A Nova Scotia woman says she had no choice other than to travel to Mexico for weight loss surgery because she could have died sitting on the province's 10-year waiting list for the same procedure.
Beaver Bank resident Shannon Auby says she has struggled with her weight since she was eight years old, despite her many efforts to shed pounds. She says she went to the gym and tried every fad diet she could find, but at her heaviest she weighed 315 pounds.
"I have an extensive family history of high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes and I know several years down the road if I don't do something, I'm in line for all of those," says Auby. "So I decided it was time to do something serious."
Auby decided bariatric, or weight loss, surgery would be the right choice for her, despite the fact that 80 per cent of her stomach would have to be removed in the procedure.
"It's absolutely extreme. It absolutely is," admits Auby. "Instead of your esophagus coming down and expanding into a stomach, it is now just about a straight tube all the way down."
But when Auby started researching the surgery, she discovered that Nova Scotia has a 10-year wait list for the procedure. And she couldn't afford to pay the $23,000 it would have cost her at a private clinic in Ontario, so she says her only option was to leave the country altogether.
"When it was originally mentioned to me, I was just baffled by that," she says. "To Mexico? For surgery? That doesn't sound like a good idea."
But Auby has just returned from having the surgery in Tijuana, Mexico and now she thinks it's a great idea.
Auby says she was impressed by the facilities and the surgeons; she is down 40 pounds and is losing more every day.
"A lot of people think having weight loss surgery is, ‘oh, you're cheating, you're taking the easy way out,'" says Auby. "I assure you, having surgery is not the easy way out of anything."
Auby says she will face dietary restrictions for the rest of her life, but she says she doesn't feel hungry despite a decrease in her food consumption.
"I feel better than I have in years," she says. ‘I have more energy than I have in years, that there's hope, if nothing else."
As for the lengthy wait list, Capital Health says it is currently reviewing 1,800 referrals, some of which who are people that are waiting for a consultation, some who have already met with a surgeon, and those who are ready for surgery and are just waiting for the call.
A spokesperson for Capital Health says it's hard to know how many people on the list are just waiting for the surgery, but they expect to have a better idea in the next few months.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Kayla Hounsell
