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08/09/2006: "Out of Control"
I think it is somewhere in your late teens or early twenties where you realize that you are in complete control of your body. You learn that caffeinated drinks will help you stay up for late night studying. You learn that you pay for it in discomfort if you eat too much. And that exercise and working out can bring benefits to your body. But when you have cancer, you give up control on several levels.
Naturally, you follow the doctors’ recommendations. First, there was surgery and recovery. Then you they tell you that chemotherapy is the only option. So you go back to surgery where they place a port in your chest. Chemo is every two weeks and at the end of each dose, as you are just starting to feel better, you have to go back in and have them pour the poison back into you veins. Now it is time for me to go under radiation where I am on another fixed schedule and locked down to a table for more treatments. Out of control again.
So I have decided to try and gain back some control and health of my body. Over the past 10 or more years I have not been exercising to the level I think my body needs. With a busy full-time job, a preteen son and an autistic daughter (who won’t fall asleep until 10:30) to raise, and a wife who also works a busy job, there was no time for workouts. Now with my leave from work, I have no excuse.
Over the past several weeks I have begun working out again. I am not interested in the weight room, my preference is in endurance training. I have started running, swimming and cycling. Hopefully, this will get my body to a health level that will assist it in battling cancer and also give me the psychological edge I need in feeling like I have regained some control.