Laurie Dehn, VBG in 1988

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The following article is taken from a 2 hour phone interview with Laurie Dehn from "The Progress" in Phillipsburg, PA.  She has given me permission to tell her story and use her name.

Laurie Dehn was a healthy but heavy 18 year old when her mother decided she needed gastric bypass surgery.  Laurie, like the typical genetically obese person, had already experienced a long history of dieting at the tender age of 18.  "During the school year, I dieted with my mother - during the summer, I dieted with my grandmother." She told me. The surgeon they saw, Dr Weaver (now retired) agreed that at 350 lbs Laurie could be helped by the procedure.

However, the surgeon who had Laurie on the table, Dr Zemel, was not the surgeon they had originally talked to.  Concerned about the nutritional deficiencies with any malabsorptive surgery like the gastric bypass, he elected to perform only the stomach stapling part of the gastric bypass.  He performed the Vertical Banded Gastroplasty on Laurie.

After her procedure, Laurie was on clear liquids for 10 days and other liquids for another two weeks.  During this time, she lost 30 lbs (down to 320).  After that she went on solid foods and the weight loss stopped.

When I talked to Laurie, she explained that she could not digest proteins and that the opening to her stomach from the pouch was much smaller than it's supposed to be - the opening is only 3/4 cm in diameter. (about the diameter of a pencil body... 5/16 inch)

She has had a lot of vomiting for years - vomits about once a day.  She lost all her teeth at the age of 30 and has poor eyesight from bleeding vessels in her eyes.  Eating being a somewhat punishing experience, Laurie has gone as long as 7 days without eating anything because of food getting stuck in the small stoma.

Laurie has a distended esophagus and cannot eat meat because it's too difficult to liquify and gets stuck too easily.

Although Laurie is not a big eater, over the years, her metabolism has been so damaged that she still maintains at 320 lbs.  Diagnosed with clinical depression a few years ago, Laurie is afraid to have a reversal or takedown because of a general fear of more surgery. So she lives with the decision her mother made for her so many years ago.  She sometimes dreams of happier times. "There are days," she told me, "That I would do anything for a bacon-cheeseburger!"