Everything to lose
Woman undergoes surgery to combat severe obesity
January 23, 2005
By Jenny Neyman
Lori Mason doesn't feel much like her old self these
days, with good reason — she's a mere fraction
of the person she was three years ago.
After undergoing gastric bypass surgery in November
2001, the 5-foot, 2-inch central Kenai Peninsula woman
who says she once was about as wide as she was tall
lost 247 pounds and gained a new lifestyle she never
thought possible.
Mason, who lives on Gaswell Road with her husband,
Dan, said she's always had a weight problem.
"I'm Italian. That sums it all up."
Growing up in southern Texas, she said she was an overweight
child and teenager. Her outgoing personality, sense
of humor and quick smile garnered her friends but did
not make her immune to ridicule and name calling because
of her size.
"I was always jolly on the outside but crying
on the inside because I always wanted to be the cheerleader,
not the girl that all the boys wanted to be friends
with," she said.
She met and married Dan Mason in Tex-as and the two
followed her relocated family to the central Kenai Peninsula
in 1991. After the move, her weight went from being
a self-esteem-limiting nuisance to a debilitating medical
problem as she eventually hit 365 pounds.
She went from one diet to another, willing to try anything,
but none produced lasting results.
Her best results came from the diet drug cocktail Fen-Phen,
which was later taken off the market after it was discovered
the "Fen," fenfluramine, caused lung and heart
valve damage. Mason's doctor was reluctant to let her
try the pills in the first place and finally made her
stop taking them. Mason did suffer slight heart valve
damage, but she also lost 60 pounds.
"I was scared but I was losing weight. I didn't
care."
The allure of a quick cure to her obesity proved too
strong to allow her to take small steps in modifying
her diet and lifestyle to lose weight slowly, but for
good.
"There is no quick cure," Mason said. "I
had 250 pounds to loose. How long is that going to take
at three pounds a month?"
Mason put on so much weight she was confined to a wheelchair.
The excess weight led to other problems — severe
asthma, joint stress, painful bouts of gout, high blood
pressure and sleep apnea, a breathing disorder often
associated with obesity where excess tissue constricts
the airway while sleeping.
During the day Mason had to be on oxygen every two
hours and puffed on inhalers in the meantime. At night
she had to wear a special air mask over her nose to
combat the sleep apnea. Being claustrophobic to the
point where she doesn't even like to wear sunglasses,
the mask was torture for her.
"When you can't look forward to going to bed at
night, it's a bad thing," Mason said.
Despite her medical conditions and lack of mobility,
Mason was able to attend classes at Kenai Peninsula
College.
Mason credits her mother, Jackie Mize, for motivating
her to get a degree.
"(Mom) wanted that for me at a early age, and
life took me different places," Mason said.
The two had an argument once about what Mason was doing
with her life.
Out of frustration, "Mom said I would never do
it," Mason said. Turns out that's a great way to
motivate a stubborn Italian.
"I was bound and determined to do it," she
said.
It sometimes took her 20 minutes to get from the parking
lot to KPC buildings, having to stop frequently to rest
and use her inhalers. She spent three weeks in the hospital
during finals her senior year in 1996, but by taking
tests on her own and doing make-up work, she still managed
to graduate magna cum laude with a degree in psychology.
"My mom's got me through a lot in life,"
Mason said.
Her husband has gotten her through the rest.
As Mason's condition worsened over the years, she became
increasingly dependent on others. It got to the point
where she couldn't put on shoes or hold her arms up
long enough to brush her hair.
"He did everything for me that a spouse should
not have to do," Mason said.
Throughout their marriage, Dan and his wife have been
a team, Dan said, whether that means being in a band
together or managing Dairy Queens — as they did
in Texas — raising kids or him forgoing a North
Slope job to care for Mason.
"It was pretty much like taking care of an invalid,
I suppose," he said. "... When I got married,
like they say, it's for better or worse. That's just
the way I am. She's the world to me, so I take care
of her."
Mason's mobility became so limited she'd sit in one
spot unless Dan helped her go somewhere. At home if
she wanted to cook she'd sit at the kitchen table and
he'd bring her whatever ingredients she needed.
"If you put two people on your back and try to
get up and walk across the room, that's what it was
like," she said.
At her worst point, her blood pressure was constantly
within stroke range, she'd had congestive heart failure
at least five times and was averaging six cases of pneumonia
a year, Mason said.
"I did everything I could to make it though a
day. ... It was awful. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't
exercise. Even if I tried to monitor my food consumption,
it was too far gone. My metabolism was at a negative.
I didn't even want to try anymore."
In 2000, her breathing got even worse. So little oxygen
was getting to her brain that she passed out. When paramedics
got her to the hospital, the carbon dioxide level in
her body was measured at 107 percent, a sign she should
be dead, Mason said.
"We lost her in 2000 in intensive care at (Central
Peninsula General Hospital)," Dan said. "The
doctor came from behind the curtain and I asked her
(about Mason) and she didn't even answer me, she just
looked at the floor and walked passed."
"I'm not one to believe in things like this, but
I actually went to the other side," Mason said.
"It was a strange, strange experience."
She said she remembers knowing it wasn't her time to
die and that she had to return to consciousness.
But she didn't want to go back.
"I didn't want to live another moment the way
I was," she said.
