Draglist's Journal, 16 February 2017

Coming Clean...

I have been skirting around my health condition for a year now with references on Fatsecret to "med drips," and changes to my exercise routine. I did this because I did not (and still don't) want my friends making a huge deal out of this. I am a person who has a massive aversion to the Facebook style "pray for me" sorts of requests. Not against them for others, but they are not for me. So although this is a pretty wide audience, I'd appreciate it staying here among my FS buddies (and off of Facebook) as it truly does relate to health and strategies for improving that.

I have a form of bone marrow cancer called Multiple Myeloma. I discovered it in January 2016 after going in for a full physical in December 2015. Long time friends may remember that I lost my younger brother Tim to stage 4 stomach cancer in May 2015. Of course, my loved ones wanted me in for a checkup immediately. But me being me -- Mr. Too Busy at Work -- put it off until Christmas vacation. But when I went in, they did find a low red blood cell count. After additional tests with a specialist, we discovered that I did have multiple myloma.

The good part is, because I went in for the physical, it improved my outcome significantly. The honest truth is I still do not feel any pain or loss of energy to this day from the disease itself. That means that had I not gone in for the checkup 14 months ago, it likely would have been festering in my body that entire time. As it is, I was able to get on a full year of chemotherapy (AKA my 'med drips'). That improved my condition and put me in a state of partial remission. (But as I whined non-stop up here, it also caused significant additional inflammation, water retention, and constipation!)

I took the holidays off to let my body recover a bit from the long term chemo. And that took me to this latest stage. HEAVY DUTY chemo (which occurred last night) and then reintroduction of my own stem cells tomorrow. (I was in for a few days last week to extract them and put them on ice).

The chemo dose only took 20 minutes (!) but it will take a week for me to feel its full effect as my blood count numbers decline. They explained today that the body has a reserve of blood cells and the chemo should have stopped the generation process. After I get my stem cells infused into me then the two processes will work against one another for a while. After about a week, the stem cells are expected to win and I'll be on the road to recovery. I was a little nauseous this morning, but otherwise feel great. They are encouraging my LCHF and walking regimen for as long as I can tolerate either (of course I will!)

After I get out, I'll have to continue working from home for about three months. Luckily, my job allows me to do that as I do much of my work via telephone, emails, and written documents. I do a lot of public speaking and that will have to be curtailed. But it will give my outstanding staff some opportunities for exposure. And that's great.

I was a bit blue a year ago but honestly, it's mostly been a scheduling problem with my job and having to take off two days a week throughout 2016 to do chemo. But we got it all done. And now, this is just part of a continuing experiment with my body to see what we can do with good eating and exercise. I've been told I need to get off all my supplements while I'm in the hospital, but I'm good with that. If I wasn't I wouldn't have come. But I plan to begin again when I'm out!

You won't see much change to my daily logs. My trusty Tanita scale is in my bathroom here and I'm still going to record every gram that goes in and every calorie that goes out (via my Fitbit). I do expect to begin retaining water again due to the chemo, but we'll work through that as well.

Thanks to all for your kind support. As always, I'm available via public forum or personal message if you need or have any advice! Glad to be part of this community since 2012 and looking forward to the future!

Bill Pratt AKA Draglist

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1209 kcal

Fat: 56.64g | Prot: 137.76g | Carb: 43.92g.   Breakfast: Schweppes Diet Ginger Ale (Can). Lunch: Swanson 100% Natural Chicken Broth, Green String Beans, Cooked Broccoli (Fat Not Added in Cooking), Parmesan Cheese (Grated), Lettuce, Giant Eagle Cherry Tomatoes, Cucumber (with Peel), Roasted Broiled or Baked Chicken Breast (Skin Not Eaten). Dinner: Blue Diamond Whole Natural Almonds 100 Calorie Packs, Boston Market Rotisserie Chicken (Half), Great Value Beef Broth, Butter, Cooked Carrots, Green String Beans, Cooked Broccoli (Fat Not Added in Cooking). more...

3092 kcal

Activities & Exercise: FitBit Tracker - 24 hours. more...