to save hubby
Too overweight to donate a kidney, Perth mum Cynara knew something had to give
The most cruel and jarring thing anyone had ever said to Cynara Stalenhoef was when she offered her kidney to save her husband’s life. “We can’t take a kidney from you because you need to be a healthy weight,” the doctor told her.
Weighing in at 109kg, the mother-of-two had spent her entire adult life yoyo dieting, even once putting on 20kg in six months.
CATALYST FOR CHANGE
But Cynara says the doctor’s statement, short and simple, was the “kick in the guts” she needed to spark her weight-loss journey. “I was so embarrassed I wanted the floor to swallow me up. I felt so selfish and so guilty I’d let my health get to this point, I just couldn’t believe it,” she recalls of the day she and husband Matthew learned he would need an organ transplant to save his life. “Me and my stupid emotional eating… how could I let it get this far out of control? “I was actually too fat to donate a kidney to save my husband because I ate too much cake!” Matthew’s disease, tuberous sclerosis, is a genetic condition that develops when the body overproduces proteins, which go on to form benign tumours. In his case, he has growths on his liver, brain and skin, but the worst of them are on his kidneys.
“I volunteered one of my kidneys when we found out a transplant was inevitable,” says Cynara, 35, who knew she was the same blood type as her 45-year-old husband.
“But the doctor said I had to be less than 72kg to donate.”
SHRINKING JOURNEY
As the shell-shocked couple from Waikiki, south of Perth, left the surgery, Cynara declared she would address her emotional eating and lose all the weight she’d gained since having her children Kaysia, 11, and Blake, eight.
“I could never balance work with exercise and having a family,” she says. “Something had to give and I chose my body. I owned it, though – I admitted I ate too much. I was five-foot-two [157cm],
‘The thought of living with one kidney doesn’t bother me’
size 20 and wore old-lady clothing. I never spent much on fashion because I always thought I’d lose the weight soon.”
With chocolate, lollies, cake and Coke off the menu, Cynara began documenting her journey on social media, calling her odyssey The Shrinking Wife. She had two years to get to her donor weight. In February 2016, Cynara had a gastric sleeve procedure, which allowed her to eat the same family meals but in far smaller portions, because two-thirds of her stomach had been removed. As the weight began to fall off, the determined mum found her health and fitness groove, adding gym sessions, running and even half-marathons to her weight-loss campaign.
HAPPY & HEALTHY
Now, two years later, the new slimline Cynara tips the scales at a healthy 53kg. “I’m half the size I was and so much happier! I feel capable of dealing with whatever life throws at me,” she says, boasting of a recent beach swim – the first in 20 years wearing a swimming costume without a T-shirt and shorts. “I’m proud I’ve been able to get down to a weight where I can now donate,” she says. “Matt’s doctor didn’t recognise me when she saw me. I said, ‘ You told me I needed to lose weight!’ Her jaw dropped to the floor.” “It’s awesome and I’m so proud of her,” says Matt. “I was sceptical at the start, so I didn’t get too excited, but now I’m grateful for what she’s done.”
I DID IT FOR THE FAMILY
It’s expected Matt, who no longer works and is on a home-based chemotherapy treatment program, will lose both kidneys over the next six months – and Cynara is ready and raring to go when the time comes for her to save his life.
“The thought of living with one kidney doesn’t bother me at all,” says Cynara. “I love my husband – and my kids deserve a fully functioning dad. I’ve done this for all of us,” she says.