Hb: 10 (+1.6)
Wbc: 12.3 (+ 11.24)
Plt: 48 (+5)
Ntl: 10.93 (+10.31)
Weight: 74.8kg
17/03/2013
Hb: 10.1 (+0.1)
Wbc: 7.11 (-5.19)
Plt: 64 (+16)
Ntl: 6.15 (-4.79)
Weight: 74.6kg
Feeling pretty damn good these days, although with the strength and energy of a runt of the litter kitten. I still have a little GvHD rash on my hands and feet and the usual lavatorial hi-jinks but what you gonna do eh? Bloods looking good, I had a jab of GCSF yesterday to give the whites a kick start the other day, but the Hb is all me.
I was chatting to Jeannette earlier on today about my weight loss, which has been a bit faster than expected, given that I'm now back up to 3 meals a day and topping up with high calorie milkshakes with an ice cream float as a between meals snack - I had 3 of the buggers yesterday and have still managed to drop a couple of kilos - of course a lot of it must be getting rid of the last of the water retention I had going on - glad to see that phase passing!
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| Hickman hooked up to meds - note water retention in arms |
Being the vain and shallow type that I am, I was having a bitch about watching the lean muscle I've so carefully built up over the years just melt away in a matter of weeks. My calves have gone, I have chicken thighs and shoulders and biceps that appear to shrink on a daily basis. A less shallow and vain person would take the view that doing what I'm doing now has given me the chance for another 20-25 years of quality existence and be happy with that and the opportunity for (yet another) fresh start - and I am, majorly - and I think I always knew that the hard work I was doing in the gym was more to put me in the best place on the starting grid to come through this stuff quickly and better shape.
It's just that for a laid back ex-druggie ex-booze hound, I finally found my competitive streak in the gym. The rules were simple, if you get on a weight machine and the person before you has been lifting more than your usual training amount, then you're not allowed to reduce the weight (unless the guy before you is some bug eyed, roid-headed testosterone fountain). Always increase your lift by 5kg per fortnight and if someone gets off a machine having been lifting the same as your current setting, then bump it by 5kg before you start - always train to the point of failure and switch up the routine every six weeks to prevent plateau.
Now the clear-headed amongst you will pretty quickly separate the prideful, vain stupid macho bullshit from the common sense in the last paragraph, but I bet there's some of you that do it just the same. My main grouch was starting over - going right back to the point where I'd just joined a gym and started from nothing. This sounds like the point where I give you one of those 'Thought for the Day' switcheroos - 'and in many ways believing in God is like joining a gym..etc' but nah.
In truth, not only does this give me the opportunity to start again at both weights and cardio on an equal footing (and I fucking hated cardio - no haemoglobin), it's going to mean I can be a properly active father to Milo, rather than the grouchy short fused twat I fear I'd turned into and something that was mostly denied to my two older sons Callum and Will - as I was still too busy looking at the world through the bottom of a bottle (well it was a tin - but you take my point). I will hopefully again become the man that my wife Jeannette remembers prior to my diagnosis in Summer 2008 - and who has diminished a fragment at a time over the intervening years.
That is way too deep for me, time to get back to the silliness and bullshit.
Something I don't think I have touched on so far are the bizarre dreams that I get from the meds - for example last night I composed an 8 part acapella song between dozing off and sleeping - kind of a cross between the Beach Boys and some sort of progressive rock - only about 2 minutes long but I can remember thinking this is fucking ossum - I have to remember this for tomorrow, I can download a little freebie 8 track studio to the laptop and get going on it and my mate Stu can whack some drums over the top of it - can I recall a shred of it? Can I fuck. Another dream a couple of nights back involved me approaching the Small Faces (yeah in the sixties - but I was my age now) with an idea for a promo video for either 'Itchycoo Park' or 'Song of a Baker', which lovingly ripped off almost every aspect of Bo. Rap by Queen, especially the four heads under the spots and the full band rock out at the end after the Beelzebub bit. They loved it - I mean if you can remember the impact it had in 1975 imagine how it would have gone down in 1968 - that was a bloody brilliant dream, with me modestly claiming that these genius ideas just came to me - I was fully expecting The Beatles on the blower next asking for some help with Lady Madonna.
NB Page views for this site passed 4000 (four freaking thousand!) overnight so I though I'd show you the top ten countries - which is all I get to see - and all I can say is thanks for sticking with it you nosey fuckers!
| Entry | Pageviews |
|---|---|
United Kingdom
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3326
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United States
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195
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Canada
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127
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Germany
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88
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Ireland
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81
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Ukraine
|
29
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France
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18
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Spain
|
17
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Australia
|
14
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United Arab Emirates
|
10
|
Counts looking good. Soon be home mate!
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