Monday, May 28, 2012

Blood Thinner, BJJ and Breakthroughs

I have been off the chemotherapy treatment for a little of 3 weeks and I have noticed some significant changes in the way I feel now. I have gone from just eating my little healthy snacks to craving food. I feel like the cookie monster!

Anything that stands in my way is getting devoured.. I have found out the end result of nearly three weeks of scarfing ( yes scarfing, for all you TMNT fans out there) down food have netted me nearly a 15lb weight gain. Fifteen pounds!!!

Also with me being on chemotherapy my PT/INR has been out of whack. That is what I have to get checked monthly to make sure my blood is thin enough to help reduce a blood clot or pulmonary embolism. The normal range for blood thickness should be 1-2 and someone on blood thinners, like me, should have 2-3 range.

When I went to the doctor on Friday, I overheard an excited,"Wow" the doctor had apparently discovered my blood thickness was 6.7. That is double what it should be, which meant I could have suffered internal bleeding or hemorrhaging in the head.

We scheduled a follow up for Monday and he took me off the blood thinners for a couple days and warned
me not to do any extreme projects or get punched in the head to avoid any type of bleeding.

So after a weekend with taking no blood thinners, I go back to the doctor on my day off, Memorial Day, to be told that my blood level was at 1.0 , which is now to thick and leaves me susceptible to blood clots. Now, I have to resume my medication a originally prescribed and continue to get my blood thickness checked on a weekly basis until it levels out! Yay!!

Well, since I was not at risk of bleeding I decided to hit the mats for a Memorial Day roll, we did a
couple techniques and then we commenced to roll.

I think I identified a couple breakthroughs while rolling.
1)I am allowing my hips to stay flat and I am not moving them as well as I should. I am sure there are a hundred other things I am doing wrong, but I cannot fix everything at once.
2)My posture lacks something to be desired. I need to work on keeping my head up and chest forward.
3) I seem to be allowing my opponent to get dominant grips and I am falling into their game, mostly spider guard. This leads me to be swept and the end result, they end up in dominant position working for the

I am going to work on some different hip escapes and to work on keeping moving during the roll. I think that will give me the biggest benefit of all right now and start to pull me out of this slump.

Then I will try to attack the rest of the items that I have found to give me trouble. I'll see how this work out.

1 comment:

  1. I hope your wifey told you about my freak out. I read your last post and had no clue or remembered nothing being said you being on chemo, and thought "When the hell did Aaron get cancer?!" I instantly thought of Wilson and House (and how awesome the conclusion of the final series was...but I digress), and thought I need to go visit immediately! I was getting pretty pissed that no one had told me. :)
    However, Suze explained things and all is well. I hope they get you all figured out soon and I'm glad you have your family and the mat in the mean time. :)

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