Jacqueline’s Story

Jacqueline before weight loss surgery"I've become the person I used to be. I'd lost my zest for life but Mr Kerrigan gave it back to me. It's a lovely feeling."

While out buying a birthday card, 65 year old grandmother Jacqueline Casson caught sight of a ‘big fat woman’ in a shop window. “She looked so out of proportion with her tiny head and huge body that I stepped back to take another look,” says Jacqueline. “Then, to my horror, I realised it was me. I was that fat lady. I felt terrible.”  

Back home, Jacqueline ‘cried and cried’. “I broke my heart,” says Jacqueline, who is 5’5’ and used to weigh 16st. “I put on weight after having my two sons and never lost it. I just got bigger and bigger. I’ve been on a diet all my life. I did the grapefruit diet, the egg and tomato diet, I joined group after group. Excess weight is like a pot of glue that you can’t shift,” she says. “I’d lose weight then put it back on. That made me even more depressed so I’d head to the fridge and comfort eat.  It was a vicious circle. I knew I just didn’t have another diet left in me.”

Jacqueline post weight loss surgery

Jacqueline felt she had ‘stopped enjoying life’. “Retirement is supposed to be fun but I’d become really miserable,” she says. “We used to own a pet store and I retired at 58 but by the time I got to 60, none of my clothes fitted. I didn’t care what I wore because I wouldn’t go out socially. I’d gained all this weight but none of my friends had. I never went anywhere I would be seen. I wouldn’t go on holiday or on nights out. I refused to go on public transport.” 

Jacqueline’s health was suffering too. “My joints ached and I had arthritic hips. I was constantly breathless – I couldn’t do hills or bend over.  I also had sleep apnoea, high blood pressure and suffered panic attacks when my heart would race.”

Increasingly unhappy, Jacqueline told Mike, her husband of 46 years, how she was feeling.  “I said I wanted to have weight loss surgery,” says Jacqueline. “Mike was incredibly supportive. He’s always loved me just as I am but I’d got to the stage where I’d stopped enjoying life. He said ‘I hate to see you like this – if surgery’s that important to you, do it’.”

Jacqueline went to see her GP who referred her to the Gravitas weight loss surgery centre at the Spire Murrayfield Hospital on The Wirral.  There she saw specialist bariatric surgeon Professor David Kerrigan, who advised her that the gastric band would be the best procedure for her in view of her age and lifestyle. She had the band fitted in August 2009. 

“The day I met Mr Kerrigan, my life changed,” says Jacqueline. “What a wonderful man - he just fills you with confidence. From a woman’s point of view, I’m getting on in life. I had lost my zest. But he gave me that back.” 

Since the op, Jacqueline has lost 4½st, or 77% of her excess body weight, and is still losing. She’s now down to 11st 7lb, and has dropped from a dress size 22 to a 14.

“We paid for the operation privately from our retirement fund,” says Jacqueline. “We always said the money was there for us to enjoy. But I wasn’t enjoying life because I felt I couldn’t venture out.

“Our family had grown up and we had no mortgage so we thought ‘why not?’. If you need a new kitchen or a car, or replacement windows, you find the money. So why not find it for a gastric band? It meant we could start living our lives.”

Today, Jacqueline is brimming with confidence. Even a subsequent diagnosis of breast cancer hasn’t set her back. “In a strange way, the weight loss surgery has given me the confidence to deal with the cancer,” she says. “In fact, I often wonder if the cancer might never have been found if I had still been carrying all that weight.

“I’m definitely riding high. Because I feel so good about myself, I’ve been able to tackle the cancer head on. I think I’ve handled it well. I even had a tattoo on the inside of my wrist in the shape of a pink ribbon to raise money for MacMillan Cancer Support and the local hospice. I’m not a tattooed lady by any means but people have been so kind to me I wanted to give something back.  So I got people to sponsor me to have the tattoo and I’ve raised £585 for charity.”

Jacqueline is full of praise for the op and the staff who made it possible. “Everyone was fantastic – the medical staff were absolutely brilliant and as for the dietitian Jayne, she is a little star,” she says.

“I often describe the band as ‘my little miracle’. It really is marvellous. It gave me the help I needed and now it’s down to me. They say you can cheat with a band but I paid for that op myself and there is no way that I’m going to put that weight back on now that I have lost it.

“My advice to others would be ‘go for it’. It doesn’t matter how old you are. Even if you are retired, you still have a lot of living to do – so do it. These days, I feel so much better. My joints have eased up because I’m not carrying the extra weight. My high blood pressure has gone.

“And I love travelling now. Mike and I have been to Gran Canaria, Rome and Rhodes – and next year I’m going to New York shopping with a friend.  My sons are so proud and Mike is happy because he’s got the old me back.  He’s really glad I had it done.

“It’s definitely the best thing I ever did.  I’ve become the person I used to be. It’s a lovely feeling.  You get a new lease of life.”

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