Emily Kwong

Besides the changes to eating, what other changes did Karen experience?

Because what you eat is so connected to like your blood sugar and your energy levels.

And how was that for her?

Oh, true.

Yeah.

Reading the piece, I was just amazed at the changes happening on the inside as your body, like you write about how the upper part of the intestine adapts into a pseudo stomach.

So part of your body is like, oh, I got it.

I will be the stomach for us now.

And eventually people can eat larger portions.

They don't have to eat as many meals and they are able to maybe put on some weight back and

You talk about how people still need regular shots of B12 because you need your stomach and stomach acid to release the B12 from food.

But otherwise, are people able to live as if they have a stomach without one?

Yeah.

You also write how in a number of your conversations, people opened up about alcohol and alcoholism.

Yeah.

After their surgery, alcohol went down better and they found themselves drinking.

How common was that?

It's interesting how medicine has come so far, right, that we can test for mutations that are likely to lead to cancer.

We can reduce people's risk for cancer in this big way.

But it also puts a really tough choice on people's shoulders, which is to have a part of their body removed.