Weight Loss Surgery - What did people tell their boss or co workers about what surgery they were having?

I am having difficulty sharing what kind of surgery I am having with co workers, staff and my boss. What have you done? Have you found if you did share this with people (other than close friends and family) that it was a good idea or not? Thanks.

I'd tell them you were having abdominal surgery. Hey, it's partly true, as weight loss surgery is done on the stomach. :D

I told them the truth. (it's a personal decision and that was mine). Everyone at work was extremely supportive and they have been so encouraging the past year! I have a great staff.

Dawn

I told a few people at work, but mainly I just said I'm having surgery that will help out a lot of things with my condition. I didn't let anyone else even know I was having surgery till the day before when I did it in an email at the end of the day

I talked with my boss a few weeks ahead of time and told HIM I was having the RNY & explained what it was. We talked about how much time off work I would need. He was very supportive. I told him that I would like to tell our team at the team meeting that week (there are about 20 people in the team I work with--only 2 female). He started the topic by saying that I would be taking a medical leave for a few weeks starting March 1 & asked if I would like to add anything to that. I did & told the team about the surgery & asked for prayers (I work with Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindu & non-believers). My boss concluded the meeting with "And the next team meeting Loodie is at, she will be on her way to becoming a mere shadow of herself".

Here I am 15 months later and every day I am thankful that I didn't try to keep it a secret from anyone. It feels good to walk down the halls & have someone say "Hi Skinny", or walk by me in the lunchroom only to turn around and say "I didn't recognize you, you look so different". The other thing I found out after talking about the surgery was that there were a lot of other folks I work with that had the same surgery--it's like a mini support group.

there are MANY ways to handle this issue. some people tell their co-workers and/or boss. others do not, at least not until sometime after they return.

many of the shy types talk with the boss, and say something along the lines of 'medical leave for surgery, with X weeks until i come back.' and leave it at that. oh, there may be a few warm fuzzy words around that like 'if you don't mind, i'd rather not go into specifics right now - it's kind of personal.' bottom line, you are under no obligation to talk to your boss or co-workers about the specifics. BUT, you DO have to discuss the medical leave issue with your boss.

a word of warning - those people who've taken this route, and then remained silent afterwards, as they melt away, run the risk of everyone thinking they have CANCER and only a few months left to live! and co-workers get really scared.

my best suggestion, if you decide not to share beforehand, is to start sharing at some point AFTERWARDS.

and remember, people will be noticing the changes in you - this isn't something you can hide [even if you keep wearing your largest clothes!]. so planning ahead to deal with this issue might be a good idea!

i'd gotten a new job after i'd lost about 175 pounds - and the company's owner said that he had to make sure to see me every single monday because i changed weekly and he was thrilled to see it.

keep us posted on what you decide!

I told them the truth and everyone has been so supportive.

I now regret that I told them all the truth! Why, because I never made it to any of my goals (mostly my fault, sigh). I went into surgery all gung ho, I was going to be the WLS poster child. Then I never really exercised and I also started testing my eating limits early on. We have a very gossipy office. I feel like I am always on display, and there are even a couple of obese folks who every once in a while throw a punch at me by saying that after all the trouble I went through I am still obese. I'm constantly having to justify that my health is still greatly improved and that I managed to keep off 100 lbs. But to those who feel threatened by that, all they can see is that I didn't get thin. So if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't have said a thing. I guess it depends on your own office and it's atmosphere and how supportive you think people would be.

I didn't tell anyone at work because I don't need people analyzing every morel I put in my mouth or making comments.

I'm sooooooo glad I didn't tell anyone because I have been at a plateau for quite some time now and I could imagine what would be going thru their minds and across their lips.

I haven't had surgery, just contemplated it. However, I have a friend who did and struggled with the same issue. Her decision was that she could tell everyone down the line ie after surgery, but couldn't "untell" them if she told them upfront.
Rose, I think the 100 lbs is a great accomplishment. I really, really admire you for what you have accompllished so far. Try not to judge yrself so harshly and certainly ignore the criticisms of others. They are clueless and mean.

My roommate had the surgery over winter break and came back 2 weeks later to everyone thinking she was anorexic (or, if they shared our communal bathroom, bulimic). Our RA was a bit slower in the uptake and didn't notice the massive amount of weight she lost for a few months- and he called the college shrink!

Just a bit of warning about what people might think it you don't mention it. Granted, I don't know if those two diseases are as much a first impulse if the person having the surgery is not 18 years old, but it could be a thought. I had my roommate's friends coming up to me in tears asking me if she was eating because they had known people to die of an eating disorder in high school. It was not my place to disclose and ended up being a huge mess.

i'm an extremely private person. i've not had surgery, but i doubt i'd tell anyone, even my parents. i just don't think it's anyone's business, and i wouldn't really care what they thought the reasons were... my body, my life, my food issues. i'll own the problem and deal with it however i see fit.

My husband had weight loss surgery and he knows a lady who hasn't even told her husband. He's overseas in the military, which is how come he didn't know. Not sure I'd go THAT far, but I can see why people want privacy.

I told everyone at work and everyone I meet about the surgery lol. My point of telling is that when I was fat and I would see someone lose weight when I couldn't I would feel a failure, so I wanted heavy people to know that I did it with some help.. However, I could understand people not telling because I have a colleague at work who did the surgery after me and did not lose as much weight and that started some gossip, which I thought was unfair!

