Day 12 - Adversity Adshmersity

So I know I promised a long winded and overly wordy dissertation on my pros and cons of the PICC line vs IVAD ports.  However, that was before I found out that I would be visited by a lovely virus for the past few days.  It came on at some point on Saturday.  At first I thought it was just general lethargy so I decided to ignore it and push on with my daily bike rides I've been doing ... that may not have been the best idea.  As a result I felt Saturday evening and all of Sunday with a headache that left me feeling somewhere between the guy that Michael Ironside decided to pick on in Scanners, and the scene when Schwarzenegger gets sucked out onto Mars surface.

Ok, ok, maybe I'm taking a little creative liberty with just how bad the headache was, but considering I'm already on this lovely cocktail of IV antibiotics I'm not exactly running at 100%.  That and I watched Total Recall yesterday and seriously, Schwarzenegger made some seriously awesome faces in that movie, I'm so tempted to do a weird Schwarzenegger faces montage but I promise, I'll resist.

So back to the point, the final damage as a result of this little virus means I lost two days of exercise as I also took today off to make sure I was totally over it.  The good news is the outside of losing those two days of exercise, the damage was relatively minimal.  My cough seems to be up a little bit, but I don't really feel any new congestion points.  I'm also sporting an awesome husky whisper as I seem to have completely lost my voice.  Other than that though I managed to force myself to keep my eating up and the rest of the bug seems to have run its course.

Now, since at first the only symptoms present were headaches, a little virus is better than the alternative.  Let me explain, this is one of those times where home IV can be a bit more difficult than a hospital stay.  You have to be very good at noticing warning signs and reacting appropriately.  This is what led to two firetrucks and two ambulances outside my parents house on a Saturday night when I was on Home IV and staying there alone 11 years ago, as well as one of the more entertaining times I've had hanging out at an inner city ER, but that's a story for another day.

One of the meds I'm on is Tobramycin.  One of the side-effects is elevated creatinine levels.  Creatinine is a waste molecule that is created in the blood and filtered out by the kidneys.  If these levels get too high it can lead to complete renal failure.  Obviously, this would be bad.  Now here what they do for patients on Tobramycin doing home IV is that we go in twice a week for blood work so that they can monitor these levels.  Depending on what this blood work shows thy will adjust the dosage amount they send me.  In the past I've had elevated levels as a direct result to being on Tobra and one of the main symptoms that shows up is dehydration.  Now class, all together, what are two of the top signs of dehydration ... lethargy and headaches.  Needless to say when my sore throat showed up and I lost my voice late last night, I was strangely happy.  Had the headaches continued into this morning and no other symptoms had shown up, I was going to be making a few phone calls to some medical professionals.

All in all though, I'm still determined to keep the progress going.  This is just the first little bit of adversity thrown my way in my fresh start to try and get fit.  There will be plenty more in the weeks and months ahead I have no doubt. I'm as focused and determined as ever to keep my progress going.  I've managed to gain 10 lbs in the last two weeks, this means I only have 15-20 lbs to go before I hit my ideal target weight.  Tomorrow, provided I feel as good as I did today, I'm back to the gym for some solid cardio and a circuit of weights.

Thanks again to everyone who keeps reading and offering the encouragement, it's your feedback and support that allows me to take any adversity in stride and have the strength to not let it faze me.