Big changes for obese man

Surgery bringing him back to a normal life

Karl Redmon of Marina aspires to be half the man he is today.

It's not because the former hairdresser lacks ambition. It's because he has big dreams.

Redmon, 35, has battled obesity all his life.

He's tried innumerable dieting schemes, from Weight Watchers to Nutri-System, Slim Fast to Phen-Fen, and all to no avail. The result has been a life defined by fat.

Redmon used to own a hair salon in Monterey, but lost his livelihood because he couldn't stand long enough to tend to customers' tresses. He's been turned away from restaurants fearing for their seats, and he's had to renounce riding in airplanes. He's bent bar stools beneath his bulk and he's given up supermarket shopping because he can barely fit in the aisles. He's even developed a host of obesity-related ailments, including a slipped disk, neurological problems, joint pain and difficulty walking. And that doesn't account for the trials of being big in public.

"Everybody is prejudiced against obese people. If I walk down the street there's not one person who can tell me they're not saying 'I feel sorry for you' inside or something," Redmon says. "The looks you get from children are the worst. Parents don't know how to correct the kid, because what the kids say is true."

The shame and embarrassment, he says, marooned him in his apartment and led him to eat even more.

By early 1999, Redmon had ballooned to more than 600 pounds when he collapsed in a convenience store restroom and the clerk called police to come save him.

"I was literally caught with my pants down. It was the most humiliating experience of my life," Redmon said.

Then he saw a rerun of the "Jerry Springer Show" that would change his life. Dr. Mal Fobi, a surgeon specializing in weight-loss surgeries, was discussing an operation he developed that was virtually guaranteed to help the morbidly obese--people 100 or more pounds overweight--lose weight for good. Redmon immediately drove to Fobi's Los Angeles-area offices to sign up.

"I've been big my whole life. This was my only chance to be small," Redmon said.

The procedure drastically shrinks the size of the stomach and lets food bypass the primary structures used for food absorption. During the surgery, paid for in Redmon's case by Medi-Cal, Fobi disconnects most of the stomach and the first portion of the small intestine from the digestive tract. He then fashions from remaining stomach tissue a pouch that holds about two liquid ounces; a full-sized stomach can hold 30 times more.

A silicone ring slipped around the exit end prevents the pouch from stretching any larger in the future. Stitching the pouch to the rest of the small intestine completes the connection to the digestive tract. The operation can be reversed if necessary.

Although the operation is extreme, "it's the best alternative," Fobi says. "It's an insurmountable task without any assistance." According to Fobi, after surgery the food intake of patients typically plummets to about 500 calories per day.

"I think it's a good operation for a carefully screened individual," Dr. Ralph Keill, a general surgeon and medical director of Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital. Patients "have got to be very motivated to do what they've got to do for care after the procedure. It's not a magic pill."

Keill says that while the operation has been a success for several Salinas Valley patients, "there is a significant complication rate, as there is with any operation on anyone who is morbidly obese." Fobi claims that more than 60 percent of his patients keep the weight off for more than five years, and that less than one percent of patients die from the operation.

"Even if one in a hundred patients died, no matter what I found it would not have fazed me," Redmon says.

After a battery of physical and psychological tests, Redmon was approved for Fobi Pouch gastric bypass surgery in fall of 1999. By his Nov. 3 operation, Redmon weighed a colossal 652 pounds.

"I had to walk into the operating room and climb onto the table myself," Redmon says. "It wasn't a real good feeling."

The three-hour operation left him with a long abdominal scar and two tubes - and it has brought remarkable changes to Redmon's life.

"You can eat like two tablespoons, no more, before you feel nauseous and overfull," Redmon says. He used to binge on buckets of Taco Bell before bed; now it takes him an hour to eat his fried egg and toast breakfast. He has to chew his food thoroughly to ensure it fits through his pouch ring, and pops 10 pills a day to counteract the chronic iron, calcium and vitamin deficiencies that resulted from the surgery. And he will never be able to fully enjoy a Christmas or Thanksgiving feast again.

But in the four months since his operation, Redmon has lost about 160 pounds.

Redmon compared the weight loss to "carrying four or five people on your back and having one jump off your back" every six months. Redmon says he and his fiance, 115-pound Jamie Stone of Marina, "joke about the fact that now I've lost one of her."

Redmon has even shed his reclusive ways now that he can walk more easily. He regularly visits Monterey Beach to fly a motorized glider, has taken a trip to Yosemite with Stone and can fit into clothes at Rochester's Big and Tall for the first time in seven years.

He still needs to use the scale at Salinas' Collier Feed and Pet Supply to weigh himself, and it will take him about two years to reach his target weight of about 240 pounds.

And even though he can barely ingest anything anymore, Redmon remains extremely grateful for the operation.
"I can't say enough for those guys," Redmon says. "They did it out of compassion."

--Kathleen M. Wong