Time to get motivated.

I spent most of today at the hospital. Don't panic.. it was just my regular check-ups. An X-Ray and Lung Function tests.

The results are a little concerning but ultimately I shouldn't be surprised as it's something I've suspected all along anyway.
There is an area of fibrosis on my right lung. That's permanent scarring that will never recover. So it's effectively an area that's non functioning. Gone forever.
My overall lung function is no worse than my two previous measurements, which is good. In fact there has been a slight improvement. So at least I'm not getting any worse.

Bad news is that we really need to tread carefully to make sure we stamp out the COP and prevent any recurrence in the meantime. So with that in mind Darren has recommended that I stay on prednisone for a lot longer. Possibly up to two years!

Considering I've put on 15Kg's in the last six months, I really need to modify both my diet and my exercise requirements. I've been a bit lazy about it all. I've assumed that this would be all over within the next couple of months so really haven't bothered too much with restricting my diet. Now is the time to start or risk the secondary health issues that come with long term prednisone use. (Weight gain, diabetes, bone density loss..)

I plan to cut sugar from my diet, drink more water and work on getting my lung capacity better through regular exercise. Heck if people can run a marathon on one lung, I should be able to get through this on one and three quarters.
I refuse to have my life quality reduced by it all. Ironically it stems back to that first dose of chemo. The one that I believe contained an over-dose of the lung damaging drug Bleomycin. Add to that the mantle field radiation treatment I never wanted, that was a total waste of time and massively damaging to my body and it's no surprise my lungs are in the state they are in. But hey! I'm alive to complain about it!  :)

I've started keeping an XL spread-sheet so I can hopefully work out a pattern and see why on some days I am particularly ill and on others I'm fine. This Monday I had a repeat of the aches and pains that I suffered last week (see previous post) and yet I can't see an obvious cause, both occurred on a Monday.

The house had it's final inspection this week and passed on all items except for the water cylinder that required strapping down. The annoying thing was that I had the strapping kit just sitting there ready to put on but had never got around to installing it. I didn't realise it was part of the compliance inspection so had left it. (You'd think the plumber would have installed one when he fitted the cylinder since it was a legal requirement!). Anyway it's all fitted now... did it last night. So we should be all signed off in the next week or so. Apparently one of our neighbours has not had his house signed off yet and he built it eight years ago. Wonder what he's failed on..

OK time to put on my overalls and do some real work. Gotta fit a steering linkage to that Mustang and solder some wires in the boot. Tomorrow is a huge day.. that will teach me to do bugger all for the first half of the week! I have this habit of bulldozing my work towards the end of the week and then I wonder why I get so busy on Thursdays and Fridays. Must stop doing that! :)

Cheers!  ..Ron