Friday Sooprize
July 20th, 2007
I did a guest post over at Body of Work, which is Anne’s blog, and the reason she never posts here. (Since EW is run by a magazine conglomerate that actually pays people, I can’t really hold it against her.) Anyway, I wrote a thingy!
Imagine, if you will, your best friend, for whom you’ve always had admiration and a little bit of jealousy, who is about your size, deciding to get weight-loss surgery. No more poking fat in the mirror together! No more swapping clothes. No more conversations about our poor thin friends who would never understand that part of our lives. No more of what we used to call our Porky Princess Parade.
So there you go. Enjoy. Feel free to comment here, if you care to!
Posted by mo pie
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I’ve learned over the years that the true test of a friendship is not when crap happens to one of the friends, but when Good Things happen. Especially when the good things aren’t a result of dumb luck, but through hard work. Call this bitter, but its true. A bunch of Good Things have happened to me this past year, and I sure learned who my friends were! But when lousy things happened to me, EVERYBODY was there for “sympathy.”
With a true friend, jealousy doesn’t kick in. Ever. You’re truly happy for them.
You and Anne are true freinds. And I don’t even know you all that well, but I’m not jealous, either.
V’ron put it so well – I’ll just add “What she said”.
I can’t access EW from work, because the net filter there is convinced it’s a porno site. Will have to look at it later.
But if a fat friend decided to get WLS? My first thought wouldn’t be, “Oh, now she’s going to be pretty and slim and healthy and happy happy happy, she won’t be able to go to Torrid with me anymore, I hate her, grrr.” No, my first thought would be, “Shit, I hope she doesn’t DIE.”
Because, you know, about 2% of people who get this surgery die within the first month. And most of the rest don’t permanently reach their “goal weight” and enjoy perfect health forever. About 10% do. The rest, frankly, get to eat a giant shit sandwich, almost literally. And I think my friends deserve better than that.
Ern, that is, 10% will reach their goal weight and stay there. Not sure about the “perfect health” part.
There are things worse than death at the end of the WLS odyssea…one may end up still “obese”, one may end up with a colostomy bag, one may end up with a burst stomach (what’s left of it anyways). Ever wonder what happens if they accidentally “nick” an intestine? Oh well they *never* do that, do they? Or if the saline that controls your “loop” leaks out inside you? or your port becomes infected? Or they don’t use enough stitches and your incision becomes infected… or you become deficient in B12 or fat-soluble vitamins (lots of folks do) And they deliberately underreport these adverse end points including death — they do it by saying well, this thing happened a certain amount of time AFTER the surgery, so they don’t have to do with our procedure, they ONLY have to do with patient non-compliance. (so they blame the death or adverse complication on the patient. Is that fair? BULLSHIT — it is KILLING people. It is not worth it. I would make sure my friend knew this. Someone I care about did this, and it has ruined her life.
I have a friend that is in the 90%, she got WLS and she is not where she thought she would be. It is mental thing as much as a physical thing. If she was just doing it, to make herself skinny and didn’t pinpoint the reason why she is overweight, even after the surgery, maybe not right away she would be right back where she started.
If she was thinking about it and did it. I would hope she would have a healthy life style and I would hope that would give me motivation and her being a “true friend” stick by me and push me to reach my goals!
I’m not sure where all these supposed statistics about bariatric surgery are coming from, but they’re not consistent with what is published in the medical literature. There’s a very comprehensive review of this literature by Elder and Wolfe in the May 2007 issue of Gastroenterology.
To summarize a few of their findings, which were gleaned from over 150 studies:
-After 2 years, bariatric surgery patients had lost an average of 61.2% of their excess weight. Weight loss varied among surgical types, with gastric band recipients losing the least (47.5%) and duodenal switch patients losing the most (70.1%). After 10 years, patients averaged a 20-30 kg weight loss (44-66 lbs). That’s not a perfect record, but statistically, no other weight loss method even comes close to that kind of success.
-Bariatric surgery patients experience a dramatic drop in many obesity-related health problems, including a 76% decrease in cancer, an 82% decrease in cardiovascular disease, a 77% decrease in infectious disease, and a 47% decrease in psychiatric problems. Diabetes was also resolved in approximately 80% of diabetic patients who underwent surgery. Surgical patients had fewer doctor visits and 25% lower health care costs in the 5 years following their surgery compared to controls.
