From Struggle to Strength: Maraine’s Weight-Loss Journey

Maraine Cauvin had thought often about having bariatric surgery someday. Having been overweight her whole life, she knew she would need help achieving her goal of a healthier weight. She weighed nearly 280 pounds before her mother passed away five years ago.

“I was eating constantly to cope,” Maraine, 42, says. “My weight started going up, and I got close to 320 pounds.”

The excess weight, she says, was “destroying” her left knee, making it difficult for her to move around in her job as a patient navigator at Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital.

“I couldn’t walk,” Maraine says. “It got to that point. I helped with discharges and would visit the patients, and it got to the point where I thought I would have to quit.”

Every time she would walk through the doors of the hospital for her shift she would pass by a screen displaying upcoming events at the hospital. One day in 2024, an advertisement on the screen for a bariatric surgery seminar caught her eye.

“That was my push,” Maraine says. “I thought, ‘This is it. I have to do this.’”

She went to the seminar, which was led by Abhiman Cheeyandira, MD, FACS, FASMBS, Medical Director of Bariatric and Metabolic Surgery at Indian River Hospital. Having learned more about it, she decided to pursue the surgery.

“This experience has changed my whole outlook on eating. It woke me up.”

She made an appointment with Dr. Cheeyandira, and he set her up with the required tests to determine if she would qualify for the procedure. She passed the tests and then lost 30 pounds on her own, which was required for the procedure. In December of 2024, Maraine underwent a sleeve gastrectomy, a weight-loss procedure in which about 80 percent of the stomach is removed.

Despite a few normal issues after the surgery (some acid reflux and gas), Maraine says her healing process was “great.” The first couple of weeks were the toughest, she says, because she was on a liquid diet. Within three months, however, she was eating normally, though much smaller portions.

“I can’t eat a lot because I get full quickly,” Maraine says. Bread and soda are no longer part of her diet, and she focuses on “all good nutrients” in small portions, such as salad and chicken.

And now, instead of eating to cope with stress, she exercises, doing a combination of cardio and strength training a few times a week. She is down to 197 pounds and her goal is 180.

“This experience has changed my whole outlook on eating. It woke me up,” she says. “I don’t eat to cope because I know how it will make me feel in the end.”

Maraine still works at Indian River Hospital but has become a certified nursing assistant. She enjoys her job, which requires her to be active, and she is grateful she has lost the weight.

“It was the best decision I have made,” she says. “I would do it a thousand times more. And I think Dr. Cheeyandira is the best doctor ever,” she says.