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Surgery allows woman to play
CORTLAND
Lorie Prokup’s weight loss was so evident it caused someone at her church to ask if she was feeling OK.
Prokup just smiled and said she was fine.
A friend from North Carolina saw the new, leaner version and couldn’t believe the difference.
The reactions of people who didn’t know that she had undergone experimental weight-loss surgery, called laparoscopic gastric plication, were like balm to Prokup, who said she had tried every diet out there to lose weight.
Not many besides her family and a half-dozen “very, very close” friends that formed her support system knew she had the surgical weight-loss procedure at the Cleveland Clinic on Dec. 19, 2008.
Prokup, of Cortland, has dropped 60 pounds since the surgery.
“If I never lost another pound, I’d feel good about myself,” said Prokup, the daughter of Mildred Ciarrochi of Howland. Prokup’s father, Robert, is deceased.
A few weeks after the surgery and initial weight loss, she noticed her aching knees were feeling better. They were the No. 1 thing that triggered her interest in weight-loss surgery.
“I wanted to be able to play with Gabrielle [Consiglio] and other grandchildren we may have down the road,” she said.
Mission accomplished.
During The Vindicator interview, Prokup chased 18-month-old Gabrielle, known as Gabby, around the house and backyard with ease.
The weight loss also allowed her to go off medication for high blood pressure and lowered her blood sugar. She is pre-diabetic.
Her quality of life also improved when she lost weight.
“I was embarrassed by my weight. I always thought I was the largest person in the room,” she said.
The Prokups like to travel, but just walking around left her in pain and short of breath.
Now, she says she has “wiggle room” in airplane seats and is able to shop at any store for clothing.
She said her husband, Dan, who she said has weighed the same for the 32 years they’ve been married, has been very supportive.
Dan, a 1971 graduate of Warren G. Harding High School, is a pipefitter working out of Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 396. They have two children, Alyse Consiglio of Girard and Nicholas of Washington, D.C.
The 5-foot 6-inch, 51-year-old would not reveal her weight now or what it was when she had the surgery.
“Even my husband doesn’t know. Let’s just say it was more than I should have weighed,” was all she would say.
But the difference is dramatic, as illustrated by the plus-size pants she wore before her surgery.
Prokup, a registered nurse and a pharmaceutical representative, wasn’t always overweight.
She said her weight was average as a child and when she graduated in 1977 from Howland High School, and that she was a svelte 116 pounds when she married Dan in 1978.
The weight gain began in earnest while she was working the night shift at Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren after the birth of her children.
An emergency-room nurse for 20 years, she also worked at St. Joseph Health Center in Warren, where she also was in management, and at Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna.
While she was trying every diet she could find, Prokup’s weight fluctuated up and down. “I’d lose, but then I’d gain back what I’d lost and more. People who haven’t been obese don’t understand how hard it is to lose a lot of weight,” she said.
A friend told Prokup about the pilot study at the Cleveland Clinic involving laparoscopic gastric plication.
It is a new type of weight-loss surgery that involves folding the patient’s stomach inside itself and then stitching it in place. The reduced size of the stomach makes patients feel full with less food.
It also requires eating differently.
“I’m a carb person, so I eat my proteins and vegetables first. If I have a potato, it is a sweet potato. But, Sunday is still spaghetti day and always will be,” she said.
Two weeks after the surgery, in which the size of her stomach was reduced by 60 percent, Prokop returned to work and had lost about 20 pounds. She says she has had no complications from the surgery.
The only downside are the wardrobe changes. “It’s such an expense,” she said ruefully.
The only too-large clothing she has kept is the pair of pants “to remind myself where I was.”
“I’m not skinny by any means. But when I look at those pants, I feel really thin,” she added.