ME and My Sleep Apnea
(The story from the newest member of MEMSA)
by Jo Meranda

Initial Symptoms

         I have been obese most of my adult life but had not suffered any real problems with sleeping at night. Then two years ago I was in an auto accident where a full sized truck ran over the back of my car. My husband was driving when we were stopped in traffic because a vehicle in front of us was waiting for oncoming traffic to make a left-hand turn. There were three cars in front of us on a narrow two lane stretch of Highway # 20 in northern California. I looked back to see if there was any other vehicles coming as this road is notorious for accidents. We were at one of the only areas that you can see over a mile and a half without any curves. I saw the truck come around the turn that was at the other end of that straight stretch and for some reason felt like something was wrong. I kept glancing back and every time I did the truck was closer and coming faster. The highway patrol said he was doing between fifty-five and seventy when he ran over our rear quarter panel and went head-on into an oncoming forestry truck. My husband was dazed and tried to get out of the car only to collapse back into the car unconscious the driver of the oncoming truck was pinned, and the back end of the twenty-four foot refrigerated trailer was less than eight feet from what was left of the back of our car.

By the time emergency personal got there My husband was turning blue and I could not get any response from him. They put him in the first available ambulance and took him to the ER code blue. His heart stopped en route. I thought that I had just lost my husband. Then I realized that I was dizzy and my back and legs were buzzing. The teams were having to use the jaws of life to get to the driver of the forestry truck. They had a life-flight ready to take him directly to a trauma center more than a hundred miles away from where were. So because I had no outward obvious injures and only one ambulance left they had a choice of taking him to the life flight or taking me to the hospital five miles away first. I was told that they were not sure if he was going to live. I, being a truckers wife, said put him on the life flight first! So it was almost two hours after they took my husband that they finally got me to the hospital. Both of us were lucky when we think of what could have happened. But we both ended up with back injuries and most of our internal organs bruised. But as if that was not enough I kept having nightmares . Every time I would try to sleep I would see that truck again. I would see the smoke from the tires less than twenty feet from the back of our car. I would see the mud flap from the truck sticking out of the mangled mess that was once the trunk of our car. I was as much of a wreck as my car!!!

My poor husband was trying to rest and I was thrashing and then he said I was snoring and it got worse and worse. Then he wasn't getting any sleep because he said it sounded like I would stop breathing and then would gasp for air. I Went to the doctor who had been treating us since the accident and he said that the snoring was because of my weight!!! Well I had not snored before the accident so I felt that I really would like a second opinion. When I told that doctor he said if that is how you feel don't come back!!! So because he had said it would all go away when the bruising subsided. And If anything I felt worse than I did the day of the accident. I did get a second opinion and thank God I did. The doctor I went to see when he first walked in the room was really on top of what was happening. He ordered the tests he felt I needed and found that I had Both sleep apnea and fibromyalgia. The very act of staying inactive was making my condition worse!!!

I was sent to the sleep center in Santa Rosa and everyone there were very helpful and made me feel at ease. I was fitted with a C-PAP (continuos positive air pressure ) machine. I found out that I was losing 85% of the oxygen from my system within the first hour. And I would stop breathing for up to seventeen seconds at a time. Within a nights sleep of what should have been 8 hours I was getting less than 2. No sleep no rest, no rest no energy, no energy no ability to get up to help myself get better. Then He ordered Aqua physical therapy for me. I got in the swimming pool and when I started there I was using a walker to be able to stand let alone walk. I had gained even more weight. I had gotten up to 356 pounds. I am only 5 foot 4 inches tall so that was a real burden on my body. I started by just walking in the water that was about chest deep.

That was Last September. I at that time was wearing a size 50 then. The first day I felt good until I tried to get out of the pool. I had to have help as my legs would not stop shaking I felt like I had noodles instead of legs. Within two weeks I felt confident enough to try to get around with two canes instead of the walker. I managed to do it that seemed like a mile stone to celebrate. Then a month later I tried to get around with just one cane. Still a little wobbly but I made it. I was putting five days a week into the pool and when I felt like I could do more than I had been doing I added Reps. to the exercises that I was doing. I am still using one cane but now just for uneven surfaces. I have lost 56 pounds and am wearing a size 22. I know that I still have a lot of weight to lose but I am firming as I lose so the scales are not always the true test of the loss. I have lost so many inches it seems unreal, but it is and now I have gotten others to join me in the pool. I met one lady who was giving up on ever losing as she had just hit her 50th birthday and was still over 250 pounds.

That was one month ago and I ask her to come join me in the pool for one month. Well to make a long story short. She has lost 16 pounds in the month and has decided that she really can lose what she wants to. My advice to anyone who feels like giving up is: if you go to a physician to help you lose weight and without doing any test to find out if it is in fact something medical, they tell you that your problem is that you just eat too much run or walk as fast as you can to find a doctor who will listen to you rather than stay with one who judges you by your size alone!!!

Take care of yourselves. You are the only you there is.

Jo