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Risk is Real: Sunday, Mar. 13, 2005 As Anita Cañizares’ friends and family struggle to accept her death earlier this month, they’re also trying to find answers to a troubling question: Could the tragedy have been prevented? Cañizares, 53, had suffered a few health problems over the years — including a near fatal blood clot in 2000 — but her only continuing struggle had been with her weight. At 250 pounds and about 5 feet 4 inches tall, Cañizares was among the five million to 10 million Americans considered morbidly obese, a condition that the National Health Institute defines as 100 pounds overweight or having a body mass index, or BMI, of 40 or higher. (BMI is calculated by dividing your weight by your height squared and multiplying that number by 703.) Complications from the procedure vary, but more serious ones include bleeding from a tear to the liver, spleen, or blood vessels; bowel obstruction; cardiac problems; gastrointestinal dysfunction, such as long-term nausea or food intolerance; and deep-vein thrombosis (blood clots in the large leg veins). “About half of the (1 percent of) people who die, die because of a blood clot to the lung,” said Thad Boss, a gastro-intestinal and bariatric surgeon with Strong Health in Rochester. And that, says Cañizares’ brother, Alvaro Cañizares, is what happened to his sister a day after her operation. Alvaro Cañizares recognizes that he may never understand why his sister underwent such a risky procedure, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting answers. Specifically, he wants to know if more could have been done to prevent the clot, especially since his sister had a previous blood clot, and why a blood test to check for hypercoagulation was not taken before the surgery. Doctors, he said, have indicated his sister may have been predisposed to the genetic condition. “If the answers to our questions point to ... inappropriate risk or that [there] could have been additional preventative or additional information measures, then we’ll see what steps we’ll take later,” Alvaro Cañizares said, but he stressed that he’s not out to make threats or file lawsuits. “Nothing is going to bring Anita back,” said Alvaro Cañizares, whose job now is to console his family, especially his devastated sister Teresita. Read More at the Finger Lakes Times, Geneva, N.Y. |
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