A Weight Lifted: ‘I’ve Lost Over a Third of Myself’

Gastric sleeve surgery helps Portland woman lose more than 140 pounds, gain her life back

Catie Purrett pulls her car up to a Portland service station, ready to fuel up. She reaches down to the floor, pulls the lever and pops the gas cap.

“Catie, do you realize what you just did?” her husband says from the passenger seat.

John has noticed something exciting: For the first time in many years, Catie didn’t have to take off her seatbelt, open the door, and lean out to pull the gas lever. She’s lost so much weight, she can now reach down and pop the cap in one smooth move. Easy.

“I had been so embarrassed for so long, always having to open my door,” Catie says. “My husband looked at me and realized even before I did that I had done something really cool.”

Catie’s unexpected success, less than a year after having weight-loss surgery at Adventist Health Portland, is one of many surprises that pop up daily and make her smile.

From athletic to pre-diabetic

Back in high school, Catie was a competitive athlete. With strong stamina and a muscular build, she ran track, played tennis, was a swimmer, and worked as a lifeguard.

“I had no shred of fat on me,” she recalls.

But over the years, life happened. Fitness took a back seat and junk food consumed Catie’s eating habits. As the pounds added up, her energy and confidence spiraled down. The more weight she gained, the more fatigued she felt. Her back and knees hurt, sleep suffered, and walking more than a few steps left her feeling sore and exhausted.

In particularly painful moments for Catie as a mom, it became nearly impossible to sit on the floor—let alone get back up—to build Lego sets with her now 13-year-old daughter.

“It was a struggle to do anything,” she says.

At a routine checkup, Catie stepped on the scale and saw a sobering new number: 360 pounds. And when her lab results came back, she discovered more concerning news: she had reached a pre-diabetic range.

“That was my last straw,” she says. “So many of my family members have diabetes and ended up on insulin, and I did not want to go down that route. I was like, I’m too young for this.”

‘Back to where I was born’

Fortunately for Catie, she didn’t have to look far to find a lasting weight loss solution. The answer was no further than Adventist Health Portland, the hospital not only where she works, but where she was born 39 years ago, followed by all five of her younger siblings.

Catie’s job as a compliance and data coordinator connects her with colleagues who can’t speak highly enough about general surgeon Ryland Stucke, MD, who leads the bariatric surgery program. And every time Catie has been a patient at the hospital, she has received consistently exceptional care, including the time she had an emergency gallbladder removal eight years ago.

“That was the first time I had ever been hospitalized and it was very scary,” she recalls. “I was in really bad shape. But they took such good care of me in an emergency situation that it was a no-brainer when it came to an elective surgery.”

Zero judgment—just support

When a referral came through for the bariatric program, Catie began a nine-month-long journey of weekly visits to nutritionists, nurses, and other providers who helped her optimize her diet, build her exercise routine, and take other important steps to prepare.

“It was a long process, but I was proving to myself that I was dedicated to doing it,” she says.

Meeting Dr. Stucke for the first time moved Catie to tears.

“It was the first time I have ever truly felt absolutely zero judgment,” she says. “He made me feel like he was seeing me exactly where I was at, without any judgment. I literally cried in the room, it was ridiculous. He’s so empathetic and problem-solving. I immediately trusted him implicitly.”

June 27, 2024, was no ordinary Thursday. Catie went to Adventist Health Portland that morning as usual, but instead of heading to her desk for a day of work, she went to the admitting office and checked in for a life-changing surgery.

“Everything went off without a hitch,” she says. “The staff was great about guiding me through everything from putting the IV in, to the anesthesiologist explaining what was happening, to the staff taking me back to the operating area. Dr. Stucke came in to visit as well, and reassured me that everything was set to go.”

As planned, Dr. Stucke performed a gastric sleeve surgery, during which a portion of Catie’s stomach was removed through tiny incisions in her upper abdomen. The remaining stomach was formed into a narrow tube, called a sleeve, which would restrict food intake and lead to weight loss over time.

Best birthday gift ever

Just eight days after surgery, July 5, was Catie’s 39th birthday. She couldn’t have cake yet, but she could upgrade from the liquid diet she’d been on for more than a week to ease her stomach into its smaller size.

