RICHMOND—A former Ivor resident has published a memoir about her struggles with obesity and health concerns.

Lynette Goode, now living in Richmond, has written “Determined to Live: How I Endured 48 Surgeries Due to Gastric Bypass,” which has been published by WestBow Press this past May.

“I can only say it’s been such a blessing to see what God has done with this book,” said Goode, who was featured in Western Tidewater Living magazine in fall 2012.

At that time, she was 48 years old and weighed around 175 pounds, a considerable difference from her almost 400 pounds at 31. Before that, Goode was 319 pounds at the time of her daughter’s birth, and 280 pounds at her wedding. At her graduation from Southampton High School in 1982, she weighed 230 pounds, said Goode.

When she was at the 400 mark, Goode was also suffering from high cholesterol, high blood pressure, migraines and sleep apnea.

As a way to reduce the weight, a doctor recommended gastric bypass surgery, which limits how much a person can eat. That operation was done in 1997. But complications and many other surgeries followed. Along the way, Goode came to rely on painkillers.

She endured a detoxification program in 2006, and afterward founded Drugs, Education, Obesity and Nutrition Intervention, a non-profit counseling service.

Goode, who said she’s well known in Richmond, is married to Tyrone Goode, and they have a daughter, Tiffany Goode, who earned her degree in criminal justice from Old Dominion University. She’s also the daughter of Endie Mae Ruffin of Henrico County and the late Joseph Ruffin.

Goode said that she’s been getting a lot of positive responses from people who have read about her ordeals.

“‘I am so inspired,’” people have told Goode, she said. That includes the son of a postal clerk hospitalized for similar health issues.

“As long as you have breath in your body, there’s hope,” the author said. “There are no mountains. Just challenges.”