Health benefits outweigh the risk for Soderberg

PARK RAPIDS ENTERPRISE, Sept. 3, 2003
BY LIZ SHAW

Nine months ago Kim Soderberg would lie in bed at night wondering if, when she went to sleep, she would have a heart attack and not wake up. Heart palpitations and “twinges” she felt in her chest after exertion frightened her.

At 5-feet, 4-inches and 255 pounds, “I was always tired, sweaty and winded,” she says. “I just didn’t like that, I wanted to be healthier. I didn’t want to lose this weight so that I would have this great body, ’cause that’s never going to happen to me. I wanted to lose the weight so I could feel better and would be able to sleep.

“I wasn’t feeling well, I wasn’t sleeping well, my hips and knees were starting to bother me and I’m 44.” Soderberg says. “At my age, I didn’t want things to get worse.”

Since her gastric bypass surgery on Nov. 14, approximately nine and a half months later, Soderberg wakes up in the morning feeling rested. “I bet it wasn’t even a month and a half after my surgery that I started sleeping all night long,” she says, relieved.

“And I... I can run,” she exclaims, mostly surprised at herself. “You know, I probably haven’t been able to run since I was a (high school) freshman.”

Recently when their horses got loose, Soderberg and her husband, Miff, chased the horses from a gravel pit up to their back pasture. “I came running up behind my husband, and he thought it was my 20-year-old son,” she says.

Miff was in disbelief. “I was shocked,” he told her later. “You flew right past me and just went to the gate.”

Kim laughs. She’s always had a lively personality, but with new freedom from the excess weight, she’s even more charismatic than before. Those around her notice the change.

“My husband never, ever, in our whole 25 years of marriage, has said anything about my weight,” Soderberg says. “He has loved me for me.”

Now he says to her: “I see such a different side of you now, you’re more confident.”

She is more confident. And if you were to ask one of her three grandchildren, (at least the ones old enough to talk) they’d say their grandma is a lot more fun and playful. One told his grandma she was “so beautiful.”

“That was just hilarious,” Soderberg smiles.

The decision to go under Dr. Dan Smith’s knife wasn’t something she took lightly, but for health reasons, she decided it wasn’t something she could put off any longer. Soderberg schedules all surgeries at St. Joseph’s and saw first-hand what the Roux en-Y procedure entails. “That didn’t scare me at all. I’ve always been impressed by Dr. Smith’s surgical abilities. He’s a great surgeon, but it was really good for me to watch some surgeries to know what I would be going through.”

A history

Soderberg was heavy almost all of her teen and adult life. There’s a history of weight problems on both sides of her family.

“I’ve dieted all of my life, and I feel like that was the toughest thing for me,” she says. “I’ve been on a diet it seems like since I was 12 years old. You know, juice diets, banana diets, grapefruit, whatever.” She even took the controversial fen-phen route when that became the buzz. They just didn’t work for me. I lost a little weight, but I wasn’t real successful.

“I’ve been to Weight Watchers lots of times,” she says, and returned for one more crack at it, otherwise surgery would be her final option.

“I did go back to Weight Watchers to try again on my own,” she says. “I had been there about four weeks, and I probably lost 12 pounds. I just couldn’t stay on it. It was really bothering me that I couldn’t stick to it.”

Meanwhile, Soderberg’s friends and family members celebrated successes from the surgery.

“I would see how they were able to eat foods they liked, not in the quantities that I was eating, but they were still able to enjoy their steak and whatever,” she says. It was then she decided the surgery was something she needed to do.

“I wasn’t getting any healthier and I have grandkids I adore.”

She headed for the Internet and got on all of the gastric bypass sites possible. She studied and read. Risk factors didn’t spook her; she was past that point.

Big adjustment

Two weeks before Thanksgiving and the kick-off to holiday eating, Soderberg went for it. (As it turned out, her surgery started out laproscopically, but the surgical team wound up going in with an abdominal incision since there was some trouble with the stapling procedure.)

At first her foods were limited to clear liquids and advanced to soft creams. Eventually she got to the point to where she could eat the foods she liked, but just in smaller portions. At times she made her share of mistakes, then backed off for a bit and took things slower the second time.

“I eat pretty much whatever I want,” she says. “I have a little trouble with sugar, and I get the dumping syndrome (a response of her new digestive system to sugar). That’s okay, because I don’t need the sugar.”

She describes dumping as breaking out in a cold sweat in combination with an intense nauseated sensation. “You just feel rotten.” The effect wears off in about 15 minutes, “but it’s enough to say, ‘I’m not going to try that again.’”

Soderberg became lactose intolerant and backs away from fish and potatoes because, to her, they feel like they “stick.” She also learned early on that she couldn’t gulp water the way she could in the past. The water would go down, swirl around in her tiny stomach, now about the size of a ping pong ball, then came right back up. The pouch simply could hold it.

“I chew a lot more than I ever, ever did before, and I actually taste my food, I’m not gobbling it down,” she says. “I was amazed when I first had this done how quickly my family eats, but I don’t fix anything different now than I fixed before. I think part of it is with myself, that I am determined to make this work. I’ve followed my gastric bypass plan because I know that for me it’s important. I would hate to think that I went through everything I went through to get this surgery and then not stick to it.

“It’s not an easy thing, it’s painful.” she continues, “I think that people think that it’s the easy way out, but you’re going through major, major surgery to have it done. This is not a quick fix diet. You have to really make this decision because everything in your life changes as far as how you eat your food, when you eat your foods and keeping your body hydrated.”

She’s diligent about getting her protein, taking her vitamins, drinking her water and getting exercise.

At first it was easier because her body was never hungry. She ate not to feed hunger, but rather to keep her system going.

The support group in Park Rapids has helped. When she reaches levels of frustration, such as when her body gets stuck at weight loss plateaus, she finds encouragement and advice from those who have gone through the same thing. Medical professionals who attend the meetings are also on hand.

With everything she’s gone through, Soderberg claims she “would do it again tomorrow.” For her it’s been a life change.

“It’s just been so good for my health and for my family,” she insists and crosses her legs. Yep, she can do that now. “I can’t wait to do stuff. I feel like I’ve hit that 100 percent to where I feel great. I didn’t want to be a supermodel, I never will be, but I am enjoying buying clothes.”

Soderberg rewards herself with trips to thrift stores and consignment shops. “It’s terrible to buy clothes when you’re a heavier person. They don’t cut them right, they don’t fit you right. I’ve just had a blast because I can go to a thrift store and buy Liz Claiborne. It’s almost like a game to go in and find things to buy.”

She did buy a pair of shorts this summer. “I’ve never seen you in shorts,” her husband marvels. “We’ve been married 25 years and I’ve never seen you in shorts.”

It’s true. This was the first summer Soderberg’s legs have seen sun since she was 15.

Kim Soderberg went from a size 24 to 10 since her weight loss surgery. The top photo shows what she once looked like with son, Cory, and husband, Miff.