Now on a similar note, I am experiencing something weird. I went on sabbatical for 7 months almost 6 months after my surgery. At that point I had already lost a significant amount of weight and had gone from size 26/28 to 18/20. But when I came back I lost almost the same amount of weight but was size 8/10, it felt weird and bad in a way to say hi to my colleagues and have them stare at me for a couple of minutes before they recognize me! Or some people say hi back but not as enthusiastically as if they'd recognized me! It's flattering but doesn't feel so good :-s

I haven't had the surgery yet, I'm still in the exploratory phase where I'm not sure if I will have it, or if the insurance will cover it, but am likely to actually have it if all goes well.

But I am very curious about what I will say to my co-workers. I'm a teacher and there was another teacher at my school who had the surgery and lost a lot of weight. She seemed to weigh about as much as I do now and is now rail-thin (and still losing). She is also out sick so much she's used up all of her leave time. She is not reliable to be at school, and her personality (it seems) has undergone a negative change. Her results, frankly, have both lured me to want to have the surgery, and repelled me to keep me from considering it seriously. I don't want surgery that is going to change my personality, make me chronically sick, and impact my job and relationship with my peers.

Now that I'm seriously looking into it - a promise to my sister - I have hope that my own results will be in one way very similar to hers (lose the right amount of weight) but in all other ways highly dissimilar. BUT, I know that with only ONE example of the surgery in front of everyone's eyes daily, that many will think badly about me having the surgery, they will be prepared to expect the worst. My employers will not consider me for extra job assignments that are stressful or that require a person in the position who is reliable. At least not until I have proven that I am going to have a different day-to-day health outlook than this other person.

But the question remains for me... what do I tell my coworkers and my boss? I'm tempted to tell them it is surgery to help correct other problems that I also have (and which will in fact be helped if not cured by the WLS, so it wouldn't be a lie) and later, as the weight comes off, I might mention the rest of the truth. I am hoping that by the time the full truth comes out, I will be a shining example of the positive impact of WLS surgery, and will help overcome the negative example already in place at my school.

just goes to show, Lithia, that the surgery is INDIVIDUAL, and that it's not possible to predict what's going to happen in any one person. for MOST OF US, we've become happier - but if we don't deal with our internal STUFF - emotions, triggers, whatever - things can happen. the easiest one to identify is that we might not lose all the weight we could lose, or we regain. but other things - emotional and psychological - can happen. there have been reports of increased alcoholism and promiscuity [changing one addictive behavior to another], and there have been reports of marriages breaking up and friendships failing.

NONE of this is easy. from your post, it seems like your colleague isn't taking good care of herself - all that illness. OR she's having complications that a physician might or might not be addressing. it's hard to tell from here.

in this situation, it sounds to me as if all you need to say is that you need [disability, time off, health leave, whatever it's called in your workplace] for 'medical reasons. and leave it at that. no need to go into 'surgery,' as that might fuel a huge amount of speculation and gossip you don't need.

and good luck!!!!

I've not had WLS, but I know for a fact that you should be prepared for people to flat out ask you if you've had surgery. I can't count the number of people who have had no qualms asking me. I truthfully tell them no, but that there were times I would have considered it had my insurance covered it. So be prepared with an answer, because even if you weren't planning to discuss it, they'll ask. And your answer may still be that you don't want to discuss it. :)

Lithia:
you are a different person that this woman! my sis and I had the same surgery and very different side effects *knock on wood* I have had little to no complications she has had a lot and we're from the same Gene pool! *splash*
This woman might not be taking care of herself!
her negativity could be something she ate away Pre WLS and doesn't have the tools to deal with
Also
No one has the legal right to know what you are having done I just told my boss I was getting a procedure done that would make a lot of things better.
Good luck!
Kier

I made the decision not to tell everyone. I told a few people that I trusted and that was it. I asked them not to say anything to anyone else. When it came to what to tell my boss, I simply asked for the time off as vacation, not sick leave. I took off two weeks. I was fortunate in that I had a perfect surgery and recovered very quickly. When I got back to work no one was the wiser.

It wasn't until my weight loss became quite noticeable that people would say something to me. I was very selective about who I told the truth and who I "bent" the truth with. I knew that eventually it would come out, so I let nature take its course. Much to my surprise, another individual who had had the surgery the month before mine was the person telling everyone that I had had the surgery (and it was a man too!). I think one's medical information should remain private and I would have not said anything to someone if they had asked me about him.

Some folks did draw their own conclusions and were actually worried that I was sick- (read cancer here). I had not considered that anyone would draw that conclusion and was a little disheartened to think that I had caused someone to worry about me in that way. Now I am very willing to tell anyone that point blank asks me about it that I had surgery.

Just another thought- my weight came off quickly and for a while I was actually embarassed to say anything because although I knew it was for medical reasons (and to save my life), I felt that people would think I had done it for cosmetic reasons. I was wearing new clothes and shoes and felt like a million bucks. I know my confidence level took a huge boost. It just felt ackward to have had this surgery that made losing weight look so easy (even though we all know that it isn't that easy!). I was never the "look at me" kind of person and all the attention from everyone was making me feel really uncomfortable. Most people wanted to know what I was doing, what kind of exercise and what kind of diet was I on. Those were the people I would tell half the truth to. I'd say I was watching what I ate and doing a lot of walking. That seemed to be enough to satisfy them. If I didn't think anyone really cared about me, then I would tell them what I thought they wanted to hear.