The saga of the 627-pound woman

I watch a lot of documentaries. On the Discovery Health channel, there has been a long series of shows about extreme obesity (which is now referred to as “super-obesity”). Luckily obesity is a subject I’ve never had to experience firsthand, but ElfNinosDad had quite a bit of trouble keeping his weight down so I find the subject interesting.

There’s quite the motley cast of characters on these shows. They run the gamut from the “Half-Ton Man”, who is not at all a sympathetic character due to his personality (he’s a major jerk), to the “627-Pound Woman”, a lady named Jackie Finley who, quite honestly, I absolutely fell in love with because she was such a sweetheart. The last viewers had heard of Jackie, she was struggling with severe side effects of the bariatric “stomach stapling” surgery she had undergone. From time to time after seeing her story I’d find myself thinking of her, even though I don’t know her.

I don’t know if perhaps she reminds me of someone I once held dear, but there’s something about Jackie that I really, really like even though I have never met her. It’s strange, because I don’t normally identify with people in documentaries.

My son and his friends were out late last night and, though he’s 20, I still can’t sleep until he’s home. So at 1 am I was going through the channel guide, still wide awake, when I saw yet another of those programs about super-obesity. This time, it was “We Lost 800 Pounds”. To be honest, the only other thing interesting on was “Mind of Manson”, which I’ve seen precisely 2 million times, so I decided to tune in.

I was thrilled to discover that it was about two characters from other documentaries I had seen, and one of them was Jackie.

It turns out that bariatric surgery had nearly cost Jackie her life. Apparently the first time they did it, they hadn’t left in enough small intestine, so between the loss of small intestine, the greatly decreased capacity for food, and the sometimes-normal incessant nausea following the surgery, she was dying of malnutrition despite still being profoundly overweight. I have to admit, malnutrition is not something which comes to mind when you think of someone who weighs so much. Yet she was so malnourished that she was in and out of the hospital, at times was so weak she couldn’t even roll over in bed, and at one point had slipped into a coma. Eventually doctors went back in and removed a very large tumorous area of fat on her stomach (originally thought to be a hernia) which had been unaffected by the weight loss, and lengthened her small intestine so she could absorb more nutrients.

After that was done, watch out world! Jackie regained her health (though she still has not regrown most of her hair, which was lost due to the severe malnutrition) and was able to walk again. Best of all, she was still as sweet as always. I was so happy for her, which is strange because I have never met this woman, and know only what I have learned from the documentaries. Though she was gravely ill for several years after her bariatric surgery, she did finally recover and (if I recall correctly) she ended up at just about 224 pounds, which is a massive, massive amount of weight loss. At 2 am, I found myself smiling, just knowing that sweet Jackie had regained her life. The photo at right is Jackie now (in the wheelchair) and her friend Robin.

Jackie attributes her recovery to the friends and family who stood beside her through thick and thin. Her sister had even given up a year of her life to care for Jackie following the original surgery, far from her own home. There is a lot to be said for the healing which can be had simply by knowing one is loved. Jackie said there were several times when she could have just let go, and undoubtedly she could easily have died, but she kept fighting because they were there for her.

Bariatric surgery is very common, it seems – I’ve seen hospitals advertise it on television more times than I could count – but most people don’t understand that it can also be extremely life-threatening even long after the surgery is done. It is certainly not something to enter into without being both fully informed of the risks and potential complications and side effects, and fully prepared for a very long road ahead.

For the super-obese, however, bariatric surgery may be their only viable option to regain their life. Once they get to a certain weight, no matter how little they eat, they will continue to gain weight because they can move less and less, and thus get less and less exercise.  I’m just happy to know that someone so sweet, who deserves the best that life has to offer, now has her life back.

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