doctor_december
Registered
Hi, folks!
My name is Richard and I'm an alco--
oh, wait, that's the OTHER meeting...
Seriously, though, I'm just starting on what I hope is a long road back.
Last year I was diagnosed with cancer. After a lot of chemo and radiation, I had a bone marrow transplant. The doctors aren't making any promises, but this is my last best shot at getting this thing into remission.
Nowadays it sucks to look in the mirror. I've lost 35 lbs of muscle and gained an awful lot of fat in its place. A year ago I could bench press 200 on my home gym for ten reps; now I can barely lift half that.
Still, it's an improvement...during the chemo I had trouble just standing and walking across a room. Now that the transplant's over, I'm off the drugs and trying to get back into some kind of shape. It's not going to be easy to lose the big pot belly I've developed, and get some muscle back onto these scrawny arms and legs, but I'm determined to do just that. It isn't the first time I've felt like the underdog.
As a teenager I looked like the "before" picture in those old Charles Atlas ads. (Yes, I really WAS a 97-pound weakling!) But five years of weight training, starting when I was 17, got me up to 180, with a faily decent build.
Now I'm starting over again at 52. Wish me luck.
My name is Richard and I'm an alco--
oh, wait, that's the OTHER meeting...
Seriously, though, I'm just starting on what I hope is a long road back.
Last year I was diagnosed with cancer. After a lot of chemo and radiation, I had a bone marrow transplant. The doctors aren't making any promises, but this is my last best shot at getting this thing into remission.
Nowadays it sucks to look in the mirror. I've lost 35 lbs of muscle and gained an awful lot of fat in its place. A year ago I could bench press 200 on my home gym for ten reps; now I can barely lift half that.
Still, it's an improvement...during the chemo I had trouble just standing and walking across a room. Now that the transplant's over, I'm off the drugs and trying to get back into some kind of shape. It's not going to be easy to lose the big pot belly I've developed, and get some muscle back onto these scrawny arms and legs, but I'm determined to do just that. It isn't the first time I've felt like the underdog.
As a teenager I looked like the "before" picture in those old Charles Atlas ads. (Yes, I really WAS a 97-pound weakling!) But five years of weight training, starting when I was 17, got me up to 180, with a faily decent build.
Now I'm starting over again at 52. Wish me luck.
