Margo Haren

Rebuilding her life through weight loss

Transcription

Margo: I could barely walk. I had no energy. And one of the things that I loved doing was I love teaching children at church, and I had to quit teaching the kids. I had to quit substituting with special needs children. I had trouble bending over and tying my shoes, and even wearing a seat belt. It was tough. It was horrible. It just was horrible. You're so addicted to wanting to eat. You were tied down. It was almost like a prison.

Dr. Zografakis: Margo had the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. That's a combination procedure where we restrict the size of the stomach from traditionally about the size of a football and reduce the size of the stomach to the size of an egg. And it does provide about 60%-70% of the excess body weight to be lost. Most people lose about 100 pounds depending on where you start. But more importantly than the weight that is lost, it has tremendous improvement in medical comorbidities or medical problems that are associated with being overweight, especially two things that Margo had which is the obstructive sleep apnea and the hypertension. And for her she was on multiple medications, and I think now you are down now only to one, correct? So from three or four medications before. So tremendous improvement in health overall. Better quality of blood pressure control, especially for diabetes resolution as well as very good outcome in improving diabetes.

Margo: And no more apnea machine.

Dr. Zografakis: And no more sleep apnea machine. I always tell people they can use that machine for an anchor on their boat on Lake Erie.

Margo: I think the most difficult part for me was becoming totally committed. But once I saw the team in action and how everyone was treating me, and there was a gentleman named Jeff that does some scheduling, I could not make a certain appointment at a certain time, so I asked him if I could come in at 6:00 in the morning, and he made arrangements to do that. They usually don't do that. But then I started to realize that these people, all of them, including Jeff, they were all for me and making my experience comfortable. The biggest thing that helped, that I really enjoy, the surgery helped that I really enjoy is being able to teach the Petunia Power kids at church. I couldn't do that because I had gained so much weight, but it was just so wonderful after I lost the weight I could re-signup and teach the kids again. I got my health back, I got my life back, and I got my energy back.