Patient Syndi Metro and Dr. Myron Powell

Syndi Metro

I started struggling with my weight after getting pregnant with my first child and after having my first child, and the weight didn't come off. And then come the second child, same. You do gain weight when you're pregnant. Sometimes, it just don't come off. It didn't come off for me. I would never ever blame my children for my weight gain. That was on me having kids. Being a young mom, it was hard. It was really hard and depression and everything else sets in at some point, and the weight just comes.

Being morbidly obese causes a lot of problems. For me, the time to make a change was my son's wedding. I picked out the dress, I wore the dress, I seen the pictures and I cried. And I, to this day, still apologize to him for reining his pictures and he's just like, "Mom, gosh. Stop." But you won't convince me that I didn't ruin his pictures.

I chose Atrium Health because, number one, my insurance company deems it as a center of excellence. In the review of Atrium Health, I was able to see that the program that they offered was unlike any other program that I've ever been through. It deals with the mental piece, the mental aspect, what's wrong, get to the core of it, the root cause. Let's fix what's broke. The program at Wake Forest has been amazing to do that and to have the support that I needed to go through and be successful.

My insurance required me to do a six-month medical weight loss program before I could even look at the surgical program. They wanted to make sure that I was healthy, that I was able to go through the program, I was able to lose weight. There wasn't something medical underlined that would stop me from being successful.

Myron Powell, MD

Syndi Metro had a laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, which is a surgical procedure that is done through small incisions in the abdomen. We as surgeons use surgical staplers and instruments to create a small pouch to the native stomach, and we do some revisional work, essentially rerouting of the small intestines so that she malabsorbs or does not absorb everything that she does eat while being still restricted by that small pouch.

She's lost well over a hundred pounds after having the laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. We're always here to see our patients preoperatively and postoperatively, lifelong. I think it is very key for us to work together, not only the surgeon, but the patient and the psychologist to try to help the patient figure out what these red flags may be, because sometimes these things are unknown to patients and they didn't realize that they had these triggers or these pitfalls that they often fall into in terms of a poor relationship with food and being able to be successful long term.

So I think it's very, very important that we utilize all resources that we have available to us to make the patient as successful as possible.

Syndi Metro

People come to me and they ask me about my journey and about what I did or how they can do it. The first thing that I tell them is to get their mind right. Once your mind is there and once you know that you've got to make these changes, then go for the program.

Myron Powell, MD

At Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, we have the first accredited center of its kind in the triad, recognized by the American College of Surgeons and the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery as a comprehensive center with obesity medicine qualifications. If you're interested in learning more about weight loss surgery, take the first step and register for one of our free educational seminars.

Syndi Metro

I feel amazing now compared to how I used to feel. I feel like I'm lot more energetic, I'm happier. My A1C for my glucose, everything has dropped. I was pre-diabetic. My blood pressure is on point, which is absolutely amazing. Meal prep, pre-planning, getting everything together so that I'm not making bad choices when I eat. The Atrium program offered not only the ability to lose weight, but to change your mindset and to learn and teach me what I needed to know to actually make the changes I needed for a lifetime.