ROCK HILL, S.C. — Robotic surgery, once thought of as a futuristic concept, is now more common than you might think. Patients who have a robot-assisted procedure, often experience less discomfort and a faster road to recovery.
For Stephanie Taylor and her husband, it's meant a 230-pound total weight loss between the two of them, leading to healthier lives.
Taylor said she understands she'll have to see Dr. Alex Espinal at Piedmont General Surgery for the long term, but said having the procedure is worth it.
"I was at 245 last January and I'm currently at 147," Taylor told WCNC Charlotte's anchor and reporter Jane Monreal.
Her husband, Michael Sean Taylor, lost 130 pounds since his surgery in October 2022. Since then, he has had no issues with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or sleep apnea.
Stephanie Taylor, however, said her issue was her back, to the point where she could barely walk.
"We love museums and basically, I was going from one place to sit to the next place to sit. I was miserable. It was horrible," Stephanie Taylor said.
These days, the mother said she's doing a lot more since getting the surgery done in December 2022, two months after her husband did.
"The weight was gone. The pain was gone," Stephanie Taylor said. "We went on an excursion. We went on an Alaskan cruise. And I walked for hours."
Dr. Espinal did both of the Taylors' robotic bariatric surgeries.
"Nowadays, I do all my bariatrics robotically, which is a new platform where it's still small incisions. We're able to do more advanced operations with less pain to the patient," Espinal said. "We do the surgeries and send the patient home the same or the next day."
He said a good candidate for the procedure is someone who, by definition, is morbidly obese, or, 100 pounds or more overweight. The person has also usually seen their doctor a number of times and tried diet and exercise to lose weight but can't.
"Going to the amusement park, sitting on a roller coaster, sitting in airline seats. There's so many things that people with morbid obesity deal with on a daily basis that people take for granted," Espinal said. "And to see that part for people to come out of their shell, and have confidence and interact with your family, keep up with your kids, and not be on the sideline because of their weight, that's really sometimes, more impressive than the health effects. Which is why I enjoy it so much."
Taylor said she agrees.
"The best part of this is definitely being more active, being healthier. Because at the time, while I didn't have the high blood pressure and high cholesterol, I was down that path."
The former soda drinker said one of the challenging changes was not keeping it in the house anymore.
"It is definitely a lifestyle change," she said.
"I would drink several sodas a day because that's how I was raised to drink, sodas, and not water," she said. "I would dream about drinking soda. But that's something I had to give up because all the carbonation is not good for the stomach."
As far as thinking surgery is an easy fix, Taylor said it's not.
"It is a tool," she said. "The reason my husband held off for so long was this misconception of taking the easy way out, that we should be able to do it ourselves. but it's not the easy way out. You definitely have to have the right mindset to do this. I have to remind myself I can't go back to that because that was one of the traps that got me where I was."
Now that she lost almost 100 pounds, she said she's donated her old clothes to Goodwill.
Her advice to anyone looking into bariatric surgery is to do your research and build a support group.
"I would say invest in drawstring pants. Because in the beginning, you lose so much weight so fast, that you're going to keep going down sizes. So drawstring pants are very helpful to have."