BETTY UDESEN / THE SEATTLE TIMES
	Leaving the house for her surgery in January, Kendall Brasch pauses for her family to make a "before" photograph. Kendall Brasch is now 137 pounds lighter. She's in her senior year of high school, and having a blast.

After spending the past few years too depressed to leave her parents' couch on weekends, Brasch is making up for lost time on the high-school social scene. Now a senior at Eastlake High in Sammamish, she has a circle of girlfriends and goes to parties, shopping, and football and basketball games.

It hasn't all been easy. Her surgically reduced stomach feels uncomfortably full after eating half a sandwich, and she feels fatigued much of the time. But "it's so worth it," she said.

In October, she shocked her family and herself when she danced in front of the entire school at a pep assembly. "I didn't know I could have so much fun," she said.

She's still shy around boys but is working up the courage to ask a certain someone to the tolo dance in February.

— Julia Sommerfeld