Tina and Drew’s Story

At 161 kg and a few months of being 40, I was the heaviest and unhappiest I had ever been.  I was scared that I wouldn’t see our 4 and 5 year old get married.  My husband and I had been looking at the Gastric Band for awhile before we had heard about the Gastric Sleeve.  Drew works away and a couple of the guys at his work had the Sleeve and spoke very highly of it and Drew saw first hand what they ate and how much weight they were losing.  I didn’t just walk in and say I wanted to do this, we researched it for about 3 months before hand.  I was on You Tube for about 3 hours a night just looking at videos and reading stories and listening to interviews etc on it.  The hardest part was waiting for the consultation with Dr Gordon Padovan because we were so excited to find out more information and also to book the surgery in.  We saw Dr Padovan on the 4th March and then booked in my surgery for the 6th April and Drew in on the 2nd May.  Drew looked after the kids when I had mine done, and me, and then I did the same for him.

I had never been into a hospital except to give birth to my 2 beautiful babies and so to go under anesthetic and have surgery was a big thing for me.  I wrote Drew and the kids letters incase anything happened.  Very silly I know but I was worried.  It turns out I had nothing to fear because the staff at The Mount Hospital were fantastic and made me feel at ease and so did Dr Padovan.

Three days later I was out and at home recovering and feeling good.  I went in on the Wednesday and was out on Friday night and then on Sunday walked around the block.  I have not looked back.  I’ve lost a total of 56 kilos to date and feel fantastic.  I started going for walks at around the 30 kilo loss mark as I had really bad knees.  I had been doing water aerobics before that as that was gentle and was also a lot of fun.  In March I did the 8km walk for Melanoma with my best friend and did it in 1 hour 42mins.  I was so proud of myself and next week I am doing the HBF walk for a reason and walking the 14km and will be doing the 13km City to Surf in August.   I have been walking around my local streets and basically power walk now.  I love going for a walk and do it while the kids are at school or when hubby is home I’ll go in the afternoon.  I aim for 4 days a week and any other day is a bonus.

I am so happy I’ve done this and really should have done it earlier but know that my life has changed for the better and my kids have noticed the difference too.  I have just got a job in a dress shop in Rockingham City as a casual and would never have thought of doing that because I’m standing for most of the day.  I am so confident now and everyone has noticed and commented and even my marriage has gotten better!  We are like honeymooners again.

I strongly believe that Dr Gordon Padovan saved our lives.

Tina