From the Blogposts » inbox

Fatboy’s Historical Weight and Lung Stats

March 17, 2010

My CF coordinator is the best in the country. /hat tip to Sue @ TGH!! She compiled my PFT and weight stats since 2006 for the site for all of us to see. I put it into a simple little Excel chart in a jiffy, but will be making it look awesome later and edit this wording accordingly.

Pink = Weight -- Yellow = FEV1 %

See that really low trough around Data Point 8? That’s just 3 weeks before our wedding. Yeah, I was sick, sick, sick! See that slope immediately following? The next point was a week after our wedding and the next point was 3 months later; my highest percentage in the last 3 years. You can see every time I go on IVs pretty clearly with this graph with the down, down, up pattern.

This is the time for that trend to end forever!

  • time to get my game on with keeping my weight up (check!)
  • time to start walking (check!)
  • time to start running (let’s walk first)
  • time to start pumping iron (hold my feet to the fire)

A Long Walk, but not The Long Walk

March 14, 2010

We had quite a few things to do today, so I got my exercise in one way or another. It was a sunny, but very breezy 68 degrees in Tampa today, and we just so happen to have an outdoor mall here. It’s just like a regular mall with cool custom storefronts and courtyards and kiosks, only there is a road running down between them all with “city sidewalks” on either side to go into the stores… and there’s no roof. It’s lovely, this time of year; not so much in June, July, August, September!

We parked on one end and pretty much scoured one department store, both levels, and walked all the way to the other end of the mall and went from one end of it to the other, and then ended in the middle department store before heading back to the car by the first store. By the time we were done, my feet were sore because I was wearing my dress shoes with 1.5″ heels! Beautiful asked why I was breathing so loud, but I was doing a lot better than usual. No walking-related spazzes.

As the day went on, I felt tighter and tighter, but it wasn’t for lack of treatments, that’s for sure. Who wants to know the regimen I’m on?

Medical update: I am sending my daily food diary along with the number of meds I'm taking for digestion to the dietician to see if she can figure out why I didn't gain any more weight this week despite eating 32,485 Calories in the last 7 days. That doesn't come cheap!

We Didn’t Go for a Walk

March 12, 2010

Rain, rain, go away!It’s been nothing but non-stop rain here for the last 36+ hours. If it sounds like it’s stopped, don’t be deceived, it’s just sprinkling quietly. It sort of put a damper on our plans to walk after work, but I also couldn’t overcome my exhaustion from a long day of work to get on our Wii to do something cardio like the obstacle course or dance steps. Personally, I think we should borrow Dance Dance Revolution from my brother-in-law and have some real fun with cardio because I like Wii Fit for the balance games more than cardio.

I hit a new BMI record last night, but just barely — by 0.04: 20.55… still progress. I upped my enzymes all day yesterday and made sure I took them with all of my snacks because I had a rough evening the day before. It’s amazing how enzymes can make or break your day.

My wife told me last night that this is the first time that I’ve gained weight and she can see it, other than in my cheeks. My clothes just fit better because I’m now built more like a normal person, my face and neck are nice and full, and even my hands don’t look like Saran-wrapped muscles and tendons due to a thin layer of fat.

We Went for a Walk

March 10, 2010

We started my exercise routine today. My wife said she’d be willing to get up any time or drop anything to exercise with me to know that I’m exercising and visually improving. It wasn’t much of a walk, but it was a start. We trotted off to the mailbox about 1/4 mile away and made a full loop around the neighborhood on the way back, so we put in about 3/4 of a mile and saw just how many townhomes in our development have lock boxes on the doorknobs!

I’m not comfortable pushing it just yet, because I can feel that my lungs feel more like plastic than rubber, if you know the feeling. I sit at the computer and work all day, so the only deep breaths I take are when I’m coughing. Without those deep breaths, it feels like my lungs have taken on a “use it or lose it” mentality of their own. It feels like I’m only breathing with the top 1/3 of my lungs and my diaphragm can’t pull air down any further just yet.

The goal is to get there. Then the goal is to start jogging. I was on the track team in Jr. High, so I know if I can get back to that stage, my wife will have a hard time keeping up, because I was darn good for my stature. Yup, I just threw down the gauntlets.

SOCIAL LINKS