Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy Gives Lisa the Energy of a 20-Year-Old
A car accident in 2002 – that’s what triggered Lisa Wright’s swift spiral toward obesity. She’d broken her ankle and needed four surgeries to repair it. Suddenly, her life came to a screeching halt.
The Green Township resident couldn’t walk for a year, she’d quit smoking and her weight ballooned. “I gained 100 pounds in no time,” she says.
Unexpected Circumstances Encourage Lisa to Take Action
While she spent roughly a decade struggling with her weight, it didn’t become a priority until the summer of 2012, when Lisa and her husband, Tom, gained custody of their 2-year-old granddaughter, Rylie. Lisa took Rylie to the park one day and simply couldn’t keep up. That’s the day it clicked, she says. “When you get down in a rut, you don’t realize how far down you are until you look up one day and wonder: Wow, what happened?”
The next day, Lisa, 40 at the time, walked into TriHealth Weight Management. As a former fill-in medical assistant at Group Health, she’d worked with Weight Management’s Kevin Tymitz MD, so she’d seen the success his patients had with weight-loss surgery. She was ready to go for it.
After an informational seminar and several meetings with the team’s dietitian and Dr. Tymitz, Lisa scheduled a laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy for March 2013. “I did a lot of my own research. It was the least invasive and a faster recovery,” Lisa explains.
Between the surgery and recovery, her experience was nothing short of “amazing,” she says. However, she does have one regret: She wishes she’d done it sooner. “Dr. Tymitz is the nicest physician and surgeon I’ve ever met in my life – ever. He genuinely cares. He wants his patients to succeed.” Lisa says.
As Her Weight Dropped, Making Healthy Choices Became Easier
Lisa spent just one night in the hospital and within the first week of surgery, weight started coming off. While she’s acknowledged that weight-loss surgery is only a tool, the initial weight loss is what helped her make better dietary choices. “Once you see you’re getting progress, you’re like ‘okay, I’m not going to eat that. I lost 10 pounds this week,’” she explains.
While she still enjoys indulging in a piece of chocolate every now and then, Lisa only keeps healthy food in her home to avoid temptation.
She’s even gotten her family – including her 15-year-old son – on board with her exercise routine. “That’s because I make him go with me,” she laughs. She likes to walk the track at Veteran’s park. She also spends a lot of time gardening. “It’s cool to pick your own tomatoes instead of going to the grocery,” she says.
Now weighing in at 175 pounds – five pounds less than her goal weight – the ability to exercise is something she appreciates, especially since she no longer has ankle pain, thanks to her trimmer figure.
She’s more energetic now, too. “I have more energy now than when I was 20,” she adds. Some of life’s more simple pleasures, like shopping for clothes, however, are what she appreciates most. “When you’re a size 26, you can’t just go into any store and pick something off the shelf and wear it. I think that’s the best thing ever. It’s little things like that,” she gushes. “Dr. Tymitz gave me my life back."