“That was the first day I got to eat some really mushy scrambled eggs and a little bit of cottage cheese, and it was the best food I’d ever eaten in my life,” she laughs. “Finally, I could have something solid, and it was the best birthday present ever.”

By the one-month mark, Catie could eat soft foods like chicken breast, as long as it had a little sauce to keep it mushy. Within a couple months she was back to eating regular — but more nutritious — foods, just in smaller portions.

The four tiny incisions on her abdomen healed nicely, and she can’t even see the scars unless she looks closely.

Now, a year later, she has lost 140 pounds total, with 80 of those melting away since surgery, and more coming off by the week.

But the best part of Catie’s journey, she says, isn’t numbers on a scale. It’s being able to do so many things that she couldn’t do before, when she was heavier.

The list grows on

Catie jots down little notes to track her “post-op wins,” as she calls them. Her gas station success, where she easily pulled the gas cap latch, is one of them. Then there’s:

• Going to Portland Trail Blazers games without worrying if the seat will be big enough or if another large person will be sitting next to her. “Now I can jump up and cheer when I want to!” Catie says.
• Better sleep, more energy.
• Virtually no back or knee pain.
• Moving through a crowd without feeling nervous about bumping into people.
• Sitting where she wants at restaurants. She can easily slide into a booth without struggling to squeeze in, for example, and sit in a chair with arms without feeling like her hips are being pinched for an hour. “I’m not constantly living with that sort of fear,” Catie says. “I don’t have that weight on me anymore, literally and metaphorically.”
• Feeling motivated to take walks and hikes with family. “Our goal is to take at least one decent hike a month, and we haven’t missed one yet,” she says. “We live in the Northwest after all, and our options are endless!”
• More confidence speaking up in groups and appearing in family photos.
• Finding souvenir t-shirts in her size.
• More footwear options. “I can wear heels again!” Catie says. “I don’t often, but it’s nice to have the choice.”
• Enjoying exercise like before. One Catie’s favorite calorie-burning hacks is a popular VR (virtual reality) rhythm game called Beat Saber. She puts on a VR headset, holds two virtual lightsabers, and slashes through beats of adrenaline-pumping music as they fly towards her. “I play it in my living room every day for an hour, and I swear it goes by in ten minutes because it’s so fun,” she says. “My heart rate is up, my core muscles are engaged, I’m twisting, turning, flailing my arms around like an idiot, and I absolutely love it. My inner child gets to come out when I work out.”
• More family adventures. On a recent trip to Mount Rainier, Catie hiked nine miles of trail with her husband and daughter. “I didn’t have to just sit in the car or the lodge and say ‘you guys go ahead,’” she says. “I never wanted to hold them back by my inability to do things. Now I don’t even have to worry about it. We just do things. We’ve bonded in a way we hadn’t before.”
• Healthier household. “Even my husband has lost 50 pounds and my daughter has lost 30 pounds because we’re all getting out and doing more,” Catie says. “They eat what I eat now. We’re eating our proteins and getting our greens, and we’re not reaching for junk food. My unhealthy choices had spilled over onto my family. But we’ve learned together that healthy food doesn’t have to be hard. Healthy food can be easy too. And going for a walk can be just as nice as sitting and watching a TV show.”

Perhaps one of Catie’s most meaningful post-op wins: being able to sit on the floor for several hours on Christmas morning and build a new Lego set with her daughter.

“That was a huge moment. It was literally my ‘why’ for having surgery and losing all that weight,” Catie says. “I can actually play with my kid now, while she’s still young. I have a Lego piece sitting on my desk at work, and a Lego piece on my desk at home. They remind me of my goal and that I reached it.”

Victories to come

Catie continues to work out and grow more fit every day. She eats intentionally, savors each bite of food, and chooses quality over quantity. She also focuses on her victories.

“Every day I think, what can I do today that I couldn’t do two years ago?” she says. “And there’s almost always something new.”

Sure, she dreams of dropping 15-20 pounds more and dipping into what she calls “one-derland,” achieving a weight in the 100-plus pound range instead of the 200-plus or 300-plus range. But even if she doesn’t lose another pound, she’s happy.

“I’ve lost over a third of myself, and I’ve gained my life back,” she says. “Honestly it’s that big. Everything has changed, and it’s absolutely amazing.”