#septemner2019

09.23.2019

Over the past 17 months, I have been in a battle for my health and my life. While I am overcoming this battle every day, small win by small win, I still have some considerations to think about as I move forward in my health and wellness journey.

In April 2018 I was admitted into the ICU at Miami Valley Hospital with respiratory and the beginnings of heart failure. Over the year prior, I gained 75 pounds, putting me at a weight of 635 pounds- the highest weight I have ever been. My body was shutting down. I had battled bronchitis four times that winter (December, twice in January and once in February) and was coming down with it again, or so I thought. What I actually had was pneumonia back in December and wasn’t treated properly so the issue compounded into an almost disaster.

I blame some of the weight gain over the year 2018 on medication, but I cannot blame all of it on that. I was so unhappy and miserable with my life and eating out of control. I knew I had sleep apnea but wasn’t formally diagnosed with it and I wasn’t using a C-pap to help me at night. To battle my anxiety and depression I was prescribed, what I found out later was a lethal combination of sleeping medication, antidepressants and anti-seizure medications. The anti-seizure medication could also be used to treat bipolar disorder, that I was also incorrectly diagnosed as having. I was a mess- a literal mess. I had no friends it seemed, I had no life, I lost my job because of my health and missing too much work paired with a department downsize and I just wanted to die. I honestly did. I have never felt that way in my life ever, until that moment and it scared me so bad that I never want to feel that way again. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and I wanted relief from it.

Mom took me to the emergency room that night. I was so sick and weak, but I walked in on my own. I was having such a difficulty breathing and my oxygen stats were 62% and they should be in the mid-to upper ninety’s. The doctors immediately started to administer enriched oxygen, did blood work, chest x-rays and a plethora of other testing. They were afraid I was going to stroke because I was deprived of oxygen so severely. They started to administer diuretics because my blood pressure was nearly 200/140 and it should be in the 120/80 range for a healthy adult- that I was not. After hours of observation, voiding the excess liquids in my body, a positive x-ray diagnosis of pneumonia and my oxygen stats not raising on 5 liters of oxygen, they decided to admit me to the ICU for more intense treatment.

They took me up and got me situated, the pulmonologist had come up to talk to mom and dad in the hallway. They don’t know that I heard the conversation that he had with them, but I remember him telling them that I was nearing death’s doorstep if the antibiotics didn’t work and they couldn’t get my stats up to a normal level. It scared me so bad that I passed out under the immense stress I was under. When I come to, my pulmonologist was in the room checking things out and he noticed I had just woken up. He sat on the edge of my bed and he initiated a discussion with me. I remember every word. I wrote down our conversation after it was over; I do this often in my life when monumental things happen.

“How old are you?” “I’m 32, about to be 33 in a couple weeks.” “You know you have some pretty serious things going on here. The pneumonia I can treat, and you’ll be fine in that way, but the low oxygen levels and extremely high blood pressure is something that we need to intensely take a look at. I’m just going to be frank with you: you need a C-pap, you have sleep apnea and I can tell without looking at the results of a sleep study. You are full of fluid; you were in respiratory failure and that is correcting itself, but you are showing signs of heart failure- we may be able to stop that from happening.”

He kind-of apologized for his next statement and continued:

“You are grossly overweight. You have to do something about that. I am going to refer you to a weight loss surgeon for intervention there. It’s a serious thing.”

The next statement shocked me to the core. He laid it all on the line:

“You will die by your 34th birthday if you don’t do something, starting today- right here, right now.”

At that point in time I was done hearing what he had to say, and it upset me. I got out of the hospital 3 days later, went home on supplemental oxygen and had home health coming 2 times a week to monitor me. I resolved at that point in time that this was not how I was going to live my life and I was going to prove my doctors wrong and live. My 34th birthday was July 15, 2019 - I made it.

About a month later I had an appointment with a bariatric surgeon, and I had managed to lose 32 pounds on my own from a diet plan formulated by the hospital. I followed it to the letter. My insurance required that I complete 9 months of physician supervised diet and exercise programs and there was still no guarantee that I would be eligible for the surgery.

Fast forwarding a little bit, by the time I was to have surgery in March 2019 I had lost 145 pounds on my own. I went on a caloric restriction diet where I ate no more than 1200 calories a day along with other macronutrient goals. During the few months I was working out and eating like I should be, I felt better, my lungs cleared, I had a sleep study (got the annoying c-pap) and started to heal. Long story short, I have not had the surgery yet as of September 2019 due to not receiving a cardiac clearance. We are revisiting the surgery options in the winter after I lose another 20-30 pounds. To date I have lost 184 pounds on my own, with no surgical intervention and I feel much better. I am still a very overweight person, but that scale is still headed in the right direction and I am seeing progress weekly. Any negative is a positive when it comes to weight loss. 

I feel great today and I am happy with my progress, but I see an end goal in sight and am running to the finish line as quickly and as safely as I can. Most people need a wakeup call in their lives to motivate them to do something with their life. I got mine on April 25, 2018 laying in room 3 of the intensive care unit of Miami Valley Hospital.