Carving out the slim man from every fat man through surgery

Weighing 260 kilos at the age of 31, Bhopal-resident Manish Bharvesh needed a specially-built sturdy operating table to be laid on, and special long surgical instruments for a team of doctors to manoeuvre their way around his nine-inch thick abdominal wall.

Once under anaesthesia, not even a group of 12 people could shift his heavy body, and so doctors had to give him a lesser dose of anaesthetic to ensure that he would regain consciousness in 30 minutes.

Although the sleeve gastrectomy procedure that Bharvesh underwent for weight loss in June 2006 was risky, it was very much necessary. “He was a super-obese person with a BMI of 90, way higher than a healthy BMI of 25. He was breathless, had type 2 diabetes, could barely walk and landed up at my centre in a special jeep with his parents,” said Dr Shashank Shah, director, Laparo-Obeso Centre, Pune.

Two years post surgery, having shed 150 kilos, Bharvesh’s life has changed drastically. “I’m able to sit on chairs, get on a bus and travel or go to the market without being ridiculed,” said Bharvesh. “I’m wearing readymade clothes for the first time in my life. The last movie I had watched was Bade Miya Chote Miya over ten years ago. I can now go to a movie theatre,” he said.

The battle has not been easy. “For the first three months after surgery, Bharvesh was on a liquid diet, and then on a semi-solid diet. He had to exercise regularly and make lifestyle changes,” said Shah, who has operated at least 16 patients weighing over 220 kgs so far. The surgery cost him 3.5 lakhs — an expenditure that he says is well worth.