Losing Weight Gets Drastic For Two Area Men

Source: Peoria Journal Star
Story By: Elaine Hopkins
Date: May 20, 2001

Peoria — At age 29, Peoria Kurt Hidden weighed 623 pounds.

Always heavy, he had tried diets, but they didn’t work. The weight caused knee problems and difficulty walking up the stairs.

He had a girlfriend and worked full time as an electronic communications consultant, but his life was difficult. He was unable to use a company car because he couldn’t fit through the door of a four-door vehicle. He used his own two-door car instead.

At age 63, Art Kingsland worried that he would die if he didn’t lose weight. “I don’t like looking at grass from the other side,” he said.

Kingsland of Hanna City weighed only 311 pounds, but he had diabetes, high blood pressure and other weight-related maladies.

To lose the weight, both men turned to a drastic remedy — gastric bypass surgery. In this procedure, the stomach is stapled shut, leaving only a tiny space for digestion.

The surgery leaves patients unable to eat much food and kills the appetite. Eventually they may lose 40 percent of their body weight.

Hidden, whose surgery took place 15 months ago, has lost more than 300 pounds and is still losing. His waist, once at 72 inches, has dropped to 44 inches or 46 inches, he said.

He’s more than 6 feet tall and hopes to stabilize his weight soon. “I’m thinking 260 pounds,” he said. “I never want to be skinny.”

His girlfriend helped him through his surgery, he said. But then they broke up for reasons unrelated to his weight or weight loss, he said.

His employer allowed him time off from work to recuperate and has been very supportive, he said.

Kingsland, whose surgery took place early in March, has lost more than 50 pounds. He’s retired and has been disabled for several years from an accident that left him unable to drive.

He and his wife live with other family members in a lively extended-family household that includes her mother and a grandchild.

Both Hidden and Kingsland spent nearly a week in the hospital, and had long recuperations where their food intake was cut dramatically.

“People feel full because their stomach stretches. When we alter the size of the stomach, it takes little food to make them feel full,” said Dr. J. Stephen Marshall of Peoria Surgical Group, where doctors are performing this surgery on about 15 patients each month.

“Surgery should be considered as a last resort,” Marshall said. “I tell my patients they have a disease that is not curable. The surgery is a tool to help them control their disease.”

A support group for patients planning the surgery and recovering from it has been operating for a year.

At a recent meeting the group of more than two dozen people discussed food — what they can and cannot eat — and such after-effects of the surgery as temporary hair loss and soft fingernails.

Many can no longer tolerate meat or fried food. They eat so little that everything they eat must have nutritional value. Getting enough liquids can be a problem.

“Food is a cue to the lifestyle you used to lead,” Melinda Lange, a registered nurse and surgical manager, told the group. Soda pop is not a good idea, she said. “It’s a cue,” and it might cause bloating.

“Soda might stretch the (stomach) pouch. So why go through this” asked a patient, echoing fears many have, that the ordeal of surgery will be for naught if they regain the weight they just lost.

“Just losing the weight doesn’t mean losing the issues,” said a patient, a veteran of psychotherapy. She spoke of being afraid to go to a movie or restaurant.

“Will I fit in a chair” I’m tired of sticking out. It’s safe here. Out there they still see you (as fat). They don’t know what you’ve lost.”

“What do you really care what those people think” another patient responded.

“There’s more going on here than weight loss,” said Audrey LeMasters, a licensed clinical social worker who meets with the group.

Candidates for the surgery are carefully screened by psychotherapists and other specialists, and they must be referred by their doctors.

Many talked about severe disabilities from their weight. Some had to use wheelchairs. Others couldn’t walk without oxygen.

They told of spending their lives on diets, including medically supervised diets, that didn’t work. Daily life can be an ordeal. Public restrooms are problematic. “You’ve got to use the handicapped stall,” a man said.

Obesity “kept me home bound,” said a woman in the group. “I would go to a dentist, a hairdresser. My first question was, ‘What kind of chair do you have”’ ”

“I went for (pre-surgery) testing (at a Peoria hospital),” said a woman in the group. “Every chair was this wide,” she said, gesturing with her hands to show the narrow chairs that wouldn’t hold her bulk or weight. “It’s maddening. It’s embarrassing.”

“I’ve recommended (the surgery) for a number of patients,” said Dr. Terry Meriden, an endocrinologist and director of the Central Illinois Diabetes and Metabolism Institute.

“The surgery is revolutionary therapy for obesity. If you are at 350, 400 or 500 pounds, obesity is a disease, and something drastic needs to be done.”

“The surgery has been around for years,” Marshall said. “What has improved is the recognition that the surgery is not the be-all, end-all. It’s more than an operation. It’s a change of lifestyle.”

Marshall’s group is planning to improve its post-surgical process to help patients make that change. “We are diligently working to create a process to make that change as easy as possible, to make it happen better,” he said.

At the support group, patients months out of the surgery said that felt good and would do it again.

“I’ve lost over 100 pounds,” said a woman. “I went through the hair loss. It’s growing back in. (But) with this skin I look like my grandma, and my insurance isn’t going to pay for it (plastic surgery).”

After weight loss comes the problem of loose skin, which doesn’t melt away. Instead it hangs in folds on the stomach and on the arms and legs.

Hidden’s weight loss left him with perhaps 50 pounds of unwanted skin, he said. He plans to have it removed when he reaches his ideal weight. That means more surgery.

The middle-class patients at the support group, including Hidden and Kingsland, have medical insurance that covers the $35,000 surgery. But insurance carriers balk at covering the skin removal, a plastic surgery procedure that can run $8,000 to $10,000.

One woman confessed that she was delighted to have a hernia, another common after-effect of the surgery, because insurance will cover its repair. The excess skin can be removed at the same time at minimal cost, she said. The group smiled approvingly. Some expressed envy.

Most have been through years of embarrassment about their weight and the problems it causes. “It’s socially acceptable to bash fat people,” said one woman.

“People do and say things that are not appropriate,” Lange said. “I think obesity isn’t (yet) considered a disease even in the medical world.

“You are the new generation,” Lange said. “You’ve already changed people’s thoughts, just about you.”

But not always. Group members confessed that they haven’t told their friends or co-workers about their surgery. One woman said she was afraid to tell her mom. But when she finally told her, “she was supportive.”

Some come from families of overweight people. Others don’t. “I’m the only one in my family,” a woman said. ”They were ‘go for it.’ They were a little bit too positive.”

Both Hidden and Kingsland suffered complications from their surgeries.

Nearly a year after his surgery, Hidden sustained a hernia and perforated ulcer in the stapled-off portion of his stomach and needed more surgery. An incision still hasn’t healed, he said.

Kingsland came home after surgery optimistic that he would lose weight on the nine ounces of food he would eat daily and looking forward to walking for exercise.

His wife, Lois, 52, said she wanted the surgery next, to shed 100 pounds. “I’m overweight and winded, and a borderline diabetic,” with high blood pressure, she said.

“I’m tired of being fat. I’m tired of the diets. I don’t have the willpower,” she said.

But a few weeks after his surgery, Kingsland landed back in the hospital with a serious, life-threatening infection, and now he, too, has an open incision that will take months to heal.

After watching her husband’s travails, Lois is keeping an open mind about whether to pursue the surgery.

“The first month I severely regretted it,” Hidden said. “There was so much pain. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t turn over.”

Now, though, Hidden is pleased with the results, despite all his suffering. “It’s definitely a life-saving experience,” he said. “It’s a great thing overall, but not something to be entered into lightly.”