Thursday, September 25, 2008

Breaking the barrier

In this past week, I have heard great stories of of a few people who have broken the mental barriers they inflicted on themselves, and took charge of their destiny. I can't tell you how difficult this is for many people to overcome obstacles that continue to get in their way and they still persevere onwards. Kudos to you all!

One such story is a patient of mine who has heart failure and is only thirty something years old. Top that off with obstructive sleep apnea, high blood pressure, obesity and depression. I have not seen him in over six months until yesterday. He had a smile on his face this time, he has lost 50 lbs since February by diet and exercising on the treadmill. Already he has had some improvements in his health. I had good news for him, his blood pressure is controlled and the pump function of his heart (left ventricular ejection fraction) is normal. I think if he keeps this up, he may be able to turn things around and may not require oxygen at night when he sleeps. I can't tell you how exciting this is to actually have a patient make some excellent life style changes for the better!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

that's awesome!