Overweight Cupid-struck youth undergoes gastrectomy

CHENNAI: True to the saying that love changes a person's life, a 27-year-old man, weighed down with morbid obesity, chose to go under the scalpel to make himself more presentable to his lover.
  
Taking a leaf out of the Tamil blockbuster 'Kadhal Kottai', in which the protagonists fall in love without seeing each other with letters being their only means of communication, Viswa, weighing 150 kg, opened his heart to one Nila from Chennai with mobile phone  being the medium. When they decided to walk down the aisle, Viswa opted for bariatric surgery to cut down his weight.
  
It was then that Viswa, hailing from Tiruchirapalli, approached Amma Hospital in the city a month ago for the procedure, Hospital Director D Suresh said.
  
Dr Suresh and his team comprising Dr Vijayan and Dr Sadiq found him fit for sleeve resection of stomach, which reduced the 7L size of stomach to 0.5L size with the use of staplers.
  
''Normally a person's stomach will be of five litres capacity.  But Viswa had seven litres capacity,'' Dr Suresh said.
  
Despite the risks involved, including death during anaesthesia, Viswa remained steadfast in undergoing the surgery for permanent weight loss. Consequently, the challenging surgery was performed successfully in about five hours.
  
Dr Suresh said the patient was doing well and after ten days, he had lost 15 kg of weight. He would be discharged in the next two days. 
  
But Viswa, whose weight would come down to 100 kg in the next two months and 80 kg in another three months, had to be on reduced intake of food for the rest of his life.
  
''With the size of his stomach reduced considerably, he can at the most take half to one idli at a time. But he has to take it six times a day,'' the doctor said.