Spare Tire
Last week I took Wednesday through Friday off and drove to Toronto to spend some time in a hospital there. If I haven’t blogged about this before, in short, due to my condition I have associated respiratory issues. Mainly, I simply don’t breathe well when I sleep.
Right now many of you are saying, “ah yes, sleep apnea, my father or uncle or husband has that, no big deal”. Well, not really. It’s a completely different root cause, with slightly different results, and a more complex solution.
Seventeen years ago, when all else was failing, I was referred to a specialist in Toronto who is world renowned in this field. At the time I spent 9 weeks at this facility, and came out feeling like a new person. Also, I was armed with an in depth knowledge of my condition and how to best take care of myself.
I am supposed to return annually for a couple days just to make sure everything is still on track. They do a full sleep study and a bunch of other tests to ensure that nothing needs tweaking.
This time around, I had not been in almost three years. Time slipped away somehow, life happens.
For the most part, things are fine. The numbers are not as good as the doctors would like, but the main cause of this may be that I have put on about 16 pounds in the last 3 years. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but I assure you that I have noticed the difference in my breathing. I know I need to lose the weight. I already knew that. I understand the consequences. But nothing helps motivate me more than to see it on test results. In print and bar graphs and charts. That’s motivation.
And so it begins again. I did quite well with this five years back. I lost about 25 pounds in just over a year. It might not seem like a lot by reality show standards, but for being in a wheelchair, that’s no small task. I’ve started doing all the right things again, and already I feel a little better. The hardest part is that I have no easy way of knowing how well I am doing. Short of going to a hospital where they have special scales, I cannot weigh myself. I will only know in 6 months when I return to the same hospital. Yes, that’s when they want to see me again. Six months. And I had better be lighter.
AbitibiSouth 
I support you in losing weight, Sylvain. I understand the importance of it with your condition. Maybe you can think of me too, because I need to lose weight because of multiple health problems, and do not ever weight myself for other reasons (I could but it is detrimental to me). Anyway, I will think of you and of the difficulty of exercising and your journey. I am certain that this can be done solely with healthy eating, and I wish you all the best. Love, O
You are always such an inspiration, if anyone, wheelchair bound or not, can lose weight, you can. While we have all battled with weight gain, I admire your strength of self to better your health. Once I earn my yoga teacher training, I would love to focus on people of differing abilities.
I have no doubt that you’ll be lighter in six months. No doubt at all. I also know it will be hard work and some parts of it will suck but that you’ll do it – like Holly said, if anyone will, it’s you. Plus, you know you’ve got the support of all of us out here, too. 🙂
I always know first I am losing weight by how my face looks, as I seem to lose weight there first, then in how my clothes fit. The waist goes and pants get lose and then I know I am doing it! Good luck with your journey in this. I guess for you it is about eating right, which is only easy when I make up my mind that it’s really a good tasty way to live. Feeling better is a good goal and I wish you well in the getting there.
I have gained weight in the last year and I too find it is harder to breathe. Darn it. I guess I’ll have to do something about it, too.
Talk about pressure. I am sending hugs your way and there is no doubt in my mind you will lose the weight.
miss you. glad you wrote.