Turtles

As far back as I can remember, I have always liked turtles. I'm not sure why, I can't explain it. And if the Buddhists' version of creation is correct, I was probably a turtle in a previous life.

But now I've realized just how perfect it is for me to love turtles.

In July, I had a nurse while I was in the hospital named Mihiri. She was originally from Sri Lanka. I had her as my day nurse for 5 days, so we got to know each other. I thought she was quite funny, and she was a good nurse. I think she enjoyed me as a patient too, because after the first couple days we would usually chat a little bit when she had to come in my room. She appreciated me being so involved in my care and asking questions. One day when my doctor was in the hall after just leaving my room, I remembered something. I called out there, she was still there, and told her a prescription we forgot to discuss. Mihiri commented, to my doctor, "Isn't she good? I love it, I love how she is not afraid to speak up and be involved." My doctor agreed, and said it was unfortunately rare.

So every time I go in the hospital, I take my stuffed animal turtle Bernie. He's the perfect size and shape that he feels like hugging a little pillow. I've had Bernie for... a long time. I can't remember what year it was, but it was the first time I had to be hospitalized at Cardinal Glennon. We had just switched doctors, because our insurance would no longer cover Children's Hospital, so I was a bit down about being in a new place with new doctors (new everyone, really) and on top of that I was sick enough to go in the hospital. The gift shop, at the time, was a tiny room on the way to the cafeteria. Mom, dad, and me went down there to get some food and I commented how cute that turtle was high on a shelf in the window.

Well, sometime later, my parents surprised me with a gift bag... they had bought me that turtle in the window. I named him Bernie and he's been my "hospital buddy" ever since.

Mihiri really liked my turtle, which I usually keep at the foot of my bed during the day; he fits perfectly down there and is out of the way. She was commenting about it and was saying "No, I'm serious. I really think I want to get one for my daughter." Her daughter, she had told me the day before, had graduated college and lived in Maryland. "It would be a nice little gift, just a little something different. A nice reminder 'Slow and steady.'" she said.

I can't get those words out of my head.

What a perfect motto for my life's journey with CF. When I get sick, it's a serious thing, and it's a long, slow battle back to health. Exercising... another great example. On Monday, I had a really hard time walking on the treadmill. It was discouraging. Tuesday was a little better, but I was really huffing and puffing trying to walk at a good 2.7 mph speed. Then yesterday: bam! I could walk 3.0 mph and I was NOT totally beat by the end of it. Slow and steady...

This is also kind of topical as the Olympics were this year. No athlete who went there magically became good at their sport overnight, or quickly. It took years and years of slow progress to get to where they are.

I'm dealt with setbacks all the time. It is SO hard to see the big picture sometimes and see that yes, I'm doing better than I was 3 years ago, and that that's a good thing to focus on. But I have to stick with my treatments, I have to exercise, there are no shortcuts for any of this. Because sure enough, slowly and steadily, I can continue to improve or at the very least maintain my health. I saw the best lung function numbers I've seen in years back in February. I could reach that again sometime.

Slow and steady...

Bernie.

16 Books in 2016

I was able to continue my theme of reading the number of books to match the year this year, and I play to set a goal of reading 17 books for next year! I even surpassed my goal this year, way back in the beginning of October. Recently, I've been slowly re-reading the Harry Potter books, and at this point I'm not going to finish all 7 this year. We've had so much else going on that I've barely had much time to sit and read.

But, without further ado, I give you my small reviews of my books in 2016:

Batman: The Killing Joke — Hailed as one of the essential stories in Batman and Joker lore, this graphic novel had great artwork and a great origin story to boot.

Modern Romance — I started listening to audiobooks with this one (adding audiobooks into the mix this year certainly helped me reach my goal quicker). It was read by the author, Aziz Ansari, and if you're a fan of his humor you will enjoy this book. It was comical yet poignant at the same time, and listening to the author read their own book is a nice treat.

It's A Long Story — This new biography of Willie Nelson was good. I'm not even the biggest fan of his music, but I thought his would be an interesting story. And it was. If you are a fan, this is a must-read.

10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works — This book was all about meditation. But it was written in a no-nonsense way that made the topic very accessible. There was no fluffy voodoo crap, no stories of people sitting around going "Ohmmmmm", just straight-forward talk about this man's situation and how he came to use meditation in his life to control his anxiety and stress, and it was really well done.

