Annual check up and swimming...

Today was a good day. The doctor went over my numbers and they are good. As usual I was in and out in 15 min and under. I thank God for that.

I am a bit tired right now but I want to write a blurb before I head to bed. While the doc was away from the computer, I scanned over it and grabbed as much info about myself as I can.

I found out that my cancer was Hepatoma. I had the operation back in April 12, 1991. Which means, I had the operation at 11-yr-old and it has been almost 15 years. Wow.

My doc, Dr Lilly is using more of me as an example to other docs. There was another doc there and Dr Lilly was explaining to him how come I have to do blood work after two hours and how my case is like and what not. The other doc is actually learning about my case and from the way they talk Dr Lilly must have use me a few times in teaching other docs about transplant patients. I listen to what they were talking about. It was very interesting. I am taking immunesuppression drugs (cyclosporine), the blood work is closely to monitor that.

I am a bit surprise my case is this rare. To be honest, I have not been a model patient. I have frequently miss taking cyclosporine. This is a very bad to my liver as my body will see it as a foriegn host and tries to attack it. I also use to miss blood work so on my file there are gaps of data missing. This is something I definitely going to change this year. Bad health = no training.

I was a Hepatitis B Carrier. This is very common in asia. After the operation, I am negative on Hep B. This is good news. I ask is that common and they said no. They don't know how come the Hep B disappeared but it just does for me.

I talked to them about my training for Ironman and tell them to keep tabs on me. I want to learn more about my blood results. This will be useful in training.

It wasn't too bad. I always enjoy going to the hospital. I know I go there to get well. If I want to die, I can just stay home.

Looking at Will's blog and him mentioning that he can swim. Tonight I told myself it is time to stop holding myself back and start crawling. Struggle or not, I am going to do it. I did 8 laps today non-stop. That's 400 m. I was struggling at the end. It was great. I was going slow but at least I didn't stop and mope about how I can't swim.

I am going to see my swim coach for a consultation. On the pull buoy, I swim with ease. When I am in the water, I start to tense up. I don't know if this is partial mental block or just I can't kick. One new drill I can start working on is one lap pull and one lap swim.

Sleep now. Tomorrow morning more swimming...or struggling.. :)