A Fredericton man who could barely walk a few years ago due to a chronic lung disease is continuing to defy the odds.
Suffering from Severe Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Wendell Betts used to be on oxygen all the time. With a 23 per cent lung capacity, the prognosis was not good.
“She basically said, ‘The next time you get sick, one of two things will happen. You will be intubated on a breathing machine, or you will die,’” Betts says.
But after losing 120 pounds and reaching a point where he can walk six kilometres without oxygen, Betts looked to keep the momentum going by walking across two Fredericton bridges.
Betts is hoping to raise money for the New Brunswick Lung Association to help more COPD patients like him.
“We made a statement last year that I was going to walk the bridges this year, and I practiced on a treadmill five days a week, all winter to get myself in shape to do this,” says Betts.
One in nine New Brunswickers has COPD, which is about 57,000 people. It's also the second leading cause of hospital admissions in the province, second only to childbirth.
"It's a chronic disease, but you can lead your best life with COPD as Wendell has shown us,” says Barbara MacKinnon, CEO of the New Brunswick Lung Association. "Although your lung is permanently damaged, if you look after your health well, follow your doctor's recommendations, you too could walk the bridges.”
Betts plans to walk across the bridges every year. But he says he now takes a moment every day to breathe, just because he can.
“To be able to walk up on that bridge, and walk across that bridge when a year ago it was just a dream? I feel fantastic,” says Betts.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Laura Brown.