Yes Please — Amy Poehler's humorous book... another entry in the obligatory "comedian writes a funny book about life lessons" category. It seems every comedian or celebrity feels they need to write a book like this, and they are all essentially the same. Aziz's Modern Romance book was slightly different, because he actually looked into research and studies about one central topic: relationships in the modern world. This book was fine, but afterwards I decided I was kind of over these types of books; I don't care how hilarious you claim Amy Schumer, or Chelsea Handler, or whoever's new book is, I'm done with this specific genre.

The Fellowship of the Ring — I attempted to read the LOTR books a long time ago and failed. This time, I made it through the first one, but I've been at a dead stop on page 20 of the second one. We re-watched the movies, which are great, and I am glad I am getting around to reading these, but it's been slow.

All the Light We Cannot See — As much as I wanted to like this book, I never could get into it. I'm glad I stuck with it, as the ending was at least somewhat satisfying, but it was hard. The writing style was too drippy-poetic for my tastes, sentences were choppy. Cut up. Like paper scattered on sunlit sand. (See what I did there?) I found the book at times confusing because I wasn't sure which character I was reading about, but mostly I found each character's story too dissonant. The loose theme of always coming back to everything being about light was thin at best and, again, mostly a bunch of poetic flim-flam I wasn't really in the mood for.

From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava — My cousin passed this book onto me, because she knows we both like dog books. It was an interesting story about a soldier who 'adopts' a dog while in the military over in Baghdad, and the hoops he has to go through to bring her home. Not bad, especially for a dog lover.

When Breath Becomes Air — I'm going to declare this my favorite book of 2016. It's a memoir from a neurosurgeon who suddenly ends up with terminal cancer. He is extremely introspective and reflective on what life is about, what makes life worth it, and other deeper musings. It was a quick read, but a really, really good one. Grab a tissue box. Even for someone who deals with these topics more often than the average person, it had me in tears more than once.

Little Bee — A slightly different book, but rewarding. It's hard to say what it's about, but I thought it was good.

Animal Farm — I'm glad I finally read this classic. Once again, as most distopian or satirical classic novels are, this book proved true in multiple ways. It was also especially interesting to take note of different things in the book and different things that happened during the election campaigns.

I Am Malala — Malala's story is an interesting one, and one worth telling, but I didn't find this book phenomenal like some people did.

Inside of a Dog — Fairly intriguing ideas and concepts, but I began to lose interest about 2/3 through. This book is extremely detailed and reads kind of like a psychology study published in a medical journal, so it's not for everyone. It was a tad too long-winded.

All the Ugly and Wonderful Things — A new book from a new author this year, this one was really good. The story is not exactly pretty, as it is about a child who lives with drug-addicted parents, but it was worth the read.

The Joker — This graphic novel was a darker take on the Joker. The artwork was simply stunning; one of the early pages with the Joker walking out of Arkham Asylum was beautifully done. The story was pretty good too, but the artwork was so great!

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks — This book got to be long-winded. The author weaved in her own story of investigating HeLa cells and the family of Henrietta, which I understand to a point, otherwise the book would have been too dry and medical. But the details upon details about the author's daily life were not needed. The audiobook version also became very grating with the voices the reader was using. All in all, just meh.

The Book Thief — Great book! It was creatively told from a very different voice and kept the story very interesting and enjoyable. 

And after that, I've been reading the Harry Potters. So there you have it! 

Photo Shoot: Lesson Learned

I've been sitting on the following blog for quite a long time, so I thought I'd finally publish it. Here goes:

I thought I'd share some thoughts I had after our photo session from last fall, in case you might be thinking of doing one yourself in 2017.

With everyone and their brother proclaiming themselves as photographers these days, there is definitely an over-abundance of choices for photographers to use for photo shoots. Being the person I am, I am very, very particular about photographers. I'm also a harsh critic. Most people are fine with almost all of the work that is out there, but truthfully there are a lot of mediocre photographers who don't really know what they're doing, which bugs me. It devalues the creative work of people, like myself, who actually know what we're doing—but that's another rant for another time.

Last year, I had my list narrowed down to three photographers whose work was seemingly up to my standards. One was significantly cheaper than the others, they had done my friend's wedding and their photos looked great, and we went with them. They had good photos on their Facebook page with nice outdoor backgrounds, on a piece of property they have set up specifically for this.

