Tuesday, December 31, 2013

2013, gone

As usual at the end of the year, here is a short overview about my current physical state:

  1. I spent 4 months in a hospital because of an anti-immune disease called Pyoderma Gangraenosum. It destroys the skin and the area around, and I got a long Cortisone stress therapy to stop that disease. It stopped. My wound healed. So this is very good.
  2. Due to that disease, the time spent in the hospital, the Cortisone, and other medicine, I am in a bad physical condition which concerns my blood pressure, my general fitness, and my body shape.
  3. A few weeks ago I started to train again - nearly every day, strength, aerobics, stretching.
  4. Most parts of my body hurt, quite a lot, and I have difficulties to sleep well, and therefore I often have not enough energy to perform my tasks when I'm awake.
  5. I have overweight, one could say I'm a little bit fat..., so I have to reduce my weight, which is not so easy, but I think I'm on a good way.

And here some general remarks about me and my life:

  1. My wife: our relationship is very good and very important for me. 
  2. Family: is good.
  3. Friends: good, not enough friends, I have to be more active.
  4. Job: is bad. They put me back, because I cannot be at the office every day full time, so they successfully destroyed a big part of my motivation.
  5. Body: I have to fight to become better, but I started.
  6. Leisure time: Many interesting things to do, but I have to focus more on those activities which help me more in my life.
  7. Identity: Struggling to find a new one.
  8. Spirituality: is good. Still in harmony.
  9. Life: I would like to do some important or useful things but haven't figured out yet what to do exactly.
  10. Death: I remember to have died several times a few years ago during the time in the hospital, so I lost some fears about it. My main fear is to die and let my beloved wife alone. Have to think about how to handle this better.
Concluding I would say, I'm on my way, but don't where to go yet :-) 

Have a great 2014 :-)


Sunday, March 31, 2013

Hospital again

Tomorrow I will go to the hospital again. My new disease, which had started half a year ago and which successfully destroy a big part of the skin, flesh, and muscles above my stomach, is becoming too dangerous, so the doctor sends me to the hospital for some weeks.
There they will hopefully find a cure which stops the infection.
And then they have to find a way to close the wound.

I am very curious what will happen and how difficult or terrible it will be for me.



Sunday, January 6, 2013

Another Year, Another Disease

The last 3 weeks were a little bit hard. Nearly every day, I was in a hospital, or met a doctor, or a doctor came to see me at home.

It started three months ago, when I got a small skin problem where the physician finally decided to cut the piece of skin out of the area above my stomach. So far not so bad, but unusual for me. I didn't have any experience with such things.
It turned out the physician cut out a bigger piece of skin than expected. What remained was some kind of black hole... and it did not heal for the next 8 weeks.
Finally we switched to another doctor. He said he would have to stitch and suture the open area with the skin of the nearby skin area. He did it and it went well - at first.

  • Of course I was not allowed to move my body much so that the suture would not open. I am sitting in a wheel chair, and I cannot move much at all, but then it was even less, so it was not a simple time for me. It was painful because my body does not react well when I cannot move my muscles, then my muscles and nerves send hurting signals.
  • I had to take many antibiotics which caused stomach-ache, and made me very tired, so I spent the Christmas time and New Year's Eve in my bed.
  • And it turned out that the skin problem started again, this time around the suture, only smaller as two months ago.
  • At New Year's Eve we got the result from the doctor about the name of the skin disease. It is an auto-immune disease again (as my original problem two years ago which caused my palsy). And again they don't know much about it - neither the reasons nor a possible therapy.
  • I was scared if my body were going to have bigger problems, how my life would go on, and so on.
  • We did some checks at a hospital, and fortunately they had met my doctor there before. They said he is quite good, and that we should trust him.

So currently I take high doses of cortisone again, and my skin has a small bad area where blood comes out when I move my body too fast.

The good thing is that the remaining bad skin area might be small enough so that it might heal some day. We will see.