Trendy Transitions: A Clothing Exchange Program for Weight Loss Surgery Patients

– My "aha" moment, I
think I told you this, was that I could not go on
a ride with my daughter, Emily, because I was 60 pounds too heavy. – I had that happen to me too, actually. – It was awful.
– Horrible. It's a horrible feeling. – It wouldn't close. – Wouldn't close?
– For me, yeah. – I had somebody once try to close one, and be like, "I think it's your jacket." I'm like, "Thank you so much, honey, for trying, but it's not my jacket." (soft music) Trendy Transitions, it's a
bariatric clothing exchange.

Once patients have bariatric
surgery, or weight loss surgery, they're losing
weight very rapidly. And so they need to kind of have clothes to wear through that transition. It can happen very quickly, so they're not in sizes very long, so
it gets very expensive. So this kind of gives them a chance to get new clothes, but not have
to spend the money for it, and keep doing that until
they find their forever size. Then once they get to their forever size, then they can go shopping
wherever they want. – Hey, so good to see you, man.

– How's it going? – Okay, good. – Well, my name is Frank,
and I'm 49 years old. At my heaviest I was 378 pounds. I will tell you, within the first month, you're seeing a radical transition in the size of your body. You are drastically losing weight. And it feels great, but
every ounce of clothing in your closet is just way too big. – I got stuff for you. – Oh, that's great. That's great. – I was amazed, because I've never heard of such a thing before. I had gone to second-hand stores, but I had never heard of a hospital having such an offering, and I mean, that closet has everything in it. – There is a lot of stuff here that, I'm looking, because I've donated quite a bit in here, too, and my husband, and my mom, because we've
all had the surgery. – I have to look at the numbers
on paper to remind myself. It's like the fat girl's still up here. – That's always, we were just talking about that, that doesn't go away. We do the surgery on your stomach, we don't do it on your head, and the head is the hardest part, and this stuff is what makes it different.

I think that's what makes our program and our journeys different,
because we know that. – I'm really grateful to this hospital. It's changed my life, and
a really vital component of that is Trendy Transitions. These clothes, they mean
the world to people. I know they meant the world
to me when I put them on. – [Interviewer] When you look around this closet, what do you think and feel? – Oh my, you're gonna make me cry. This, to me, is kind of their safe place, where they can look for new clothes and not feel bad about themselves, or drop off old clothes and feel really good about themselves. I would give up my office in a minute before I would give up this closet.

I will sit here, and this will be my desk, if I have to, because it
means that much to patients, and it means that much to me..