My first suggestion for doing a photo shoot is: Book early! Unfortunately, I put off contacting the photographers for a little while. I wanted a date in the fall when the trees would be turning—like lots of people, I'm sure—but they were almost all booked up and I was going to to have to push off our shoot until the spring. I learned that they are now more of a 'group of photographers' and we wouldn't have the woman who shot my friend's wedding. I jumped at the one open session, which turned out was with one of their B-list photographers. I realized later that the lady I emailed with to set all this up was the main family portrait person, the girl who did our shoot was not.

Our photo shoot was short and sweet, and we had a decent time. Our photographer seemed knowledgeable enough. I said I wanted some photos with just us, some with our dog, but I was leaving the rest up to her expertise. She was pulling up various poses on her phone for ideas during the shoot, which was fine with us, and we were done in 40 minutes and heading back home with Josie not too traumatized.

A few weeks later, we received our "preview" on Facebook, which is how this group does it. They posted about 8 photos of us to their page, and I shared the album with excitement. The photos looked great, but it would still be another month or two before we got all of them back.

I will say a small complaint right now about the photographers we used, and I know it's very nit-picky, but to me it was very evident whose photos they loved, and whose photos they were just doing their job. For some super cute families or couples, they kind of went on about how adorable they were, how much fun they were, what-have-you, and then for the other not-so-perfect people, of which I will lump in our set of photos, there was nothing. It was just like "Well, here's the photos of these people, they're nothing special." It kind of hurt, just a smidge. Like I said I know this is nit-picky, but it felt like a subtle way of saying "This isn't our best work, but here's your photos anyways." Either they should fake enthusiasm with all of their clients' previews, or just post them with no comments. I imagine I can't be the only person who's ever picked up on this.

The day came when I got our photos back, and it was ahead of schedule. I downloaded all of the images, super excited to see the rest of them.

And then... my excitement subsided as I started to arrow through them. They were not that great, and there were a few that were downright bad and I was surprised they included them in our final selections. Essentially, all of the good ones were the ones that were posted in our Facebook preview. There weren't many 'new' ones that particularly wowed me.

Jarrod and I sat down and marked which ones each of us liked, and there ended up being 12 photos we liked, 7 of which we felt worthy of getting prints of, and 22 that we didn't like at all. So here is the live and learn part...

Nope, never getting prints of this one.
Plus, the lighting is awful on this.

Most of the photos we didn't like were ones where we weren't looking at the camera. There were a lot of cutesy poses where we were gazing into each others' eyes, kissing, or just sharing a gentle smile, not looking at the camera. Some people might be a fan of those, but honestly I don't know who would get large prints of those to hang on their walls. This isn't an engagement photo shoot, I really don't need a bunch of lovey-dovey photos. I'm not going to hang a large 11x14 of the two of us kissing in my house, I'm going to hang up the family portrait of us and our dog. Furthermore, from a guy's perspective, Jarrod didn't care for those because he said "That's just not me, I'm not like that." And it's true. It's nothing against Jarrod whatsoever, because I would venture to guess that most guys aren't exactly movie-style romantics. So for him those seem very unnatural, and honestly they feel that way to me too. I didn't say anything during our shoot because I didn't realize just how many of them (photos not looking at the camera) we were taking. And, live and learn.

Basically, the next time we do this I want more traditional, portrait-style photographs. Some people want the cutesy photos, but now that I've gone through this, I learned I'm not one of them.

And, remember how I said I was really picky about photographers? Well, turns out their photo-editing skills are not as good as I thought, especially on their black and white photos. Take a look at the comparison I loaded on here. The top photo is their version, the bottom is mine.

Really, whenever we do this again, I just need someone to take the photos and to send me the raw files. I can do the editing myself, which I'd almost prefer seeing as how few people actually know how to do it well. I'm not even an expert, but I feel I can edit out some really natural-looking photos that look good. The black and white photos we received were not great, and after about 10 minutes in Photoshop, I had them looking way better. I did a blind test with Jarrod and asked which one he preferred, not telling him which one was mine and which was theirs, and he picked mine every time.

It's kind of funny because for this photo shoot, we had a good time with the photographer, but the photos we ended up with were just so-so. For our wedding, the photographer ended up driving us nuts, but we got some damn good photos from him. Maybe if we're lucky, next time I can find a fun photographer AND they know how to take great photos, haha!

