Archive for February, 2006

Progress…slow…

Feb 27th, 06 / 0 Comments

Well, one week ago at this time, I was being wheeled around the hospital to have my second ultrasound in three days. This was all being done in an effort to determine what was wrong with me. Turns out I had an inflammation of the gallbladder. You can read about it here.

A lot has happened in the last week. I’ve felt pretty good at times, and really lousy at times. I’ve nearly driven my poor wife insane with worry and frustration over my health (or current lack there of). My kids are scared that they are going to “Hurt daddy”, and I’m finding it difficult to gather the energy necessary to really be there for them. I love my family more than anything in the world and the thought that I am making things more difficult for them rips me apart; they are my everything. Bottom-line, I need to start feeling better, soon.

I haven’t really had a workout in 2 weeks and I’m finding that I really miss that outlet. I know that right now I am in no position to workout or exercise. I am however looking forward to getting back to that point. I really felt like, in the past few months, I was making good progress. I was feeling fit, healthy, and overall happy. My diet, while not great, was improving and I was looking for way to improve more, and that’s one of the things about this recent bump in the road that is very strange.

About a month ago, shortly after the first of the year, I got on a trip to start reading, researching, and planning better overall health for myself. I’m not sure what made me think this was important, and as I said, I was feeling great and not having any issues. Regardless, I was checking out every book at the library on health, including 8 weeks to Optimal Health by Dr. Weil. This author, title, and subject are all very far from my normal reading, but I felt that I really needed to read it, it felt important. While I was reading this book, I had a wonderful conversation with a friend and found that this may be an important read for him also. Bottom-line, I have continued to read about general health right up to today. One of the books I had in my bag on the day I had surgery was You – The Owners Manual by Michael F. Roizen and Mahmet Oz. I’m a third through it so far and would recommend it to anyone – I’ll do a book review later.

Now I have to figure out what to do with all the information and ideas and translate that into something that will change my life. I’m ready for change. My family is ready for me to change. I need to change.

I’ll keep you posted…

Bump in the road…

Feb 22nd, 06 / 1 Comment

It has been quite a while since I have updated this blog and for that, I am sorry. I will try to be more vigilant in the future and more consistent in my posts. I need to make a commitment to write for at least 10 minutes a day, no matter what.

Anyhow, on to recent developments. One of the main reasons that I haven’t been posting a lot lately is that things have been going so well. Seriously. I have been consistently working out 3 to 5 times a week. Running, swimming, biking, all of it. I was feeling that I was in the best shape of my life. But, as usual for me, there is always a wrench to be thrown in.

On Saturday (February 19, 2006) I started my day with a meeting for the fire department where I work (part-time). Shortly before the end of the meeting, I started to feel a little uncomfortable pressure in my abdomen, which, with my previous weight-loss surgery, was not that unusual. I attributed it to eating a little differently over the previous few days. After getting home, having lunch, and starting to feel much, much worse, I drove myself to the local hospital ER. After the ER docs got me some pain medication and ran some tests, I found out that I had Gallstones and that was causing the pain. They discharged me, told me to get an appointment with my doctor, and gave me some pain medication. I went home. End of story, right? Not even close…

Sunday, I woke up with a dull ache in my gut which I attributed to the previous days issues and trauma. However, the pain continued throughout the day, got worse after lunch, and then I started running a fever which continued on into the evening. By Monday morning the pain was manageable but ever present, and the fever had increased to over 101 degrees. I called my doc and he told me to back to the ER right away. So, at 9:30 am on Monday morning I drove myself back to the ER to be checked out again.

Turns out I had Cholecystitis. This is an inflammation/infection in the gallbladder, and it meant that my gallbladder needed to be removed – soon. So, a few hours later I was in surgery and the darn thing was removed. The entire procedure was done laproscopically, so I don’t have any major incisions or wounds to worry about. Thankfully, I should heal quickly.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

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