The Kindest Cut

At first glance, you might have thought that Debbie Mackenzie, 29, didn't care about her weight. In 1997, she weighed 273 pounds.

But Debbie, who was divorced and had a son, Zachary, tried for years to drop the weight. She tried many diets, and finally gave up.

She had chronic ailments related to her weight. "My fingers swell. I have swelling all the time in my feet and ankles and legs. I have gallstones," she said. She also had a hernia and the early stages of diabetes. All of these conditions are associated with morbid obesity, being more than 100 pounds overweight. Approximately eight million Americans are morbidly obese.Bill Lagattuta reports on a relatively new method that may help this group lose weight.

"They're driven by a need for food," says Dr. George Cowan, a leading stomach surgeon at the University of Tennessee in Memphis, who treats the morbidly obese.

Many people say that if these people exercise discipline, the weight would come off. But Dr. Cowan disagrees. "These people have an enormous biological drive that drives them so strongly to eat that one way or another the resolve is broken down. And no matter how miserable they are being large, they will take in more food than they need."

Morbid obesity takes a psychological toll as well. Debbie said she felt ashamed to be fat.

So Debbie decided to take an extreme measure. She got surgery, called gastric bypass, sometimes referred to as stomach stapling. She says she was worried about the surgery, but believed it was her last chance.

Dr. Cowan cut her stomach, and then sealed off small portion of it with tiny staples, reattaching the intestine to the new smaller stomach.

A normal stomach is about the size of a small football; the stapled stomach is about 2/3 of an ounce. The concept is simple: If your stomach is a lot smaller, you'll eat a lot less

"This is my last hope to be thin," Debbie said before surgery. Dr. Cowan agreed.

There are risks, however: "The risks of the surgery are about 5 percent to 10 percent serious complications," he said. These risks range from lung problems to stomach leakage and, in rare cases, patients have died.

But the surgery could improve her health. "The danger is considerably less than that of doing nothing. She's got some of the major diseases associated with morbid obesity at a very young age. And over the next five, 10 or so years, the odds of her having a serious problem are very high," Dr. Cowan said. Without the surgery, she has a 12 times greater statistical chance of dying in the next 10 years than her leaner peers.

That's why Debbie's insurance company covered the cost of the operation, which can be anywhere from $15,000 to $25,000.

Nine months after the surgery, she had lost nearly 120 pounds.

Said Debbie: "I feel great. I'm actually living for a change instead of hiding away in the house. I ride bikes with Zachary. I take him swimming."

"As I started losing weight and I started turning guys' heads, it was something new to me. I was like, 'Whoa. Hey, I like this.'"

Now, she eats only small portions, because her stomach is much smaller. "I used to couldn't eat enough and now I just eat because i feel hungry. I quit when I feel full," she says.

All her ailments related to obesity have disappeared.

Now, nearly seven years after her surgery, Debbie has kept most the weight off. She has remarried and become a mother again.

For Debbie, taking that scary ride to the operating room seven years ago turned out to be one of the best rides of her life.

"I'm realizing my dreams. I have the courage to realize my dreams where I didn't before. I have never been happier."