My last suggestion is the most difficult. If possible, I would suggest hiring a photographer you know. Even if it's just a little. Picking a photographer is much like picking a name out of a hat, and that was certainly my case. Yes, they had photoed my friend's wedding, but it was a different person who only does weddings, not the actual photographer we got. Ironically, the same week we got our previews, I also saw a really neat piece about 6 different photographers who took a photograph of the same man. Each person was told a different story about the man, and it showed that photos are entirely dependent on the photographers impression of you, the subject. Check it out here, it's a short little fascinating video. With that in mind, if you can find a photographer who knows you, I would bet your photos are going to be even better because of it. They might know a tiny bit of your own life story that influences their work just enough to produce some really spectacular images. Next time I do this, I'm going to most likely choose someone I kind of know.

Tale of an Undecided Voter

For the entire election season, I have been consistent in my immense distaste for both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

For weeks, I have been adamant that on election day, I would go to the polls. I would vote in the state races, but I would be leaving the box for president blank.

Then today was the day.

Usually about a week before the election, you start hearing musings such as "If anyone is still undecided at this point, that's ridiculous" or "How on earth could you not know who you're going to vote for at this point?"

Up until this morning I was steadfast in my decision. Then I felt like my protest of not voting wasn't much of a protest at all, and I needed to pick someone. After all, it's not like anyone counts up the amount of votes not cast. I texted a couple people in a state of panic over the bundle of nerves I found in my stomach.

In the afternoon I drove to my polling place and parked.

And I sat in my car mindlessly browsing through my phone for 15 minutes. I wasn't looking at anything, it was just my cover up to avoid staring into space while I still was trying to decide what I was going to do.

I finally decided it was time to walk in; I couldn't delay this any longer.

I filled out my entire ballot, except for the first question. And I sat there for another 10 minutes staring at the boxes for president, trying to still decide what I wanted to do. Should I leave it blank? Should I pick someone?

I started to fill in a box. Immediately as I made my outline, my stomach dropped.

I filled in the box completely. And stared at my choice. For a moment, I thought of going and asking for a new ballot saying I had changed my mind. For a moment, I felt good about it. For a moment, I almost cried.

But I just sat and stared. Another 10 minutes. All the people who walked in with me had come and gone, new people coming and going.

In the end, I knew I had to get up at some point, just like I knew that eventually this day would get here. Walking to turn in my ballot, my inner voice was wondering if I had made a choice that I could be okay with.

I turned in my ballot. It's over, done. No going back. No redo's.

I think I made the right choice for me.

Picking Up Groceries

Tonight I used the Walmart Grocery Pickup for the second time. I'm officially a fan.

If you haven't heard of it, some Walmart stores are now offering Grocery Pickup, which consists of ordering your items online and, you guessed it, picking them up at the store. No walking through the store involved.

You can order deli meat and cheese, fresh meats or veggies, household items, pharmacy items, toiletries, cosmetics; there is an impressive amount of stuff available. Building a cart online is super easy, you reserve your time slot for when to pick them up, pull into the designated spaces next to the store, call to tell them you're there, and then they bring out your stuff. It's awesome.

Moms are loving it because they don't have to drag their children through the grocery store. I am loving it because of my health issues. There are some times where I just don't have the energy to walk through the store. And I cannot tell you how happy I am that this is now an option for the upcoming cold and flu season. I won't have to walk through the store and potentially immerse myself in everyone's germs.

The first time I tried it all told my trip took about 20 minutes, from the time I pulled up and called to let them know I was there, to when they were done loading my groceries in my car—which is still at least half the time I'd spend in the store. This second time only took 8 minutes. And they've given me a complimentary bottle of water both times since it's kinda hot. Nice touch!

I promise I'm not getting paid for this post haha, but I wanted to spread the word because I'm hoping this program is here to stay. If you are interested in trying it out at your own Walmart, email me and I can give you my code to get $10 off your first order (I get $10 off too.) It's not available everywhere, only select stores, so you'll have to check if your store offers it. Honestly, I think this will stick around because I see this as the way of the future. I can totally see a future where Walmart has a set of retail stores like they have now, and another building that is just a straight up warehouse where workers pick your items for Grocery Pickup. There isn't really a storefront, there wouldn't be any cost to make the store look nice, just people getting your groceries together and you driving up.

Friday Fast 5

Five quick things!

