12-Year-Old to Receive Life-Saving Gastric Bypass Surgery After Gaining 140 Pounds in 2 Years
A 12-year-old girl will get the opportunity of a lifetime in an effort to save her young life. Alexis Shapiro suffers from a brain condition that makes her feel hungry all the time and has caused her to put on 140 pounds in just two years. Now the little girl will get the gastric bypass surgery she desperately needs.
"She's nervous. Excited, but nervous," Alexis' mother, Jenny Shapiro, told NBC News. "The last time she had surgery, her life totally changed."
Just two years ago, Alexis underwent surgery for a benign tumor in her brain. Thankfully, the tumor was able to be removed, but the procedure left Alexis with hypothalamic obesity and pan hypopituitarism, both factors that have caused her metabolic system to be completely skewed and led to the massive weight gain for the little girl.
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Alexis has become lethargic and wears size 2XL shirts. She continued to gain weight and feel hungry all the time, leading to severe health threats. Unfortunately, her insurance did not cover the gastric bypass surgery she needed, but they reversed their decision to cover the three-hour operation which will take place this week at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
"It's been a roller-coaster," Ian Shapiro, Alexis' dad, said. "You take your faith and you put it in the doctors and then we'll do the part that we can. We got to this point because we were all out of options."
Doctors are hopeful that the surgery will prevent Alexis from gaining more weight and will hopefully save her life. The team of doctors will live-tweet from the operating room and continue to follow up with Alexis. She'll remain in Cincinnati for about a week to recover, then make the journey home to Texas, where she'll begin her new life.
Her family is prepared to make the adjustments required after gastric bypass surgery and assure their daughter that they will get through everything together.
"Right now, I just tell her, 'Don't look. Just concentrate on what you're doing,'" Jenny said. "But it's hard."
