"My Little Niece Shamed Me Into Losing Nine Stone"

August 24, 2011

Reproduced from the Irish Independent 24th August 2011

When Pat Gibbs weighed 26.5 stone people stared at him in the street, he wasn't able to walk a golf course with his pals and couldn't even go out on his job as a kitchen fitter.

On top of that he had severe diabetes and dangerously high blood pressure.

All this frustrated him and made him unhappy — but not enough to make him seriously lose weight.

Then something happened that has changed the 54-yearold Dubliner's life forever. “My three-year-old niece Clara came up to me and said — ‘Uncle Pat, can I sit on your knee?'

“But there was no knee. My stomach rolled out over my knees when I sat. “That really hurt.” It also encouraged Pat finally to tackle his problem. Just days after gastric bypass surgery, Pat Gibbs found the symptoms of diabetes which had plagued him for a decade had virtually disappeared.

From taking 280 units of insulin a day — six times the average — he no longer needs insulin at all. Neither does he need the four daily blood-pressure tablets he used to take. His prescription costs have dropped from €853 to €40 a month, he's lost nearly 10 stone and he's never been healthier.

“Even with all the insulin I took, I still struggled to keep my blood sugar under control,” says Pat, who was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes after a lifetime of obesity.

“I was putting on weight steadily, finally reaching 162 kilos (26 and a half stone) two years ago. I couldn't control it, and the heavier I got, the less able I was to move. I ran my own business as a kitchen and bedroom fitter, but work became very difficult because I'd be puffed just walking upstairs. In the end, I stopped working and set the premises in flats and a shop so that gave me an income.”

While on a golfing weekend with some buddies, he was barely able to make the short walk from their hotel to the town one evening when a friend urged, “Pat, you're going to have to do something about this.”

But it was the intervention of his niece that finally made him seek help. At an appointment with his diabetes consultant, Pat came clean about how desperate things had become.

“I was getting depressed and could see no future for myself. He referred me to a specialist in the Blackrock Clinic who recommended surgery, but I needed two separate operations.”

The first procedure removed two thirds of Pat's stomach, leaving the remainder in a sleeve shape which could hold a small amount of food.

“I lost seven and a half stone after that, but then my stomach increased in size and I started to regain weight. That's when I had the gastric bypass.” his reduced the stomach to a small pouch which bypassed part of the intestine. It severely limited the amount Pat could eat at one sitting. As it was keyhole surgery, he recovered quickly and was home within three days.

“I could hardly believe it when my diabetes symptoms disappeared. I also suffer from sleep apnoea — my body sometimes forgets to breathe when I'm asleep. Since the surgery I sleep well and have lots more energy. Main photo by Dave Meehan

“The difference this has made to my life is amazing. Now I'm 17 stone and while I can't run marathons, I'm able to live. I love being able to walk and move around like any normal person. I walk for an hour and a half four times a week, I can run up the stairs and walk to the shop — all the things that most people take for granted.

“Now I eat small portions often. The full Irish breakfast is replaced by a small bowl of porridge or a boiled egg and a piece of toast. And I feel better for it.

“Whenever I walked along the street before I was conscious of people staring at me. I don't feel that any more. They're all little things, but they all matter. I'm happy as Larry — and I'm the proudest uncle in the world when we have a family get-together and my niece Clara can finally sit on my knee.”

Pat's surgery didn't come cheap and as he couldn't get it through the HSE, he had to figure out a way to pay for it himself. Both operations came to €41,500. His health insurance covered €12,000 and the rest was tax deductible, but it still left a sizeable chunk to pay for.

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