1. I've been in the mood to do some "fall cleaning." What is it about the change in seasons that seems to motivate many of us to tackle our crap? We didn't do a spring clean this year, but I've been itching to get rid of some things. Yesterday I started getting to work and filled two trash bags with stuff, and started parking outside so I can put stuff in the garage, haha. 
2. I love Hill-Rom, the medical equipment company. My vest machine that I use that is essential to my health had started showing big time signs of wear in the past week. I first noticed it on Sunday. It worked fairly ok on the lower settings I do but had a hard time keeping up on the ultra high settings. It was like it couldn't force enough air into the vest to actually pulse it against my body, it was just loosely shaking. I checked the hoses for leaks, I checked my vest itself for holes, and didn't find any so that wasn't the problem. I got my latest vest machine back in April 2013. I pulled out the manual to see what the lifetime expectancy on it was, and it was two years with "normal use." Who knows what normal use is, but I suspect I use it more than normal since I do 3-4 treatments a day, instead of the normal 2. I've clocked 1333 hours on it. I called them on Wednesday, explained my issue, she looked up the serial number for my vest, and I assume it showed her I've had it for over 3 years, well past the life expectancy. She was overnighting me a new one and I should put my defective one in the box to ship it back. I repeat: I love Hill-Rom. I don't think I would ever switch vest manufacturers simply because their customer service has always been so hassle-free. Usually nothing in the medical world is easy like this, so it's awesome that I don't have to jump through hoops for this thing that I need every day. They didn't ask for my current insurance, they are just sending me a replacement. That tells me they're committed to providing good equipment, and I am ever so thankful (now, getting an initial machine for your child can be a hassle depending on insurance, but thankfully these replacements are not.)
3. Josie's birthday is tomorrow. She turns 4! I got her some cookies, some Frosty Paws doggie ice cream, and a new duck toy she can destroy. Can't believe we've had her for almost 4 years. In human years, she is turning 32 haha.
4. I'm so ready for fall, as I think most are. Earlier this week was a bit cloudy and cooler, especially in the mornings, which was a nice little glimpse of things to come. Actually, I'm so excited I think I'm going to put up all my fall decor as soon as the calendar turns September.
5. I've been growing my hair out since last Christmas and I think I've finally reached a length I'm happy with! It is similar to my hairstyle I had for our wedding. I don't want to grow it out super long, or even shoulder-length like I had in high school. I'm at a bit of a decision point though... do I want to dye it? or do like a wave/perm thing? or keep it straight? I loved having my short pixie cut, but was ready for a change. I am sure I will go back to my pixie cut at some point, but for now I'm excited to have options again!

One Day More

Tomorrow I am scheduled to finish up IV meds. I'm so ready... I haven't had a shower since July 27th. Miraculously, I don't smell. I wash my hair over the side of the tub and give myself baby wipe baths, and thankfully that's enough to keep me moderately clean and presentable in the meantime.

I've been home since last Tuesday. I came home on two meds, one a full-time, 24/7 IV pump and the other running every 8 hours. The medicine I was on 24/7 ran slowly all the time. This was a first for me, I've never had this kind of setup at home but I figured it was worth a try. So I carried around "Chad the CADD pump" with me everywhere I went. Chad and me were friends.

The benefit to it is you only have to change out (refill) the medicine once a day. The other method would have been running the med every 4 hours, which would mean no more than 3 hours of sleep or naps at a time. I tried that once before and it was exhausting; it practically negated the benefit or desire to be home. Even though being hooked up constantly felt limiting, the IV pump was actually pretty small and light so I was able to get around the house ok, and I was allowed rest. But after a while it did get a bit cumbersome.

We ran into some issues starting on Saturday. I was having tingling and prickling feelings all over, which is very unpleasant let me tell you. If you could imagine your body is a hollow container, and it's full of lightning bugs, it would be like each lightning bug lighting up is a like a tiny prick from a needle, in a different spot every time and in varying intensities. We finally decided to stop the 24-hour med on Monday after trying a few things didn't alleviate the prickling.

I've continued on the other medicine and will finish with it tomorrow.

It's been nice to be home, but it'll be even nicer to get back to normal.

Heading In

I know, it's been a long time. I just haven't really been in the mood to write lately.

But, I figured that as always this is the easiest way to let everyone know... I will be heading in to the hospital for a regular tune up this week.

I've been coughing more and more in the past few weeks, and I've hardly gotten a full night's sleep in well over a month, at least without the help of some super strong cough syrup. Maybe one night a week I'm able to sleep the whole night through, but it hasn't been much.

We have a game plan already figured out, which is the way I prefer to do these things if at all possible. I do a PFT ahead of time and also provide a sputum culture so we can figure out before I get there what we're up against. Otherwise, it's potentially wasted time because my sensitivities to drugs and what kind of bacteria I'm culturing change regularly.

