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Step by Step, Losses Add Up to Gains
By Valerie Reitman, Times Staff Writer June 6, 2006
Sheila Tehrani dropped 48.2 pounds in four hours the other day.
That brought her down to a comparatively svelte 387 pounds, the first time in years
that she's weighed less than 400.
The instant weight loss happened because surgeon Carson Liu sliced off loose belly
skin that had draped to Tehrani's knees in the wake of her losing 144.2 pounds over
the last 14 months.
When she awoke from the anesthesia, the extremities she hadn't been able to see
without a mirror came into view — her own legs and toes.
"All I could think of is … my thighs look really fat," Sheila, 39, managed to joke
the day after the surgery, despite throbbing pain from her 4-foot hip-to-hip scar.
The drooping skin, she said, had made walking and driving difficult.
Tehrani's flesh was whisked away in coolers to the airport, en route to the nonprofit
Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation in New Jersey, which plans to purify and reuse
the inner layer of the skin for hernia, pelvic and other reconstructive surgical
procedures.
The lop-off marked the latest chapter in the journey back to health for Sheila and
her brother Cyrus Tehrani, Eagle Rock siblings who underwent Lap-Band surgery last
year after a cardiologist warned them that their weight (he tipped the scales at
578, she at 579) was threatening their lives.
The decision came after Cyrus, now 35, was hospitalized for several days in February
2005 with high blood pressure, leg swelling and breathing problems caused by the
excess weight. The siblings refinanced their childhood home to pay for both of them
to have bariatric surgery, in which a synthetic ring is used to reduce stomach capacity
and make it impossible to eat large quantities.
In the year since his surgery, Cyrus has lost 172 pounds, and now weighs 406 pounds.
Sheila weighed in at 434.8 before last week's surgery.
A Column One article in The Times in January transformed the Tehranis into minor
celebrities, with appearances on the Discovery Health Channel and shows such as
"Good Morning America" and "Entertainment Tonight/The Insider" (which dubbed them
the "half-ton Hollywood siblings," much to the Tehranis' dismay).
In the months since the first surgery, Sheila said recently, she has joked with
the weight-loss surgery support group she and Cyrus attend that she was there "to
make Cyrus look better," because he was losing so much more. She said she struggled
more with emotional issues that made it tough to eat less.
Cyrus now steadfastly refuses to eat sweets and most carbohydrates.
The night before he took wife Karen and four of his six children to Disneyland recently
— the first time he could fit on rides since his 20s — Cyrus told Sheila he was
thinking of having funnel cakes. His sister, who advocates careful portion control
rather than absolute denial, encouraged him to go ahead. He opted for a chocolate-dipped
banana instead and then ate only half because he actually felt sick with guilt.
On her birthday in April, Sheila craved the cream-and-strawberry cake from Ruby
Bakery in Eagle Rock. Her family obliged but cut her a piece "you could practically
see through," she said. But those few bites kept her from feeling deprived.
"I'm not like Cy — diligent and militant like he is — because I'm afraid if I'm
like that, you'll find me covered in wrappers, having eaten myself to death," she
said.
About two months ago, Liu tightened Sheila's Lap-Band for the second time since
he implanted it, further cinching her stomach and reducing the amount of food she
can ingest. (Cyrus will have his first tightening Wednesday.)
The tightening helped, she said. She couldn't eat much, and she loved the difference
on the scale. She lost 26 pounds in the next two months. Exercising also has helped.
She finally got a long-talked-of treadmill, though finding a portable one that could
accommodate her weight wasn't easy.
With the machine set at 1 mile per hour, she at first could only walk for about
10 minutes. She has now worked her way up to 20 minutes at 1.7 mph a few times a
week.
When she mentioned to family members that her sneakers were rubbing against her
skin, they all went out separately and bought her socks — about a dozen pairs in
all. The rest of the Tehrani clan didn't want her to have any excuse for not exercising.
"I'm the luckiest girl," she said of her family's support.
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