It all comes to (by)pass
That bout convinced everyone involved that something
needed to be done immediately to get Mason in control
of her weight and health.
"Until that point where she slipped away, I guess
I had it blocked it out," Dan said. "When
that happened, the reality just hit me."
Mason had been researching gastric bypass surgery and
became convinced she should do it. She found a doctor
in Anchorage who performs the surgery and in November
2001 she had her insides rerouted in a RNY gastric bypass
procedure, allowing food to travel through a stomach
pouch that had been altered to be about the size of
an index finger and bypass much of the rest of her digestive
system.
The smaller stomach size means Mason can only eat about
a cup of soup or half a sandwich at a time, and the
digestive track bypass means she only absorbs about
one third of the calories. She must eat several small
meals a day loaded with protein to get the nutrients
she needs. Overeating is an ever-present risk that carries
serious repercussions. If she eats too much, too fast
or the wrong foods, such as too much fat or sugar, it
triggers a reaction called dumping. With a one-ounce-size
stomach, one bite can be enough to trigger the reaction.
"For about two hours you feel like you're going
to die. You're shaky, lethargic, nauseous and have cramping,"
Mason said.
Adjusting to her new eating regime was a challenge,
especially at first. She came home from the hospital
a few days before Thanksgiving.
"Probably the hardest thing I've ever done was
walk into my mother's house with a least 30 people there
and every kind of food from my childhood and I had to
sit there with my protein drink," she said.
From her former life as "a big carnivore,"
meat no longer has any appeal for Mason, and she often
has to keep track of when and what she's eaten so she
doesn't forget and go without.
"There's no hunger. I still don't feel it. Never
have. I have to make myself eat," she said.
With all the medical problems Mason had going into
the surgery, she said her chances of coming out of it
without any complications were about 50-50.
"I had not one problem. Things just fell into
place. It was this wonderful puzzle. I thank God every
day that I wake up. The only thing I regret is I wish
it had happened to me sooner," she said.
'Every day
is a great day'
Immediately after the surgery, Mason began shedding
pounds. Within a week she lost 12 pounds, within a month
it was 60 and within a year she shed 150. In the next
year she lost another 100 pounds and has been maintaining
her size-three frame since. Now at 47, Mason is living
a new life filled with a vigor she hadn't felt in a
decade.
People who see her now can hardly believe she's the
same woman. Even her kids, Damien, Joshua and Donovan,
had a hard time adjusting to their diminutive mother.
Joshua, who is stationed in Iraq with the Army, came
home on leave a year after Mason's surgery and didn't
believe Dan when he pointed Mason out at the airport.
"He went, 'That's not my mother," Mason said.
"He was able to pick me up and swing me around."
As the weight came off, her health problems began to
clear up. Her breathing improved to the point where
she no longer needed the oxygen tank or the dreaded
sleep apnea mask. Her blood pressure lowered and her
joint pain went away.
"It's a total change. It saved her life, getting
this surgery she had," Dan said. "She was
on about 20 medications a day. Now she don't take anything.
There's no breathing machine, it's totally different.
Every day is a great day."
Since her health has im-proved, Mason's life has become
full of activities she never though possible —
walking long distances, jogging up flights of stairs,
horseback riding and being well enough to have a job.
She works as a personal care assistant for an elderly
woman through Frontier Community Services.
Mason also devotes time to music. Singing has become
a kind of physical therapy for her. Her mother gave
her a karaoke machine as a college graduation present,
and Mason used it strengthen her lungs. After her surgery,
one of Mason's brothers talked her into entering a singing
contest at the Duck Inn, in which she tied for first
place.
"I got excited about singing because it was something
I always wanted to do," she said. "I remember
singing in front of the mirror with a hairbrush."
Mason's sister talked her into entering the Sing from
the Heart talent contest this summer, where she placed
third. The lungs that once could barely provide enough
oxygen to keep her conscious now give her enough air
to belt out songs like "Rocking in the USA."
Her latest musical project is Headwater, a southern
rock and country band she, Dan, her older brother, Clark,
and a friend have started.
Clothes shopping has become a new favorite pastime
for Mason, though at first she bought clothes that were
too big because she hadn't come to grips with her new
shrunken size.
"It took about a year of looking in the mirror
before I did not see a fat person," she said.
The psychological adjustment has proven to be the biggest
hurdle the surgery presented for Mason.
"The emotional part of it was extreme. Even though
I had surgery, I was still a fat person on the inside.
I still wanted a burger and fries, even though it would
have killed me at first."
Though it's been difficult at times, Mason says she
wouldn't trade her new situation.
"It's all great. I can't complain about a thing
— except my husband telling me to slow down,"
she said. "I wanted to go, wanted to live, wanted
to go out there and experience everything I never could."
Dan's protective side has relaxed somewhat as the two
have adjusted to their new lifestyle together.
"You can't put that out of your mind," Dan
said of how sick Mason had been. "When you see
somebody go as far down as she did, I get a little concerned.
She's like a Tasmanian devil around the house. It's
totally different, between night and day what she can
do now."
Mason is getting better at pacing herself as she's
become accustomed to her new health and energy, but
that doesn't mean she takes it for granted.
"I wouldn't change it for the world, not the world.
I love it."
Source:www.peninsulaclarion.com
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