This time we are dealing with only ONE strain of bacteria that is fairly resistant, but not entirely, and my only options are all stuff I'm allergic to. Not the best news, but definitely not all bad since there is only ONE enemy this time to fight. So I will be admitted straight to the ICU to get the desensitization process going first thing, instead of, again, wasting time and spending one day on the floor doing nothing (but still paying for it, of course) and then going to the ICU on day 2. No thanks, I'll just get the ball rolling asap please.

As an aside, in case anyone is lost, a little CF301: Sputum Cultures here to explain everything I'm talking about. Every time I come in the hospital or a clinic appointment, I do a "sputum culture" which is where you cough up something and send it off to the lab. It takes 5 days to complete, because the ones they do for us CFers are very detailed. Once at the lab, they determine A. what bacteria are growing and B. the drug sensitivities of said bacteria/bugs. The two biggest players in the CF world are staph (particularly MRSA) and Pseudomonas. There are others bugs that are bigger concerns, but those two are the most common. There can be different strains of the same bacteria. Each one is different, each one can have different sensitivities. When I say "sensitivities" it means if the germ is "sensitive" or "resistant" to a specific medication. As in, a medication will work with something that is sensitive, but it won't if the strain is resistant. This is why sometimes, if you catch bronchitis and the antibiotic the doctor gives you doesn't work, it's because the bacteria you have is not 'sensitive' to the med and it needs to be switched. Except, for the average person, they're probably not going to run a sputum culture just to figure it out because most people don't have very resistant super special bacteria. I'm just special like that.

Randomly, I was going thru old emails today and found a culture from this exact same time last year with what appears to be the exact same strain. It had the same sensitivities and everything, so maybe this one has settled in for the long haul. However, at this time last year, there were 2 other strains of bacteria too, so that's why I am VERY happy to see only one came back this time. I guess we won the war against the other two—for now—so they have been banished from the land that is my airways.

I'm expecting this stay to be a bit different because I won't be on my usual floor. It is currently under renovations and apparently even when they do reopen it, they are short on nurses and aren't sure what they're going to do. So I have no idea if I will have the same nurses as before or not. I'm guessing not, which will be a shame. I always enjoy seeing some of my nurses. You develop a kind of friendship after a while, seeing them as often as I do.

But I'm feeling good and hopeful about this stay. I'm not as sick as sometimes where I'm in such dire need of meds, but I'm still definitely sick enough to constitute what we're doing. So I'm hoping that bouncing back won't be as difficult.

A Wonderful Vacation

Jarrod and I returned Sunday afternoon from a wonderful, nearly perfect anniversary vacation to Branson. We are celebrating five years of marriage!

We started our vacation Thursday morning eating breakfast at Cowan's. Jarrod had never been there before, so it was high time we went, haha! It had been years since I had gone there too.

A really beautiful sunrise Friday morning from our window.

Friday we rented a boat and went out on Table Rock Lake for four hours. The weather forecast was a little iffy, with a 40% chance of pop up rain/storms, but it turned out great. It wasn't too windy, it didn't rain or storm. It was pretty hot and humid, so the water felt good.

Saturday, on our actual anniversary, we drove towards the dam to a viewing area you could pull off onto. There was a road we found, and we weren't entirely sure where it would end up, but it came out down near Tanycomo, where trout fisherman could wade in. This fisherman was nearby and he became the perfect subject for taking photos:

Oh, and: goose butts. Hahahahaha!

We were in Table Rock State Park, even though we were next to Lake Tanycomo (which, Jarrod informed me: Tanycomo is named for being in Tany County, like Tany Co. Mo.? Someone must have been bored when they named that lake.) There was an entrance point to the trail system and we decided to do one of the loops, and I crossed one thing off my bucket list: go hiking! Yay! I brought my camera with me, and was having fun taking pictures along the way. But the bigger deal here is that I hiked! I kept a good pace and of course I was breathing hard at times, but I'm so happy I was able to do it! It had some steep inclines and uneven rocky terrain, but Jarrod said that it was very well-marked and a pretty good trail. But next time, we'll bring bug spray and do a Map My Route at the beginning for fun. Live and learn, haha.

Light in the forest.

We had dinner at the White River Fish House, which is actually Bass Pro's restaurant down on the Branson Landing. It was really good! I would recommend it. Afterwards we came back to our hotel bar to enjoy a cocktail and to our surprise, around 9:00pm a piano player arrived to play on the baby grand.

