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Our Patient Stories

Helen's Story

Helen's Story

"I'd do it again in a heartbeat!"

It was while walking up a hill to a monastery in Corfu that Helen Batty from Fulwood, Preston thought she was going to have a heart attack.

“My heart was pounding, I couldn’t breathe, I was shaking, I had spots before my eyes and I couldn’t see,” says Helen, 34, who is 5’3” tall and used to weigh 19½st.

“The walk up the hill was only about 200 yards but I had to stop four times. I was really scared. I thought I was going to die. I knew my weight was seriously affecting my health.”

Helen’s battle with obesity began in childhood.  “I used to eat in secret,” she says. “”When mum said I needed to cut down, I would take food into the loo and eat it there.”

By the time Helen was 20, she had reached 15st. Even now she still remembers the humiliation of being pointed at and laughed at by a gang of lads when on a ‘girlie holiday’ with her friends.

By her own admission, Helen’s obesity was all ‘her own doing’. “It was no one else’s fault but my own,” she says. “My diet was shocking.  I’d skip breakfast and go with friends to a butty shop for lunch. I’d buy a baguette, a bag of crisps, a bar of chocolate, a flapjack and the obligatory diet coke.  If I was on my own I’d buy a pie on the way back too.”

In the evenings Helen would invariably dine on takeaways or ready meals. “I wasn’t a brilliant cook so would often have frozen convenience foods, sometimes having two instead of one. It was all unhealthy, processed rubbish. Later in the evening I’d pop out to a shop and buy even more food.”

On holiday in Sorrento, Helen wore full length trousers the whole time despite the searing heat because she couldn’t bear the thought of being seen in shorts or a swimming costume. “I was scared of being pointed at, or laughed at,” she says.

Increasingly concerned about her health, Helen went to see her GP.  “I had high blood pressure, polycystic ovary syndrome, joint problems and sleep apnoea but the GP was really unsympathetic,” she says. “He just asked whether I’d tried eating smaller portions and less fat.”

Helen’s GP did refer her to a gynaecologist for her polycystic ovary syndrome though. And it was the gynaecologist who suggested weight loss surgery. She went back to her GP who applied for NHS funding through the local Primary Care Trust.

Helen was subsequently referred to the Gravitas clinic at the Blackpool Fylde Coast Hospital weight loss surgery NHS centre.

In November 2009 she underwent a gastric bypass operation, performed by specialist weight loss surgeon Mr Javed of Gravitas at the Spire Murrayfield Hospital on the Wirral. The aftercare took place at the Gravitas weight loss clinic at the Fylde Coast Hospital.

“The op went smoothly and the staff were superb,” she says. “The aftercare was brilliant too.  I cannot fault a thing.  If you need something, there’s always someone there – everyone is really helpful.”

In the months that followed Helen lost 8st 5lbs – the equivalent of a whole person. “I have a friend who weighs less than that!” she laughs.

Today she weighs 11st 3lb, has dropped eight dress sizes and is happy, fit and active.  She no longer has high blood pressure and her sleep apnoea has gone.

Helen says her diet is definitely much more ‘considered’ now.’ “I’ll have cereal for breakfast and pasta for lunch as it fills me up for the rest of the day. In the evenings I might have chicken or fish with vegetables. I’ve cut out potatoes and stay away from anything sugary. But I never feel deprived or that I am missing out.”

She regularly goes to the gym and loves walking in the countryside ‘up hill and down dale’.

“I just feel so much better,” says Helen, who successfully juggles four jobs, working for MITIE full time as well as doing administrative and accountancy work for three other people on a self-employed basis. “Before, I spent my life dieting and each time I put the weight back on I’d feel worse.  My life had definitely become very restricted.

“These days I can do anything and everything. I love the simple things in life that most people take for granted, such as going out and meeting new people and keeping up with everyone else. Even trying on bracelets with friends is a simple pleasure – there was a time when I’d never have been able to find one that fitted.”

Helen has even set up a support group for people who have had weight loss surgery.

“Having surgery was one of the best things I’ve ever done,” she says. “I don’t have a single regret – I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’d recommend it to anyone.”