ObesityHelp

I do not have the study that it came out of but it was on MSN, so I believe that it was reliable. The point that I pulled out wasn't actually the key point that the article's author was trying to make, but buried in the text. It was a key piece of information that I wish that I had found prior to surgery.

In a nutshell, the study actually said that the mortality rate for morbidly obese people is the same for people who have the surgery as those who don't. The statistical line crosses at almost exactly the one year mark. For those who have surgery, the mortality rate is higher for that first month or so and then gradually goes down at a very steady decline. For those who elect not to have the surgery, the mortality rate stays relatively constant and is the same at about the one year mark. Those who are morbidly obese STILL have about a 1 in 200 chance of dying at that point. The difference is that after the first year, the post-op WLS patient continues to see a major decline in the mortality rate, while the non-surgery person stays at that statistical rate. I'm guessing that as age goes up, the mortality rate gradually and obviously goes up too.

As a somewhat funny sideline to this the study, they also found that a side effect of post-op life is that they are more likely to suffer a sudden death than those who do not have the surgery. Well, let's think about that. Doesn't it make sense that now that we are actually living life and going places all of the time instead of being stuck in the house all the time that the likelihood of a car accident or something might increase? Of course it does. Does it mean that the risk is anymore than for a person who lives a normal life? Absolutely not. Statistics are a funny thing...sometimes we need to stop and think in a logical manner why something might be occurring.

Here is a real-life story to support this. When I was in the main chat room during my pre-op days I was talking about how I had been approved for surgery and had elected to wait until school was out (late May) instead of March 2nd for my original approval date. One of the men in the chat room virtually began to chastise me for waiting the extra 3 months. I began to quiz him about why he was taking on such a strong opinion regarding this. It turned out that years before his mom was scheduled for surgery and when she was AT THE HOSPITAL about to get the surgery, she backed out. Just nine months later she died from obesity related causes. 

I don't include this to scare anyone, but this is a very sad real-life story. In my mind, I could visualize this man with tears running down his face having to tell me why he felt so strongly about that. It hit me pretty hard at the time. Even though I had good reasons for waiting until May, it did make me rethink my position on waiting.