Digging Deeper

“I will find out what is wrong, and I will help you, I promise.”

This assurance from Eva Alsheik, M.D., Henry Ford Health gastroenterologist, gave Kathy Berta, 50, the first feelings of hope that she’d had in almost three years.

But Kathy’s journey to get to Dr. Alsheik started even earlier than that, 15 years ago when she had gastric bypass surgery at another health system. While this type of bariatric procedure is often prescribed as part of a weight management care plan, that wasn’t the case for Kathy. Instead, it was part of her treatment for diabetes.

“I was initially diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes when I was 13,” says Kathy, a resident of Southfield who works as a regional healthcare manager. “Over time it turned into Type 1, which I didn’t know could happen.”

Things get worse

Four years ago, some of Kathy’s labs came back with even more distressing news: She had chronic kidney disease (CKD).

This progressive disease, which has no cure, is commonly caused by diabetes. It can lead to end-stage kidney failure, where the kidneys are unable to remove enough wastes and excess fluids from the body. When it reaches this point, the two main treatment options are dialysis (filtering the blood to keep a safe level of calcium, sodium and potassium in the body and remove wastes) or a kidney transplant.

“I wanted to avoid dialysis,” Kathy says. “Both my mother and father-in-law had dialysis, and I saw how it affected their lifestyle.”

Kathy was placed on the transplant list at Henry Ford Health. Given her specific case, she would need to get both a new kidney and pancreas. However, around the same time, she began to experience some disturbing symptoms.

“I had severe nausea and vomiting after eating,” Kathy says. “In about a year, I lost over 70 pounds, and my extreme fatigue was exhausting. There were days I could only get down a couple bites of food and some days I just couldn’t eat at all. My hair had begun falling out, and sometimes it was like climbing a mountain to get up, shower and get ready for work.”

When these symptoms began, Kathy saw her primary care physician, met with several specialists and underwent extensive testing. After receiving a confirmed diagnosis of gastroparesis, Kathy thought she was on the path to healing.

Gastroparesis, or delayed gastric emptying, occurs when food doesn’t move from the stomach to the small intestine as it should. Normally, muscles and nerves in the stomach push the food into the intestines so digestion can continue. But with gastroparesis, nerve damage or muscle weakness in the stomach disrupts digestion. Food stays in the stomach too long, which causes a range of problems and complications.

And yet, despite treatment, including multiple anti-nausea medications, she wasn’t getting better.

Ups and downs

Worse yet, given her ongoing gastrointestinal (GI) issues, Kathy’s eligibility for a transplant was in danger.

“I would need to take anti-rejection medications after the procedure and many of those need to be taken with food,” Kathy says. “If I couldn’t keep food down, I couldn’t keep the meds down and I wouldn’t be eligible for a transplant. Instead, I would have to go on dialysis.”

As her symptoms got worse, Kathy’s team also started discussing the possibility of a feeding tube.

“I was at my wit’s end,” Kathy says. “I heard of a GI stimulator, reached out to the company and spoke with a representative, who connected me with a patient that had a similar story. After getting her implant, she was able to eat – and keep down – food on the way home from the hospital. I was convinced this was the right path for me.”

Kathy did additional research to see who could perform this procedure and made an appointment with Henry Ford Health’s Multidisciplinary Gastroparesis Clinic. She counted down the days, certain that she had found the solution for her complex case.

She arrived for her appointment at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, where she met with Dr. Alsheik and Kellie McFarlin, M.D., Henry Ford Health gastrointestinal surgeon, to be evaluated for a potential GI stimulator implant.

Then the other shoe dropped.

“They told me that due to the gastric bypass I had, I wasn’t a candidate for the stimulator,” Kathy says. “I was devastated. I am a person who prides herself on keeping cool in all situations. However, this is where I broke down. I literally sobbed. My body wracked with exhaustion, disappointment and worst of all, fear.”

What happened next has helped to define Kathy’s overall experience with her Henry Ford Health care team.

Says Kathy, “Dr. Alsheik kneeled down, put her hand on my knee, handed me some tissue, looked me in the eye, and said, ‘I will find out what is wrong, and I will help you, I promise.’”

A surprising solution

Dr. Alsheik ordered several tests, including an ultrasound, upper GI and lower GI procedure.

“I had all of these before, so I had little to no hope that any of this would result in a solution,” Kathy says. “I was starting to think I would never get better, and I wouldn’t be eligible for my transplant.”

But Dr. Alsheik encouraged Kathy to try one more time, so that she could get the full picture of what was going on with her digestive system.

“After my last scope, I was still a bit groggy from the anesthesia,” Kathy says. “But I remember Dr. Alsheik almost jogging into my recovery room to tell me the good news.”

Dr. Alsheik drew a picture to explain to Kathy what was happening – she had candy cane syndrome (CCS), a rare, underdiagnosed potential complication of bariatric procedures such as gastric bypass. In CCS, an abnormal pouch is created during the bypass, and this additional section forms a candy cane shape. Food particles can become stuck in this pouch, causing symptoms like the ones that Kathy had experienced for years.

Dr. Alsheik referred Kathy to Puraj Patel, D.O., Henry Ford Health bariatric surgeon. He scheduled her for a robotic procedure at Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital to remove the abnormal pouch.

“I thought, ‘I may not live through this, if they can’t fix it,’” Kathy says. “I started talking to my daughter before the procedure about what would happen if I didn’t make it, and my husband and I worked on our estate planning. It was a dark time.”

Kathy’s procedure was on April 28, 2026. Fortunately, it was a success.

“I was eating again with no nausea or vomiting by May 8,” she says.

Getting back to life

Since then, Kathy has started gaining back some of the weight she lost, and her hair is growing again. She can enjoy food without having to worry about keeping it down. And with her GI issues resolved, she is eligible to get her kidney and pancreas transplant.

“I had my cardiac clearance test and am now on the list for a multi-organ transplant,” she says.

For the first time in years, Kathy is also enjoying not having to spend so much time seeing multiple GI specialists. During her treatment, she switched her primary care to Kimberly Ottoni, M.D., at Henry Ford Medical Center – Royal Oak and only sees her for regular physicals.

Kathy’s family, including her 28-year-old daughter and her husband, are also breathing a sigh of relief.

“My husband travels a lot for work, so it was difficult for him when I was really sick,” Kathy says. “He wasn’t able to be here as much and was always worried about me when he was out of town.”

As she looks back on everything she went through, Kathy marvels at how after years of struggle, she found the right team and a solution.

“It would have been easy to put my case on a shelf, ‘just another one that we couldn’t figure out,’” Kathy says. “But they didn’t. And one outpatient procedure fixed it.”

She’s also grateful for the interactions she’s had along with the way with her care team at Henry Ford Health.

“These providers and their staff made a very daunting experience as smooth as it could have possibly been,” Kathy says. “Not just the doctors, but every medical secretary, every CSR, every nurse. My experience with the GI and bariatric team has been nothing short of amazing!