-A single study did show the morbidity rate in the month following surgery to be 1.9%, but that study is believed to have been flawed for several reasons, and other studies have showed it to be closer to 0.33%. That’s not insignificant, but morbidity is also associated with certain risk factors, including advanced age, male gender, and an inexperienced surgeon, none of which applied in Anne’s case.
All that being said, I do agree that undertaking gastric bypass surgery is a very serious decision and not for everyone. And certainly, anyone who is considering it needs to be aware that this procedure is something of a cash cow for hospitals and that doctors and medical centers have a strong incentive to “sell” surgery to people. But it’s simply not true that this surgery is universally unhealthy and something that nobody should let a friend go through with.
Hmmm… i think at risk of being moderator-esque, I think the general jist of the post was more directed at what happens when our formerly fat friend is no longer fat? How do we take it? And its a true test of friendship.
As for WLS, I don’t know the stats. Any kind of surgery, including the two C-sections I had (and there was a camp of people who would question my motives, gee, one was an emergency, the second i elected because frankly, I wasn’t attempting VBAC at 43) poses risks.
I’ve followed Anne’s blog, and I don’t know about the rest of the world, but given what she chose to share with us (and it was a lot), a lot of thought, consideration, research, and deep-sour searching took place before she went under the knife. Once the decision was made, pretty much everybody who followed her blog supported her completely, exactly because she didn’t go into it blindly, like we often suspect many people do. In fact, I had many myths about WLS and the people who have it done shattered by Anne and her blog, and it’s opened my eyes to the mindset of a person who chooses this methodology.
Whatever the methodology, I still understand and fear the pangs of jealousy whenever somebody successfully achieves weightloss, but I realize it really only occurs when its somebody I didn’t particularly like/care about/care for in the first place. I’m finding that among my friends, when they drop a bunch of pounds, my first reaction is genuinely to be happy for them and if anything, challenged, or (for a happy word) inspired to follow suit.
The situation of having a best friend who is a different size than you brings up some interesting issues – why is it particular to women and why is it such a big deal when the proportions change? Is it because women have closer relationships with each other, generally speakingIt comes back to this idea that if you are of a bigger size you cannot embody the characteristics
often attributed to thin people. It is also difficult to avoid the stereotype of two fat girls clinging to each other for comfort – does your size REALLY primarily define all of your relationships an if so at what point does that relationship become toxic? Truthfully, most people are friends (or lovers or whatever) because they satisfy each others needs and are able to affirm each others beliefs and ideas. Yes, being positive and happy for your diminishing friend is the ideal, but if you truly feel that way i say you are lucky and have a terrific friendship (and heart)
I agree totally with v’ron, with true friends, the jealousy and competition never kicks in.
Reading your guest post made me feel all warm and fuzzy and happy for the true non-competitive friends I have found in the past few years.
that was a great essay. thanks for linking to it.
i actually don’t have any fat friends living close to me. but after reading that i do have something of a desire to find one… most of my friends are teeny tiny, and it wasn’t until i moved to the southeast for graduate school that i got a couple friends who actually wore a size bigger than a 14 (now that i’m back in L.A. all my friends are teeny again, except for one, who is moving to the bay area very soon). it was then i realized what a nice feeling of camaraderie it is. they actually know the stores where i shop. we can actually shop together. and all sorts of intangible points of understanding were there. it was something i hadn’t realized i had been missing. it was nice.
and overall, i think i wouldn’t feel any jealousy for any of my friends (or anyone, really) who changed their life in a way they wanted to through hard work or surgery or whatever. i would be happy for them. but i guess one thing i would fear would be that they would become judgmental of me, or become critical or self-righteous because they have pursued success in an area that i have not. but, then, how good of a friend could they be if they reacted that way, right?
About 16 years ago, my son made friends with a couple of kids on the block and one of them wanted me to meet his mother. He thought we would be great friends. I was reluctant to meet her as I thought she was going to be this skinny woman who wouldn’t like me because I was fat (she thought the same about me….lol). We finally met, found out we were both fat, and became so close, she said we had a lesbian relationship without the sex. She had WLS after we had been friends for about 4 years, but I never worried that it would change our friendship (after all, when someone knows everything about you, good bad and ugly too, how can mere weight loss change anything?). She passed away from complications 2 years later (she had to have the surgery done a second time, ended up losing most of her intestines when they got tangled in the mesh used to repair a massive ventral hernia from gallbladder surgery before she lost weight, and had the short gut syndrome and all that implies). The final straw that killed her was myocarditis, but I think she could have survived that if she hadn’t been through everything else with the WLS. I was there for her through all of her surgeries, and still miss her, even tho it’s been 10 years since she passed away.