He was SO enjoyable! It was absolutely delightful listening to him. His improvisation was incredible. He asked for requests and would play from memory, or make it up, or a little of both. He never looked at a piece of music the entire time, it was all in his head. One woman asked for "Dream A Little Dream of Me" and he got up to hum a few notes with her to establish he remembered the song, sat back down and said "Ok, I got it. I'll throw in a nice bridge in the middle." He came over and asked me for a request at one point, and asked if I sang. I said "Ehh... sometimes." He said I looked like a singer or a dancer, he thought maybe I was "in the biz" there because I "just had that smile, that confidence about you." Aw... :) I requested "Singin' In the Rain," and he made that one up as he went but it was spot on. He played ragtime, musicals, he played pop songs in the style of a jazz tune, he played a jazz tune in the style of a waltz. It was wonderful.

Turns out he is there most Friday or Saturday evenings, and when I looked him up online, found in his bio that he has worked with numerous television shows/specials as a composer, conductor, or musician; Dick van Dyke, the Tonight Show, Matlock, Donnie and Marie Osmond, Sammy Davis, Roy Clark, Jack Benny, the Academy Awards, plus tons more and he moved to Branson back in the 90s to play and conduct for Andy Williams at his show there. Now he plays at the Chateau on the Lake. If you are ever in Branson on a Friday or Saturday evening and you want to hear a talented jazz pianist, you have to drive over to Chateau to listen to this guy.

Sunday we ate breakfast and played one last round of mini-golf before heading home; mini golf is one of my favorite things to do in Branson since there's an abundance of courses. The breakfast spot was Billy Gail's, which came highly recommend by my mom's friend, Gwen. They offer free coffee while you wait, and it was possibly the best pancake I've had in my life. Yes, pancake, singular, because the pancakes are colossal. They're larger than the plate and bring up visions of Uncle Buck trying to flip a pancake with a snow shovel.

Me and my pancake. Seriously, how do they flip this thing over?

All in all our trip was so wonderful: great weather, great time, things went well, hardly any hiccups, and pretty much all of the places we ate at were good or awesome.

If you'd have told me five years ago that on our 5th wedding anniversary I would be hiking through the Ozarks, I don't think I'd have believed you. Actually, I know I wouldn't have because back then I wouldn't have felt it would be possible for me to do it. These past five years married to Jarrod have been so good, and I look forward to many more.

Sunset from the lookout point on Saturday evening.

Oh What A Beautiful Morning

I wouldn't describe myself as a morning person, but maybe I'm a semi-morning person. I have a hard time getting out of bed, as of late I'm lucky if I'm out of bed by the time Jarrod leaves for work at 6:45am. But once I am up, I am UP and ready to get things going.

This morning, I woke up at 4:00am coughing. I got up, got some albuterol, sat up for a bit, went back to bed, couldn't fall asleep, and got up at 5:15. I already feel like I've done so much!

I love sunrises, and I've enjoyed seeing the sunrise this morning. I've also been delighted to watch the birds up and about. The birds chirp and tweet a lot during the wee morning hours, if you've never noticed, and they have been busy busy gathering bugs for breakfast. I should have had my camera out because a robin, a bluejay, a cardinal pair, and some sort of crow all stopped by on the deck to perch.

In addition to staring out the windows a lot, I did my treatment, finished a Netflix movie, ate pancakes for breakfast, got Jarrod's lunch together, put a load of laundry in, showered, and now I'm writing about it all. And it's STILL not even 8:00am!

I love feeling so productive, but man... when the alarm clock is going off it is so hard to get out of bed.

Right or left ?

Are you right-handed? Or left-handed?


I'm right-handed in writing, but I'm a bit of a mix-up when it comes to dominant sides. I've been recently reminded of this with the camera I got for an early birthday present.

I decided to try putting my right eye on the viewfinder and realized that cameras are built for right-eye dominant people, just as most things are made for right-handers. I'm left-eye dominant so instead, my oily nose smushes up against the back of the camera and always leaves a smudge on it.

But my confusion doesn't stop there. I also play sports semi-left-handed, haha. I golf as a lefty, bat as a lefty, play tennis as a lefty, but I shoot pool as a righty, throw a ball with my right hand, and if I hunted I would shoot with my right hand (and with a dominant left eye that would make things kinda complicated.)

I was wondering if handedness is genetic, since my mom is left-handed and my dad is right-handed. Scientists suspect that it is genetic, but not in the traditional sense that explains why I have CF (I do), if you have red hair (I don't), or which of your toes is longest (my second one.) All of those follow the standard dominant/recessive patterns. Genetics have always fascinated me and I would love to look at a whole bunch of data on traits people have and inherited, just for fun.

