Stomach Reduction is No Easy Fix

Sisters Rita Drake and Michele Crosby both had stomach reduction surgery late this summer. Although they've both lost more than 40 lbs, neither has had an easy recovery:

She tells how, two weeks after the operation, she woke up in the night with abdominal pain and dry-heaves. Rushed to Griffin Hospital, she was treated for dehydration. Later at Norwalk Hospital, a CAT scan revealed her old stomach was not draining properly.

Crum initiated corrective surgery, and for two weeks she had a tube coming out of her that emptied bile into a plastic bag.

"It sure 'weren't' pretty," Rita says, trying to lighten the mood. "We'd pick out her clothes depending on what color came out that day."

Rita also has lost about 40 pounds, but she isn't in the best of shape either. Her operation included removal of her gall bladder.

"I've had a lot of pain, like someone took a hot knife to my stomach," she says.

Although overall Rita says she's getting better, her body is still wracked by nausea in the mornings.

Since the surgery, both women have lost more than weight. "This is not the way I understood it would be," Michelle says. "I thought everything would be the same; I'd just eat less. But nothing tastes the same. Nothing smells the same. You feel like your whole body's put together differently."