I had my stomach stapled too, and it didn’t work for me, and I don’t know what complications I might have from it as I can’t afford to see a doctor (other than the complication of gaining back everything I lost and more).
But, if you are truly friends, some things may change, but I don’t think the friendship will die. It will adjust, adapt, and move forward.
Earlier this year, my best girl friend told me she was having bariatric surgery. We first met as coworkers, and my immediate thought was of a woman we worked with who had had gastric bypass and lost tons of weight.
Because this woman had so much loose skin, she tried to make herself have a hernia by eating off-limit foods. You see, the surgery to remove loose skin from your abdomen (a pannectomy or more commonly a tummy tuck) is considered cosmetic by most heath insurance companies. At almost $10k, it’s not something the average person has the money to do, either. But if you have a hernia and need an operation, which is covered by health insurance, most doctors also throw in the tummy tuck as an added bonus.
Many bariatric surgery patients have died not from the surgery, but from making themselves sick in order to remove excess skin.
My friend reassured me that the procedure she just had done last month was less severe than gastric bypass, and is actually reversible. She had the Duodenal Switch procedure done and aside from some nausea and having to eat small meals 6-7 times a day, she’s doing all right.
I though that was a great piece about friendship, and what defines it. Nice job.
I’m with Meowser – I actively want good things to happen for my friends, especially if they have been working hard for them and I most certainly don’t want them to put themselves at unnecessary risk because of an arbitrary social ideal.
Tulip, all of that is absolutely the reason why WLS scares me like crazy, but I think your comment “There are things worse than death at the end of the WLS odyssea…one may end up still ‘obese’ “is really illustrative of where a lot of people are mentally – being fat is worse than being dead.
In college, I became best friends with one of those short, cute, round, outgoing Filipino girls who, despite being overweight, was never able to go anywhere without being hit on by at least one man.
Despite being nearly a foot taller than her, I went completely unnoticed, and I attributed it to my weight, though she swore that wasn’t true at all.
Our weight issues were the main thing we had in common. We lamented about it, developed weight loss plans, dropped them within days, and drank 44 oz. Cherry Cokes at 3 a.m.
Like one of the above posters, we were so close we joked that we had a lesbian relationship without the sex.
When I started losing weight in January 2005, I was terrified of losing her friendship because I thought that if I lost weight, reached my goal weight, and she didn’t, that’d be the end of our friendship. Instead, she was one of my personal cheerleaders. She encouraged me, told me how wonderful I looked, and said that she wished she had the determination and persistence that I do.
It’s been over 2 years, and I’ve lost almost 45 pounds, and I am down 10 dress sizes. (I still have about 55 pounds to go.)
She tells me that she is so proud of me, and there’s no cattiness or jealousy to it in the least bit. She’s lost some weight herself, and has offered to give me a lot of her bigger clothes because they’re the size I am now.
It means so much to feel like I am equal with her instead of her being the prettier, more popular friend and me being the fat friend in the shadows like I was in previous so-called “friendships”.
It really makes all the difference to have a bond with someone like that who truly loves you for who you are now and always wants the best for you.
I have had friends who were supportive of weight loss and friends who were really problematic about it. My mother is in the former group. She lost about fifty pounds ten years ago and has kept it off. She has always been a goddess, and with the weight off she’s exactly the same; a goddess. She inspires me, she supports me through my own struggles and lets me know I can do it too. She also has a reasonable eating/active liestyle that I love. She doesn’t count cals, she doesn’t over exercise. She’s in her sixties and looks like a teenager! Well she’s got that youthful black girl skin, so that might be part of it. Anyway, I remember the time I saw her after she lost the weight (I was at my heaviest) and my first instinct was to hug and cry! I was so happy for her. She never expressed much distain for her body or mine. If you ask her how she did it, she just say, “I ate less and was more active.” I love her for her honesty and her loving support. I think that’s what were supposed to get from the post and that’s what I got from it. It made me so happy that there people who are excited about the success of others and it instead of creating jealousy it inspires us to create the kinds of lives we want. I don’t know that probably sounds dorky!
As for the hater friends, eh, what can you do? Move on and be grateful.
Has anyone gotten insurance “BCBS” to pay for a pannectomy? If so how and what dx codes did you doctor use?