“Food was my go-to for everything. I grew up in a house where my mom, who was a fantastic cook, cooked all the time. But I also ate food for other reasons, during stressful times and through nearly three decades of an abusive marriage. Any weight that I lost I would always gain back.” Nettie weighed more than 300 pounds before she went through her first weight-loss surgery.
“We were living in Tennessee at the time, and my kids and I enjoyed taking trips to Dollywood in Pigeon Forge. But they would be running around, and I would have to continuously sit down or stay in one spot. I couldn’t walk without using a cane, and I even had to get a cart to ride in. I couldn’t enjoy my life. After years of caring for my husband and raising my children, it was finally time for me to focus on me.”
After getting the LAP-BAND® procedure in 2006, Nettie did well at first, going from 300 pounds down to 250 pounds. But then she started to gain it back and didn’t know why.
“I wasn’t doing anything different, and my band was as tight as it was going to get. But my weight just continued to fluctuate over the years, no matter what I did.” Nettie divorced in 2007 and moved to Indiana, where her family was. And that’s when she connected with an old high school sweetheart, Nelson, who was living in South Carolina.
“We dated in high school, and after reconnecting on the internet, I invited him to come visit one weekend. He took me up on it. Three days after the visit, he called me and said he was moving to Indiana. That’s all it took.” Nettie and Nelson R. married in July 2010.
“I was still big,” she said. “But that didn’t bother Nelson one bit. He accepted me for who I was.” But the weight still bothered Nettie. And so did the freezing Indiana winters. Being overweight led Nettie to have increased arthritis symptoms and pain, and the cold weather only aggravated the arthritis. So the couple moved to Hartsville, South Carolina in May 2013. In 2015, Nettie had a heart attack, and her weight was the only explanation.
“The doctor told me I needed to lose weight and to start walking. But how could I walk if I couldn’t even breathe? It hurt to walk, but I knew if I didn’t do something, I was on the path to having a massive heart attack that I may not be able to come back from.”
Nelson and Nettie needed help and support, so they moved back up to Indiana in 2016 to live with Nettie’s son. Soon after, Nettie made a visit to the Weight Loss Institute to see Dr. Lee about a recurring bout of diverticulitis, a gastrointestinal issue for which obesity is one of the main risk factors.
“I actually had seen Dr. Lee years ago when living in Indiana in 2013,” Nettie said. “He did a colonoscopy to diagnose a case of diverticulitis then and ended up removing eight to 10 inches of my colon. Now here I was again, for the same reason, and I think Dr. Lee and I both knew that I needed weight-loss surgery, but he never brought it up. He waited for me to realize it and make the decision myself. I rebelled against losing weight for years, and you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.”
In June 2018, Dr. Lee performed the Roux-en-Y gastric bypass procedure, and Nettie has had continued success. She’s gone from more than 250 pounds to 142 pounds and from size 28 down to a size 8.
“I feel so good now,” she said. “My kids and grandkids and I go on walks in the evening, and I jog back. I can get out and walk. I can breathe. And I’ve learned the surgery is not an answer, it’s a tool. I’ve learned how to portion my plates and what I should eat and how I should eat it.” Nettie and Nelson live in North Vernon, and she’s got six kids and 18 grandkids to share her life with.
“Everyone at the Weight Loss Institute is wonderful, but I’m especially partial to Dr. Lee. He has such a fantastic bedside manner, and I would never recommend anyone else but him. He listens and cares and never judges you. My family is one of the main reasons I wanted to live a better life, and he helped me do that. The surgery saved my life.”