My surgery now seems like it is years away although in reality it is only 65 days 16 hours and 43 minutes away according to the new countdown timer that I have installed on the upper right hand side of the blog. I booked my sleep study yesterday and go in on this Saturday July the 16th.
I guess I should probably explain why I need a sleep study. Christie spilled the beans to the pre-op team at Hamilton General Hospital that I have undiagnosed sleep apnea. According to the Anesthesiologist sleep apnea and general anesthesia can be a very unfriendly combination. When you have sleep apnea your airway becomes obstructed and your breathing becomes repressed. Anesthesia and opioid narcotics such as morphine also repress breathing. In short during your recovery in hospital they worry that you could stop breathing in your sleep because you have so many factors repressing your breathing if you have sleep apnea.
And that is why I am having a sleep study done. Actually I have thought for years that I should have one done. If I do have sleep apnea and have it treated I would probably function that much better. One of the things that can help with sleep apnea is losing weight because the fat deposits in the pharynx either bring on sleep apnea or worsen the effects.
I have been working on a healthier lifestyle for myself for about a month now which includes eating in a way that will prevent me from gaining any more weight and hopefully lose some. This works out well for me with the sleep apnea but the reason I started this was that I will be laid up and not doing very much at all for a couple of month post surgery. The last thing I need is to gain a bunch of weight in recovery. Either way I have lost 12 pounds so far and intend on losing another 30. And hopefully the weight will keep dropping as the clock keeps ticking.
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