25 years of body building, 3 years off with cancer, starting again from scratch

[iclimbhard]

Hi

I started body building when I was 17. I'm just about to turn 47. Began augmenting my workouts with steriods when I was 18. 3 years ago I was diagnosed with a blood cancer and went through a number of treatments. The weedkiller that is commonly known as chemotherapy made me so weak that I couldn't walk and I was tube fed. Pretty much 3 years in bed or on the couch. When I started chemo I was 167cm tall (5ft 6in), 7% body fat, 122kg the first weigh in for chemo and a resting heart rate of 39bpm. I went down to 56kg. Then the recovery time in hospital and at home I put on flab, up to 89kg, but it was all soft, every bit of it. ICK!!! Dusted off the cast iron and started lifting 2 - 3 days per week 4 weeks ago, but at lightish weights to cut flab. Weighed in at 79kg this morning. I'm working up to be able to return to my former workout style - lifting the heaviest that I can for 3 reps and to do as many sets of 3 as I can until my muscles fail. Have a little rest, do it again. I don't know when I will be able to do that again, but that is what I am working towards at the moment. Chemo changed the shape of one of the valve openings in my heart, so I have to watch that and the reason I joined this forum is:

Chemo for white blood cell cancer has caused a second cancer of the red blood cells. It's called Polycythemia and it is the overproduction of red blood cells by my bone marrow without any steriods, SO, I'm going to need to learn a lot about how to control red blood cell production while on steriods. Doctors say that it isn't possible for me to use steriods any more, but I never listened to them on that issue anyway. If I can work out how to control the red blood cell production stimulated by steroid use , I will hopefully have something to add to this forum on how to do that. The good thing is that I am on weekly blood tests for the next 5 years for my cancer surveillance, so I will have a week by week picture of what is going on. I will correlate that with what steroids I am using and what doses I am taking and if I have to give blood, then how much I have to lose and what part of my roid cycle I do that on. Maybe that will help others out.

At the moment, what I can say is that I have used steriods without ever stopping them, except for during cancer treatment. After the investigations that the cancer docs did on my health, I can honestly say that, for me at least, 25 years of constant high dosage anabolic steriod use has caused me absolutely no harm. It only served to enhance my health and I truly believe that I wouldn't have been alive if I wasn't so fit and healthy when I started one of the most intensely toxic treatments that medicine has to offer. I also believe that it was my health, which couldn't have been built without the assistance of steriods, that has seen me recover to the point where I am now working out again when so many other people I met who were also being treated for leukemia have come out barely alive and most of them chronically ill and weak.

Looking forward to following this site.

[derekkpapa1]

Welcome to the forum.

[jdc91gt]

Wow! Welcome to the community.

[brazey]

Welcome to the community.

[jimmyinkedup]

Welcome to the Forum!

[xcraider37]

Welcome man, hope you get back to 100% pre-cancer form. Sounds like frequent blood donations are in your future. Most on TRT do it every other month you will need to figure out how to do this more frequently (may have to do it yourself). Obviously make sure you get the HCT/RBC tested often, possible as much as every month.

Good Luck to you.

[clarky.]

welcome to the forum

[Tigershark]

Welcome.