Patient Stories

Lucia Boccacio's Success Story

November 2007

Two years on from the operation. I have lost 10st and 9lb and i am loving every minute of my life and every inch of my new body.

If any of you lovely people reading this feel in doubt at all and wish to contact me, my email is sweetviola@aol.com and i will hopefully help you make the right decision and claim your lives back you will never look back ...

I have always been a big girl - at the age of 15 I weighed 15 stone. I had lots of friends and no one ever really teased me about my weight so it didn't bother me too much, everyone just accepted me the way I was. By 21 I was 16stone, by 25 I was 18stone.
I had a very busy fun filled life and I wasn't unhappy being fat. I didn't know any different - it's the way I'd always been.

Whenever I looked in the mirror I just saw me. I didn't see the fat, I used to think I was thin I truly did, it wasn't until April 2003 that my way of thinking began to change. My mum had seen an advert in the paper for a TV programme offering a free holiday for people over 18 stone. I applied and got picked along with 9 other people to spend a week in a holiday resort in Greece. The show was called 18 to 30 stoners. I was one of the smallest at 18 stone 7lbs and the largest weighed in at about 28stone.

The holiday was great I felt thin for the first time in my life. I did things on that holiday I wouldn't ever have dreamt of doing with my own friends. I was totally comfortable wearing my swimming costume in front of these people I'd only just met.
It wasn't till I returned from the holiday and actually watched the programme on telly that I realised how truly unhappy I was with my weight. I looked at myself on the screen and thought "good god Lucia you are huge - when did that happen" and just listening to the things I said on national TV made me realise I was in fact a secret eater.

After that, things just went from bad to worse. I used to get depressed because I couldn't diet and then I would eat because I was depressed! It went on like this till I reached 22stone.

In July 2005 I read an article about Sharon Osborn having the lap band fitted. I thought maybe this would work for me, so up to my computer I went. I typed in lap band on the search engine and found the site. This was the first one I opened and out of hundreds of sites I picked the one with Dr Marc Focquet.

That was really the point at which I thought "yes that's it - this is what I'm going to do." My mum wasn't too happy at the thought of me going to Belgium to have surgery and my boyfriend didn't want me to have the operation done either but I wouldn't let anyone dissuade me from the decision I had made.

I phoned the number on the site and spoke to Beryl she booked me in for the consultation and operation. I arrived in Belgium on the 6th of November and had my operation on the 7th. I wasn't at all scared. I just kept thinking this was it I am going to be thin at long last.

Dr Marc was very lovely and made me feel totally at ease. He explained everything that was going to happen to me. The nurses then came and took my blood and did other tests and shortly after that off I went down to theatre.
I woke up later that day feeling pain in my chest. I wasn't expecting the pain to be there as for some reason I thought my stomach was lower down, but the painkillers soon sorted that out.
Dr Marc came round later that evening to check everything was ok and told me the operation went well and he would be back in the morning to see me again before I could go home.

Morning came quickly and Dr Marc was back to take me down for the x-ray. He made me drink some fluid - he was pleased with the x-ray result and said that was it - I could go.
I felt good really good. In fact I felt so good I actually walked into Zottegem from the hospital that morning and looked round the market before going back to the hotel Irma de Vos. I ate nothing more than yoghurt and soup for the first few weeks and soon I was taking mashed up foods like fish and potato's.

On the 15th December 2005 I went to have my band filled for the first time. Dr Marc had given me the name of a surgeon closer to home in Manchester who would be prepared to do the fills for me. I weighed in at 20st 4lb I had lost nearly 2 stone in 6 weeks. I had 2 mls put in the band totalling 4mls and had good restriction.

On the 23rd February 2006 I went for my second fill. I weighed in at 18st 3lb another 2 stone off! I had 1.5mls put in.

On the 31st August, the day after my birthday I actually had a little taken out of my band - I weighed 16st I wanted to see if my eating habits have really changed.
A month on I have managed to lose another 10lb and that's without such a major restriction. I now weigh 15st 4lbs! I have lost exactly 7 stone and it's the most wonderful feeling in the world.

Not only has this operation changed my life its also changed the lives of people around me. What more can I say…..it was the best day of my life finding that web page!

Thanks to Dr Marc I have a new lease on life and I will never go back to being fat.