Life with CF — Page 30

I Will Survive

April 19, 2010

Two full weeks of college remain and then a week of finals with commencement on that Friday, May 7th. I’ve got 2 little things left to do for Advanced Composition, my 5-7 page paper for Biblical Archaeology, and a final exam for Spanish 2 and Archaeology.

Then I’ll be done. Forever.

Until then, stress is high, and it’s taking its toll on my appetite and cough. When I get stressed, I don’t eat as much when I’m hungry and don’t get hungry as often. I’m counter-acting with Xanax today and hoping I return to normal tomorrow with all of the invoices that have come in from business over the last few days.

I’ve been bouncing between 116-119lbs in the last week. I know that’s a loss, but not bad considering the stress. I’ll get fatter again next week, I’m sure.

That’s all I have time for, as it’s really that busy today trying to wrap up projects so I can get paid and thus pay the mortgage, buy groceries, and hopefully pay some medical bills.

As Graduation Approaches

April 13, 2010

I have mixed feelings about graduating from the University of South Florida (go BULLS!) next month. Not strange feelings, but just trying to decide whether I should be happy, elated, or just proud of what I’ve accomplished.

The two main sides I’m coming from are:

It’s no big deal because thousands of people graduate from USF alone each semester, yet I’ve been here for 39 semesters if you count summers. Many more go on to graduate school and even get PhDs.
I’ve got cystic fibrosis, so even going to college is a big deal, let alone getting started with a full-ride, getting my A.A. and starting a career, getting married, buying a house, and starting a home-based business and going to college to finish my B.A.

I’m extremely proud of how much I’ve busted my butt for the last 9 months, taking 31 credit hours to wrap up my senior year… even if it started 12 years after I was initially accepted to USF in 1997.

[Read more…]

Eating With Cystic Fibrosis: It’s a Full-time Job

April 11, 2010

I realized this morning how much of my day is spent contemplating my next meal or two, snacks, and whether or not I think I will meet my daily caloric goal. Today, Beautiful suggested that I explain how much I need to eat just to maintain my weight, so here it goes.

Requirements

According to a nutritional calculator at Mayo Clinic’s website, with my lightly active lifestyle, I should only need 1,900 Calories per day to maintain my weight as a 31 yr-old, 5′ 4″ male weighing ~120lbs. That would be nice! I also calculated Beautiful’s daily requirement as being 1,750 Calories. You’ll see the problem with that in a second.

If I go through a normal day of eating (pre-Fatboy) to just get through life without paying attention to eating enough, I’ll probably encounter 2,000-2,500 Calories and lose 2-3lbs by the next morning. If I make an effort to be sure I get enough to eat to get in the neighborhood of 4,000 Calories, I’ll break even. It’s not unless I intake 5,000-6,000 Calories that I can have any expectation of seeing the scale budge upward.
[Read more…]

Another Busy Day Ahead

April 10, 2010

Some people have jobs. Some people stay at home and play video games. Some people go to school. Beautiful might say that I do all three, but you’d have to scratch the “stay at home” part about playing video games. That’s a late night event for me… when I have the time.

Here’s to hoping tomorrow can be somewhat relaxing. On my to-do list now:

wrap up some logo delivery files for a client first thing
work on some more Spanish homework, but I’m pretty much stuck
try to reduce one of my papers by nearly half
try to get my thesis statement and opening presentation down for another paper
go to my in-laws for lunch and an afternoon (which includes Spanish help) before Beautiful’s sister leaves for grad school again
get some sun at the pool to de-stress
continue working on other client projects if Beautiful has her mind set on things other than me

I’m a walking contradiction right now: I will be so proud to graduate in 4 weeks, and I can’t wait to be done with this hectic entrepreneurship/school combination. Long-time family friends are impressed with my grit to finish with such a flurry of final courses in the last year, but I am beginning to question the wisdom in this schedule. At least it will ALL be over with for good in less than a month. I have one final and one paper, two Spanish exams, and a composition project remaining. I yearn for a weekend to just get it all done except the exams.

Maybe next weekend… after my Spanish exam.

I Will Survive

As Graduation Approaches

Eating With Cystic Fibrosis: It’s a Full-time Job

Requirements

Another Busy Day Ahead

Time Elapsed Since IVs