 Hi, my name is Jeanne Zaleski and I had bariatric surgery through Mid-Michigan Medical Center Gration in June of 2017. I've always had a problem with my waist since I was young and we tried everything from dieting to cutting back on foods and trying to eat vegetables and fruits and as I got through high school I got bigger and bigger. I would gain a few pounds, I would lose 25 pounds, I'd gain a back, I'd lose it and I did everything. I exercised and did everything I could to try to lose the weight and I knew that weight issue was a problem with my family because my father had weight issues, my mom had, my sister, my brothers and I looked at that and I did not want to end up being heavy and overweight and not being able to change, chase my grandkids which we do so much together and they're everything. You know, every time I would get up to move, my legs hurt, my knees throbbed, I shortened the bra and I just didn't want to be that way. I work for the Mid-Michigan Physicians Group Cardiology. What really helped me make my decision was I see a lot of patients that are overweight, that are having problems moving around, they're shortness of breath, they're walking with canes and I looked at myself and I seen that and I said, you know, I don't want to be there. I'm 62 years old and I wanted to take charge of my life and so I went ahead and I seen my doctor and I consulted her and asked her if there's any way that I could maybe get some help, maybe it's bariatric surgery or maybe she could refer me to a surgeon. That's where my journey began. After my doctor referred me to Dr. Banachi, I met with him and explained kind of what was going on with my weight issues and he said that I was a perfect candidate for it because I was healthy. He said, you are really a perfect candidate just because of your BMI being so high. So that's kind of where it began and he asked me when do you want the surgery and I said, right now, after I met with Dr. Banachi, I met the support team, great group of people. We talked about different ways of exercise, different types of food to eat, where I would be going in the next few months in my journey. I had my surgery on June 14th and I was ready to go home right after. I was in surgery for a couple hours, everything went well. I was ready to go home and they said you can go home the next day. So I stayed overnight and in the morning they went over everything with me, what was expected and what I would be going through in these next few weeks and I went home. But once I got home I had to look at all my brochures that was given to me from my support group to see what I should be eating and what I should not be eating and to be sure that I'm getting all my protein in during the day. I started losing a couple, two, three pounds a week and there would be one week I'd lose a pound, one week maybe two, one week I wouldn't lose any but it started coming off and within, you know, six months or so I lost 40 pounds. On my exercise day I feel wonderful, I've lost 70 pounds, I feel great, I get around, I chase my grandkids, easy for me to do pretty much anything. I do a lot of walk-in, I try to keep exercising, I want my treadmill which I can hardly do that before. I'm always busy, I'm very energetic but I feel 100% better. My name is Angela Hathaway, I had the bariatric gastric sleeve surgery through Mid-Michigan Medical Center Midland and I've lost 134 pounds. I am a wife to my husband Keith and I have two little boys. I've had problems with my knees since I was junior high age and they were just getting worse, problems with my back, everybody suggested maybe if I got the weight off it might help with my problems. I actually was with my family physician Dr. Paul Berg and he was helping me out with one of my foot problems. I said, well I've heard that being overweight affects your feet and all your joints of course and he suggested that maybe I should look into gastric surgeries. The first six months after my procedure was a difficult time because you're still not allowed to eat a lot of things but progressively as the weight kept coming off I got so much more energy. I was actually doing 5Ks, was able to play with my kids and I didn't mind going shopping or doing all those normal things that a lot of people take for granted because I was always too tired to do them. I was able to do the things that normal people would do and actually enjoy them. When people ask me about bariatric surgery I don't really sugarcoat it. I let them know that it is not easy, it is a tool to help them and that with some hard work and dedication to the program that is outlined to them that they could be very successful and it's rewarding and it's the best decision I ever made. Back in 2000 when I moved from Brazil to America to US I was 42 years old and my weight was around 220 pounds but during the period of 14 years I gained a lot of weight mainly to the fact that here we eat much more food. The fact that I didn't do any physical activity to offset this I start adding weight and like I said in 14 years I moved from 220 pounds all the way up to 310 pounds. That's when I decided that this thing should stop and I should change the way it was going to. With the weight gain came a variety of health issues. The most critical one was type 2 diabetes. I also doing my weight I had back pain, knee pain and I snore. I had this lip apnea and this whole thing was adding up to a point that I could not manage anymore. I chose to have the surgery at the Michigan Medical Center in Midland because my colleague at work had the same surgery with the same team and he was very successful in his surgery and I was impressed with the results so I went to attend a seminar and one of the coordinators explained us how this thing works and the several different options of surgery and I chose for the, it's leaving a straight to me because I found during my research and conversation with the doctors that would be a more definitive solution compared to the other options even though all of them has their benefits I chose to be more radical and say okay if I have this leave gastrectomy it's kind of a no way back so I would reduce my stomach size I will be forced to eat less and more frequent and I will have to be educated in terms of what kind of food to eat and eat more