Manny’s story
As a kid, I was always very active and trim,” says Manuel “Manny” Fabré, “but when I hit my fifties my weight started ballooning. I got up to three hundred thirty-eight pounds. “I was hefty.” Manny developed sleep apnea, irregular heartbeat, and arthritis. He used a CPAP machine to help force oxygen into his body while he slept. He took medication for high blood pressure. His left knee was so painful that Manny couldn’t even walk off his weight. He found it difficult to get up the stairs at home. “I was trapped in my obesity,” says Manny. “If I didn’t eat enough to maintain my weight, my metabolism slowed down to compensate, so I couldn’t lose.” In 2006, Manny experienced cardiac episodes that landed him in the hospital. “I knew I was risking diabetes and other complications, so I decided to learn everything I could about surgical weight loss to take the weight off as quickly and safely as possible.”

Manny chose the sleeve gastrectomy because of its safety profile, and he did not want to alter the normal gastro-intestinal anatomy as is normally done in a gastric bypass.

Manny’s success
Manny’s sleeve gastrectomy was performed on May 30, 2007. He was home a day later. “My results are even better than I’d anticipated,” says Manny. “I’d prepared for my surgery by losing forty pounds on my own, which really pleased Dr. Beltre, but since May 30, I’ve lost another one hundred forty pounds. I’ve gone from a fifty-six-inch waist down to forty-two inches, from a size 5X in my clothes, to a 2X. My shoe size has gone from a Triple E Wide to a medium,” continues Manny. “I don’t use the CPAP anymore, and I’m not taking any medications. “Surgery isn’t a magic bullet,” he points out, “but it gave me a do-over, a second chance to get it right with regular exercise and good eating habits.”