my blood sugars have been fine. And I have decreased my fibromyalgia medication to the point where I'm on the minimum dose of that, and that has made a big difference in my pain level, and I'm exercising. I wasn’t able to do that before and to the degree that I am now. I don't want to go back to that person. You know, I was trying to find pictures of before and looking at that, and I look at these pictures thinking, “I don't know, who this person is.” Not the physical person but, you know, I think some of my success has always been, I've always seen myself as a thin person in a large body. And so, to be able to, you know, drop the weight and feel better about myself is more in line with my spirit and who I am, which I hope then will be a lot of my success in keeping the weight off.