Decision of a lifetime

For 36-year-old Charmain Etnasios, deciding to have bariatric surgery in 2017 was life changing – in more ways than one

I was diagnosed with type 2 seven years ago, when I was 29, and to be honest, it didn’t come as much of a surprise.

For me, and my brother George, diabetes was like pulling the bad-luck card in the genetic lottery. My dad has type 2, as did most of our aunts and uncles on both sides, our grandparents and a few of our cousins.

So I always knew I was at an increased risk. Plus,

I’d always been overweight.

For the most part it was a gradual thing, creeping on slowly year after year.

But in 2003 I was a passenger on a train that derailed and crashed after the driver suffered a heart attack. I saw other passengers die in front of me and the force of the derailment resulted in concussion, a fractured sternum and severe compression fractures, which caused excruciating sciatica pain for many years. I put on 15kg in the six months following the accident, mainly because I couldn’t move. At my heaviest I weighed 108kg.

I’ve tried to lose weight a number of times over the years, using a few different diets, but they just never seemed to work for me. It’d take me six months to lose 7kg and, not only would I put it all back on after I stopped dieting, I also knew friends following the same eating plans were losing four times as much weight as me.

Trying to avoid insulin

Finally I decided to see my GP for help. They ran some blood tests and told me I was insulin resistant. It explained a lot and made me realise that losing weight the ‘traditional’ way was always going to be more challenging for me.

I left the doctor’s office with a prescription for some medication, but being just

26 at the time and about to get married to my husband Hany, I had other things on my mind. I didn’t take care of my health as well as I could have and I didn’t take the tablets as often as I needed to. Eventually, three years later, I found out I was no longer insulin resistant – I was diabetic.

When I fell pregnant with my son, Nathaniel, who’s now three, I was finally referred to an endocrinologist and I started following a strict diet and taking my diabetes medication properly, because I’d been told I was at risk of having to go on insulin, which I was desperate to avoid. As a result, I put on very little weight during my pregnancy and actually managed to lose some after I’d given birth, but it was never enough to make much of an impact on my health or my diabetes.

Surgery success

My brother George, who was also a type 2 diabetic, had undergone bariatric surgery in 2014 and it had been really successful for him. But the thing that finally helped me decide to follow in his footsteps was seeing my dad go into renal failure, which now requires dialysis, as a result of long-term diabetes, in 2016. A year later I booked into St George Private Hospital in Sydney for surgery.

The surgical pain itself wasn’t too bad at all after the first few days. In fact, when I went home I only took a single painkiller on the very first day, for the pain. And the weight loss began immediately.

I dropped between 1-1.5kg a week over the next nine months and now my weight fluctuates between 59 and 61kg.

Having lost close to 50kg since I was at my heaviest weight, simple things are so much easier now. Moving around is easier;

carrying groceries is easier; even breathing is easier.

Taking care of my son

These days, I hardly ever feel puffed out. My relationship with food has completely changed, too. As well as making healthier choices, my appetite no longer controls me. Now, I rarely feel like eating more than three entrée-sized meals a day. And my diabetes has completely resolved. My blood glucose levels are all within the normal range and my last HbA1c test result was 5 per cent.

But knowing I’ve done something positive for my son’s future is the best feeling. After my 10th birthday, my parents were regularly in and out of hospital with different health issues, some of which were weight related, some not.

Apart from wanting to be as healthy as possible for as long as possible now I’m a mum, I didn’t want Nathaniel to have to spend his childhood the same way – visiting me in hospital.

Knowing I’ve done all I can to make that a reality feels incredible.