THE STRUCTURE
Let's get this out of the way first. I am a 28 year old guy with Cystic Fibrosis. Cystic Fibrosis (or CF) is an inherited genetic disease that affects many parts of the body, but mostly the lungs. I'm not great at explaining the intricate details of the disease, so if you want to get into the nitty gritty of what the disease is, feel free to check out CFF's website or, you know, use Google.
The basics of what sucks about CF are this:
- Constantly congested lungs. Like having a bad cold almost every day of your life. Coughing up green crap all the time. Letting that green crap sit in there causes infections and eventual death.
- Thus, having to spend a large portion of your day trying to cough up as much said green crap as humanly possible.
- But wait! It gets better! The disease also affects your stomach, making it impossible (without medication) to properly gain weight.
There's a lot more shitty aspects to CF, but this blog ain't about that. It's about being positive. Well, positive beyond this first post. You have to get the sob story out of the way before you can get to the motivational, fun part.
I was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis in 2002. I had had it my entire life, but never had problems with my lungs until around then. Since my diagnosis, I have grown into many of the regular CF symptoms and problems, including daily coughing, somewhat common chest infections, hospitalizations, etc.
Having said that, I like to think I lead a somewhat normal life. I have a great full-time job at a great company, an awesome girlfriend, our own apartment, etc. I travel quite a bit. I'm certainly not overly restricted because of CF, but there are some limitations to what I can do. Well, I want these limitations removed from the equation.
THE WEIGHT
I've been skinny my entire life, from childhood through today. I'm 5'6, and I can't tell you a single time I was over 115 pounds. Since being diagnosed with CF, I've been only a perpetual roller coaster with my weight that has taken me to some highs (112) but also to very low-lows during times of bad infections. Think double digits. Yikes.
And I'm going to be bluntly honest. My regimen for trying to gain weight sucked because it was essentially non-existant. I've never been an "eater". I come from a family of mostly thin people, just by genetics. If I get busy or stressed or tired, I lose the desire to eat. And especially if I feel sick, which can be quite a bit of the time, any hope of eating like a normal person is just gone.
In March of 2004, I had my first bad infection because of CF and had to be hospitalized. At the time of hospitalization, they decided to place a G-Tube (warning: medical picture [not mine], nothing super gross but I like to be cautious). The G-Tube is essentially a piece of plastic that's an opening directly into my stomach, that then allows liquid calories to be administered overnight to aid in weight gain. But much like my desire to eat alot, my desire to be hooked up to a machine every night was tepid at best. I would do it, but not every day. And many times I would only do it because I knew I had a horrible eating day. It was helping me tread water, not move forward.
THE LUNGS
I think I have good lungs. They're just hampered. I was a super active kid. I even ran track in high school. I don't think it's a coincidence that once I got to college, my physical activity plummeted, and then the CF symptoms reared their ugly head.
My daily CF breathing treatment regimen includes inhaled drugs to help open my airways and help me cough out as much crap as possible. It also features a fabulous piece of torture technology called The Vest, which is basically designed to beat the living crap out of your lungs. Is this fun? No. Is it necessary? Yes. Was I 100% compliant in doing all of these everyday? No.
A good exercise routine is also key to keeping CF'ers lungs in proper working order. Beyond basic walking here and there, I didn't have any sort of structured exercise program. I'd try to start one but just give up after a day or two. Over and over. My motivation just didn't exist for exercise. It was easier to sit in front of the computer all night.
THE TAKE AWAY
So, let's run this down. Not doing full breathing treatments and not exercising leads to crappy lungs. Crappy lungs leads to feeling sick. Feeling sick leads to loss of appetite. Loss of appetite leads to loss of weight. Loss of weight leads to feeling sicker. Sickness leads to hospitalization. Do you see how bad this cycle is? This is how my life was. Not every day or every month, but sooner or later, this is what happened.
When trying to deal with CF, attitude is everything, and my attitude was "I will deal with this later".
In September of 2010, I came down with a chest infection along with a bad stomach bug. Don't ask me how I got two infections at the same time, but it was not fun. The stomach bug, C Diff, essentially cleared me out as horribly as I had seen yet. Even when I was in the hospital, I dropped weight fast, back into the dreaded double digits. This scared the crap out of me. Luckily my chest infection was minor...but what if it wasn't? Would I have dropped even more weight? Would that have lead to even more problems, more sickness? I knew things had to change.
I allowed myself a few weeks to let my body return to normal. but after a visit to the doctor where they wanted t, I decided that enough was enough. I wanted to gain weights, lots of it. I didn't want to be skinny anymore. I didn't want crappy feeling lungs anymore. I want to be healthy and I want to feel healthy.
The Fatnessing begins.
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