Little victories, BIG LOSS

Hamburg teacher takes back life, sheds 314 pounds after Lap-Band surgery

Because of the more than 400 pounds she was carrying, Kathy Barnett just couldn’t do the little things. She couldn’t walk across the room, couldn’t do housework, couldn’t move

comfortably in her own home.

Weight has been a struggle for Barnett, 52, for most of her adult life. Barnett admitted she “was big for a long time.” She said there were no medical causes, and even though her mother’s side of the family has a history of obesity, she refuses to blame genetics. She just kept “gaining and gaining.”

As a teacher of pre-K students in Hamburg for the past 16 years, she struggled to have energy to keep up with the demands of her students.

“I had a roll-away chair,” Barnett said. “I sat in the rolling chair a lot. I only walked when I needed to.”

The same restrictions existed at home for Barnett. She had trouble even buying groceries because she “couldn’t walk around to do it.”

Life delivered a few blows as well. Barnett had five pregnancies that resulted in miscarriages. She delivered a daughter, Emily, who is now 25 and teaches seventh-grade English at Watson Chapel Junior High School in Pine Bluff, and a son, Nicholus, 22, who was born with Down syndrome.

The more weight Barnett gained, the more sedentary she became, thus creating a cycle that soon became out of her control. Pain in her joints developed, and doctors were running out of ways to help her. She tried every program imaginable to lose weight, from Atkins to Weight Watchers to diet pills. “You lose 50, you gain 70,” Barnett said. “I was a failure.” One of her self-professed rock bottoms came at an initial Weight Watcher’s meeting in Monticello, a meeting she chose to drive 40 minutes to so she wouldn’t see anyone who knew her. The initial weigh-in proved emotionally traumatic.

“The lady said, ‘These scales don’t go up this high. Are there any more?’” Barnett said. “There was a room full of people.”

In early July 2011, at the age of 49, Barnett realized it was time to make a decision. Her husband, Tim, who is a supervisor at Clearwater Paper in Arkansas City, mentioned the story of a co-worker who underwent Lap-Band surgery.

“I said, ‘ What?’ Did insurance start covering that?” said Kathy, who had looked into weight-loss surgery previously, including gastric bypass. After some investigation, the Barnetts learned that insurance would cover the Lap-Band procedure, something