Profile: Kim Yates
Last updated: 05/02/2007
Kim Yates, before and after surgery.
After having two children and discovering a developing thyroid problem, Kim Yates realized she had to do something to control her weight. She weighed 250 pounds and was battling a weight problem that she had never before encountered in her life.
"Mainly, I knew that I would soon probably have diabetes or hypertension or some other medical problem," she said.
So after consulting with her primary care physician and a dietitian and trying diet pills, Yates, 37, decided she needed another option. "By the end of all that, I knew I had come to the point where I was out of options with regard to losing weight," Yates said.
In January 2003, she came to Cabell Huntington Hospital's Center for Surgical Weight Control looking for her solution to being obese. After undergoing open gastric bypass surgery, Yates began to live the lifestyle necessary for the surgery to be successful. Her experience has been successful and she has since become the bariatric surgery patient liaison at Cabell Huntington Hospital. She now weighs 130 pounds and exercises regularly. She lifts weights and uses exercise equipment regularly in the gym near her home.
"When I was obese, those were things I never considered being able to do," she said. "It hurt me just to walk through the mall."
Yates now counsels people considering surgical weight control and helps them as they enter their new lifestyles after the operation.
"I'm not just any person on the end of the telephone, I understand what they're gong through, I've been through it myself," Yates said. "It's gratifying to know I can help the patients. I'm not just telling them I know how they feel. I really do know how they feel."