health and etc. So that was what I decided to do. And a couple of months later around July in that same year I found this Taekwondo school in the Midland Mall and I decided to join and to have an activity that I could commit with time. It requires certain abilities in terms of agility, flexibility, elasticity, dedication. All of these together with a physical feet preparation and during my tenure of being prepared and moving from belt to belt to belt I saw other people that that was part of the group that I go in the school going to competition and we have this group going right now. We have nine students and four or five of them came from the bariatric surgery so it's very very very rewarding. The surgery changed the way I eat primarily by limited the size, the amount of food that I can eat. For me having the bariatric surgery was the best thing that happened in my recent life. I was going like I said in the wrong direction and bariatric surgery put me back on track to be healthier to remove all of those issues, health issues that I had and today I'm a healthy person, I'm happy, I like the results. If I have to do it again I definitely would do it again. Hi, I'm Gail Gorman. Five and a half years ago I had bariatric surgery and I've lost 192 pounds. And I'm her husband Ron and I had surgery down in 2012, bariatric surgery and I've lost a little over 200 pounds and I've managed to keep that up. I decided to have bariatric surgery when I started getting really really heavy. My father died at 52 from a massive heart attack and I was afraid that if I didn't do something drastic and permanent I was going to follow in those shoes. And I weighed 426 pounds, I was on four different blood pressure medicines. I had a very difficult time getting around being athletic at all and my doctor told me he said if you want to see 60, if you want to see grandkids, you need to make some decisions. Bariatric surgery has changed my life drastically. When I weighed 426 pounds I was not healthy and couldn't do the things that I'm doing now. We own horses and we horseback ride and now I have no trouble jumping up in the saddle and being able to do the things that I couldn't do then. We have done three half marathons together. We've done many 5Ks. Getting down and playing on the floor with my granddaughter when she says, hey grandma will you play tag with me and being able to actually get up and run has just been fantastic. Having the surgery is the beginning step, it's a tool, but it takes a lot of commitment and a lot of time from you to go ahead and do the exercising and change the eating habits and realizing that it's going to just make your life so much longer, so much richer. My advice to somebody that is thinking about it would be to get educated, go to some meetings and find out and then make some smart rational decisions about what you want to do. If somebody was considering and thinking about having the weight loss surgery I would say do it sooner rather than later because you are missing out on some wonderful time of having the weight gone, having your body feel good and just living life to the fullest that you should and deserve to have. My name is Joe Monaghan. I've lost over 135 pounds after bariatric surgery. I was an air traffic controller for over 32 years. With that job comes a lot of stress, rotating shifts, you never seem to get on a constant regimen of when you eat, when you sleep, so over the course of that career I gained over 100 pounds. I weighed 322 pounds. I'd given up pretty much on everything I enjoyed doing. I tried every way you can think of to lose weight. I tried Atkins, Weight Watchers, South Beach Diet, Counting Calories, you name it. I tried it and I'd have a certain level of success with all of it but I could never stay on it and the end result would be I'd wind up gaining more weight than I lost. After failing at every diet I could possibly find, I finally started to look at bariatric surgery. I did a lot of research. I wanted to make sure that I knew exactly what I was getting into. I had a procedure at Mid-Michigan Medical Center. I had zero complications. I was in the hospital for three days. It took fantastic care of me. Bariatric surgery gave me my life back. Within about five months I'd lost over 110, 115 pounds. The pain in my knees stopped, the pain in my hips stopped. I no longer had acid reflux and I no longer had high blood pressure. After losing the weight, I now can do anything I want to do. I feel 25 years younger. People come up to me all the time and say, I would not recognize who you were if I didn't know who you were and I always laugh and say, that's okay. I don't recognize who I am every morning when I look in the mirror. It's truly a gift to have your life given back to you like this. Everything about this surgery is about changing your life and a lot of changing your life is making better decisions. Bariatric surgery is not a diet. It's nothing that you just go out and think, well, let's give this a try. It's a complete change of your life. It's not a miracle, it's a tool, but the results can be miraculous. My name is Bruce Olson and the years since I've had my bariatric surgery, I've lost over 110 pounds. My cardiologist actually suggests I look into bariatric surgery. I was dealing with some serious issues. I just couldn't get the weight under control by myself. I'd reached a critical point and I needed help. I started my process by attending one of the seminars sponsored by Michigan Health. Surgery is not something you should rush into. Take it one step at a time, learn the pros and cons, and make your own decision. As far as the actual surgery is concerned, everything went just like clockwork and through my day-in-a-hashtag at the hospital, I couldn't ask for anything better. Since my weight loss, I have found it more convenient to do work around the house, especially doing special projects for people. It's just so much fun to be able to do things and not get tired. The current project I have right now is a concession trailer for the Masonic Lodge. I also have a project I was asked to work on by the Parade Chairman for the Lady of the Eagles. It just gave me something to do because I have all the tools to do it and the freedom of movement to do it. I feel like the surgery saved my life.