Maryam’s Story

A resident of Michigan, 42-year-old Maryam Rotherham enjoys biking, making flower arrangements, tailoring clothes and scuba diving. Originally from Iraq, she holds a microbiology degree from University of Baghdad.

Although obesity runs in her family, Maryam did not have problems with her weight for most of her life. However, a few year ago, as she entered her late 30s, Maryam noticed she had begun to gain weight. As she attempted to lose the extra pounds, she discovered diet and exercise alone were not enough. She was still able to lose weight, sometimes as much as 30 pounds at a time, but then she’d gain it right back.

As with many people struggling with obesity, Maryam felt a number of physical, psychological and emotional effects from becoming overweight. Physically, she had lower energy and became tired much more easily. Her weight also worsened her chronic knee pain. Mentally, Maryam’s weight gain led to depression and feelings of insecurity about her appearance.

“It’s hard when you go the majority of life with your body looking a certain way, and then your body changes over a period of just a few years,” she says. “After I became overweight, every time I looked in the mirror, I’d think, ‘No, this isn’t me.’”

Maryam was already familiar with weight loss surgery, as her brother, aunt and two cousins had already gotten it. She knew that surgery was not a quick fix, but rather a tool that required effort and commitment to long-term lifestyle changes. After careful thought, at the end of 2023, Maryam decided that she would pursue surgery to help get her weight under control.

Planning for Weight Loss Surgery

Maryam was fortunate that, through her employer, she was able to enroll in the University Hospitals Bariatric Surgery Center of Excellence+ program, which offers qualifying patients a complete range of bariatric surgery services, including evaluation, travel assistance, surgery and aftercare services.

Following an initial consultation and evaluation with Leena Khaitan, MD, MPH, a bariatric surgeon with University Hospitals Digestive Health Institute, Dr. Khaitan approved Maryam for a sleeve gastrectomy.

Also called gastric sleeve surgery, sleeve gastrectomy is a minimally invasive procedure in which the surgeon removes close to 80 percent of the patient’s stomach, reducing it to about the size and shape of a banana. The procedure is usually performed laparoscopically, meaning the surgeon accesses the patient’s abdomen through two to four small incisions, each less than an inch in length, rather than the 6- to 12-inch incision needed for traditional open abdominal surgery. The laparoscopic surgeon’s primary tool is a laparoscope: a thin, lighted tube with a video camera at the end that sends images to a computer monitor. Among other benefits of laparoscopic surgery, post-surgical recovery is quicker than traditional open surgery.

Maryam was scheduled to have gastric sleeve surgery in November 2024 at University Hospitals Geauga Medical Center in Chardon, Ohio. Aided by Dr. Khaitan and the rest of her UH care team, Maryam began practicing some of the lifestyle changes she would need to make her weight loss surgery a success in the long term. As part of this preparation, she participated in a bariatric surgery education program that helped her get ready both for her surgery and life after surgery.

Surgery and Immediately After

Maryam’s surgery was performed without any complications. After being discharged from UH Geauga Medical Center, Maryam went back home to Michigan. With the guidance of her nutritionist, she stayed on a pure liquid diet for a few weeks while her stomach healed. After that initial period, Maryam was able to introduce pureed foods to her diet, followed later by soft foods and then regular foods – much like how a baby gradually progresses from milk or formula to increasingly more solid foods.

“My surgery was on November 14th – right at the start of the holiday season,” Maryam says. “Thanksgiving was just around the corner, followed by Christmas and New Year’s. It’s the time of year where the world is so focused on food, food, food!”

However, Maryam discovered she could pass on the holiday goodies without too much trouble.

“After weight loss surgery, your body is not the same,” she says. “So, yes, while my eyes may have wanted that food, my new stomach did not. This was good, because after weight loss surgery, you need to eat smaller meals for your smaller stomach.”

Maryam returned to working out in the gym three weeks after her surgery.

Success

“The day I went into surgery, I weighed 220 pounds,” Maryam says. “Today, I weigh 151 pounds.”

Since shedding the extra weight, Maryam looks and feels better than ever, both physically and mentally. She has much more energy, and her knee pain has decreased considerably.

Maryam attributes her success to her care team at UH. Since getting surgery, she is quick to recommend the UH Bariatric Surgery Center of Excellence+ program to any coworker, friend or family member who expresses interest in weight loss surgery. She wants to increase people’s awareness of these types of employer-sponsored healthcare and wellness programs so that they can take advantage of them.

Maryam is also grateful to her personal trainer/kinesiologist, Felix Lee, for his role in helping her lose weight following her surgery. Although she enjoys working out, Maryam emphasizes the importance of not overdoing it at the gym.

“If you want to control your weight, you don’t need to go to the gym every day,” she says. She says the type of foods you eat and your portion sizes are more important. Since having her surgery, she focuses on preparing and eating fresh foods while avoiding processed, high-calorie foods.

“Although I’m well past the stage of gradually introducing solids foods like you do with a baby, I like to continue to think of my stomach as a baby’s stomach,” she says. “To keep a baby healthy, you only allow good things into their body. We should treat our adult bodies the same way.”