Table of Contents - Sample Excerpts
Chapter 17: Their Stories

“About one week after I had made this decision, my sister called and told me of a girl named Brandi who lost weight surgically, but not with the bypass surgery procedure. She quickly gave me her number and got off the phone. (You see, we didn’t talk about weight in my family. It was sort of the big old elephant in the middle of the room that everyone would step around.)"

“My family is all of normal size. I was the only ‘big’ one. Every once in a while I got the ‘You have such a beautiful face; if only you would lose the weight.’ This would always send me into tears. Well, I called Brandi, and that very night I went to her apartment to see her. Here was this tiny girl who told me that she had just finished eating ice cream and chips, showing me a picture of herself at over 300 pounds. Ice cream and chips?? This was for me! Within twenty-four hours, I was in New Orleans at Dr. Louis Martin’s office. This was during the FDA trials and I had to jump through a few hoops in order to become one of the qualified patients. I passed all the tests and was given my band and a new life on March 29, 1999."