I want to offer a special thanks to
Juanita Triano. Here is her story:
Barbara,
I have read the stories you publish and they made me so glad to know
that I wasn't the only one out there in the same situation, so I
wanted to submit mine to help others.
I know that we as obese people all know
the real truth, yet we just do not want to face the fact that we are
"fat". We all think that we can manage to lose the weight. We'll
just go on a diet, but we just need 1 more candy bar before we start
the diet.
I was heavy as a child. In the 4th
grade I was too large to wear girl's jeans so my mom bought me boy's
wrangler blue jeans because I couldn't fit into anything else. I
fought with my weight, tried diet after diet: cabbage soup,
grapefruit, 24-hour miracle diet, herbal supplements, and even a few
of my own that I concocted, all of which were unhealthy.
At 25 years of age I met the man of my
dreams, my heart and soul, the man I knew I would spend the rest of
my life with. He loved me at my heaviest, which happened to be 500
pounds. After we were married I decided I needed to go to the doctor
because I hadn't been feeling good. I had been diagnosed with sleep
apnea at 18 and was feeling so run down. I went to Dr. Patricia
Alessi, who ran all kinds of tests and found out I had high blood
pressure, diabetes, chronic depression, anxiety, venous stasis
disease (staph infections in my leg that wouldn't heal),
degenerative disc disease, degenerative joint disease, sleep apnea,
asthma, etc.
I had 2 staph infections in my left leg
that wouldn't heal no matter what I did. We would get it under
control and it would flair up again. I was in the hospital twice
with it and the infectious disease doctor was talking about
amputating my leg. I couldn't walk without a cane. I would get so
out of breath even just walking across the room. I decided then that
something had to give if I was going to spend the rest of my life
with my husband. I didn't want to die! And I didn’t want to lose my
leg!
I contacted Dr. Paul Wizman in Margate,
FL and he had a seminar that he required all of his patients to go
to before he would even agree to meet with them. It was at that
seminar that I first saw you speak. You moved my heart and gave me
hope that I had never really had before. I saw a dream of a life
that I had always yearned for but never thought was in my power to
attain. You gave me hope. So I made my appointments that I needed
with the nutritionist, the psychiatrist and my family doctor. I did
my 3 months of medically supervised diet required by my insurance
company. Then I got to see The Wiz!
Dr. Wizman was upfront, he was honest,
he looked at me and said "I'll do the surgery." I was on a cloud,
but then came the clincher. Because I weighed almost 500 pounds, if
I did have the surgery I had only a 50/50 chance of living through
the surgery. If I didn't have the surgery he gave me six months to
live.
My husband didn't really want me to
have the surgery. He was scared that I would die. I told him I
hadn't been living and that he was either going to support me on
this or he would be a widower at 28 years old. He gave in and came
on board with the surgery.
On March 7, 2005 I went through roux
en-Y gastric bypass surgery. That morning I weighed 463 pounds. My
BMI was 79 ½ . I had the highest BMI for a female that Dr. Wizman
had done at that point.
My surgery took longer than he
expected, I was on the table for 5 hours. Believe it or not he was
able to do the surgery laparoscopically. I had a tough time in the
hospital because of the lack of education of the nurses and ended up
with bronchitis due to a nurse letting my morphine run out for 9
hours! I was miserable, but I knew that as soon as I saw “The Wiz”
he would take care of me. He did! I looked into his eyes and begged
him to send me home, that I would get better care there and he did.
I had spent 5 days in the hospital and I wanted my bed. He was reluctant
because I lived 2 hours away from the hospital, but he gave in.
I went home and had no complications
until about a month and half after my surgery.
I had a stricture, and I went back
into the hospital because I got very dehydrated. I have had no other
complications since then.
I still need to have surgery to
remove my panniculus. I have lost 233 pounds so far, and the plastic
surgeon believes that I am carrying 60 pounds of extra skin over my
stomach.
I am more active and am looking forward
to conceiving children and spending the rest of my life with my
husband. I have inspired him to lose weight as well.
I would like to offer some advice.
Never regret anything you have done in your life. It's brought you
to where you are today! Sometimes you need to climb those mountains
to know that you can. Sometimes you need to struggle so when things
go well you can truly relish in the fact that you didn't quit!!
Good luck to everyone out there, do not
be afraid! Thanks Barbara for everything!
Juanita Triano
mobilegirl76@comcast.net
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Congratulations Juanita
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I Love
Good News |
If you have a success story to share along with before
and after pictures, please send it to me at
Barbara@WLScenter.com so that I can include it in
future issues. |
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