Life with CF — Page 18

Fatboy Is Back After Losing 21 Pounds

October 26, 2010

I have lost 21 pounds since Labor Day

Time to honest up: my weight story has flat out stunk since business/personal crunch time began around mid-August. This photo was taken on Father’s Day. Notice how my polo is stretched tight over my gut. My shorts also wouldn’t button up at this point. After hitting a high weight of 135 just after vacation in mid-June, it was time to shift priorities from gaining weight to building our business so we could live more comfortably (i.e., get out of what debt we had and allow Beautiful to stay home if she so chooses) and stop spending a fortune on extra food. Now that it is there, it’s okay to back off, right?

Apparently not.

I dropped to a pretty steady 120 (20.6 BMI) for quite a while. Then it was time for surgery… which was desperately needed, as you will soon see by what happens next. After surgery, I had a really awful time with my antibiotics and nausea. I now have a much greater appreciation and empathy for all of my new transplant friends who had stomach issues after surgery for their various reasons. Seriously – how disabling!!

This progressed until I got on the scale Saturday morning and was horrified to see that I once again had plummeted to an embarrassing 113.5 (19.5 BMI) – right where I was before I started this site in March. All of that work for nothing! I don’t look like I’m that thin again, but I’m not going to stand for that. I have a site to write for – my credibility is at stake.
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So Healthy I Feel Guilty

October 23, 2010

I have lived my entire life feeling “less than” in terms of health – well, my entire adult life. Childhood was fine, other than treatments and hospitalizations. I really don’t ever remember feeling “sickly” despite having pulmonary bouts that sent me to the hole for 14 days at least 7 times before I was in Jr. High and started on home IVs.

Now that I’ve had my sinus surgery and was on oral and IV meds for the sinus epidemic in my body, I feel better than I have in over 8 years… maybe 12 years, no joke. My sinuses were compromising so much of my system, I’m not sure how I was coping with such a brazen infection.

And this leaves me feeling guilty.

I’ve got CFer friends on Facebook and Twitter who are fighting for their lives in their low 20s and 30s on the transplant list. Others just got their transplants. Others still are fighting daily hemoptysis that makes every day a risk assessment of their bleeding status.
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It’s Surgery Day! Sinus Surgery No. 9

October 11, 2010

I couldn’t properly convey all of the emotions I’ve had in the last few days regarding my pending sinus surgery. This is my first surgery as a married man, making it a whole new ballgame. I’m quite frankly freaking out a bit… sometimes more than a bit. This is one of my longer pieces at almost 1,000 words, just because it’s partially a brain dump and partially to get some good old-fashioned discussion going about some good and some rather unpleasant thoughts. Skip to the last heading if you want to avoid anything deep, meaningful, or sad. Otherwise, read on to get to know me more than you already do.
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Bracing Myself for Being Cared For

October 9, 2010

Tying a shoe Any of you who know me in person or have been reading this site long enough know that I am fiercely independent to a fault. I may be a wimp for a few hours, or a day at the most, when I have the flu or something that knocks me for a loop, but those things are very rare events in my life.

I never grew out of the habit that young kids have when they insist, “I’ll do it mySELF!!” and I’ve taken it up a few notches in my “old age.” Sure, there is the give and take in marriage of letting the other do something for you, like I was forced to do when my last semester of college was stressing me out to the max. Beautiful was so beyond awesome by fixing meals that I normally did, bringing me snacks upstairs while I was studying for hours, and just generally putting up with me.
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Fatboy Is Back After Losing 21 Pounds

I have lost 21 pounds since Labor Day

So Healthy I Feel Guilty

It’s Surgery Day! Sinus Surgery No. 9

Bracing Myself for Being Cared For

Time Elapsed Since IVs