So I have no answers as to my odd combination of the two, but I have yet to hear of many other people who have things both ways like I do. I know they are out there, but again, I'd love to see some data on just how many of us there are. So I ask you, are you kind of a mix when it comes to right- or left-handedness like me?


 
As a side tangent, if you're unsure which is your dominant eye, there's a little trick you can do to find out. I didn't figure this out "officially" until a few months ago, though I've always closed my right eye in times where you need just one eye open; I just didn't give it any thought.

Friday Fast 5

1. Wow! It's been a month since I wrote anything on my blog.
2. I've decided to try and cook one new recipe each month, and on Tuesday my new dish for dinner was Mongolian Beef. And it turned out awesome! I was so happy. I made the sauce, cooked the beef, got the rice and noodles ready and it all tasted so good. Jarrod said it tasted better than the restaurant versions he's had, so woo hoo! If anyone wants the recipe, email me. 
3. A bit of advice when making Asian food at home: Jarrod and I have found that you must make your own sauce. It's more ingredients and a little more time, but it makes your kitchen smell oh-so-good and tastes 100 times better than sauce you can buy in a jar. I have another copy-cat recipe for PF Chang's Spicy Chicken where you make the sauce, and it also tastes great. We've tried going the easy route and buying the Panda Express orange chicken sauce and another General Tso's sauce with lackluster results. It doesn't end up tasting like takeout, and it doesn't taste all that great either. So, it's all in the sauce!
4. Last week was a stormy week. Thankfully, we were spared some of the worst. But Josie was stressed out a bit more with the bad weather. I went downstairs with her a couple times, which seems to be the best way to handle her storm anxiety so far. We sit in the back treadmill room where the wind, rain, and thunder cannot be heard much. More than anything, I'm trying to establish a consistent place for her to go, and hopefully this bit of training is catching on... slowly. I watch the radar on my phone and once the coast is clear we come back upstairs. 
5. This year midway through Lent, I decided to give up Facebook on my phone. Once Lent was over, I talked about how I might keep it up most of the time in another blog post. Lent ended almost two months ago, and I am still keeping up with it! I am very, very happy with my decision. I log out of my Facebook app every time I am done using it, and for me that has been the key to keep me off of it. Being met with the login screen each time I open the app is like a stop sign for me to mentally ask myself Do I REALLY need to check Facebook right now? Why am I doing this? and sometimes I log in and see what's up, and sometimes I just close the app and leave it alone. On the rare occasion I don't log out when I'm done, it's like my brain knows that the cookie jar is wide open so it just wants to keep going back for more and more treats (excuse my metaphor, but I thought it worked haha) and sure enough, I find myself coming back to Facebook 3-4 times in an evening, just like old times, scrolling through hoping for something new. If you're wanting to reduce your social media time, this plan of attack would be my suggestion. It still allows you to get on there, but that tiny little pause is enough to break the habit of just opening the app over and over without thought.

OMG You Guys!

I just found out today that we here in our little city will be in the pathway of a TOTAL Solar Eclipse next year, the one happening on August 21, 2017.

What an awesome, once in a lifetime event! The last total solar eclipse to cross the continental United States from coast to coast like this one happened in 1918... so yeah, kind of a big deal.

If you weren't aware, I'm a bit of a space junkie. I have always loved space, it was one of my three topics I was really interested in as a kid (the other two being Native Americans and the Titanic.) My favorite planet is Jupiter, and I felt sad the day they announced Pluto got demoted from being a planet.

Pathway of the entire eclipse.

Now that I'm older, I still love space and I am constantly in awe with the news and discoveries coming from the universe, like this year when scientists announced they had proven the existence of gravitational waves, which is a theory by Einstein. They constructed this massive detector with lasers and math beyond my comprehension to measure the waves, which are ripples in space time, hoping they might find one, and just for like a nano-nano-nano-second of time they had a blip on the charts which thus proved that indeed a wave had passed over the earth from a black hole that formed 1.29 billion years ago. Like, does that not just totally blow your mind? Mind officially blown.

OK, back to eclipse stuff. I keep saying total solar eclipse because that "total" part is a big deal. Partial solar eclipses are more common, where the moon blocks out part of the sun's light, making the sun look like a glowing cookie with a bite out of it. Total eclipses are rare, and even less common during daylight when it will be noticeable, like the one coming next year. This is the kind where the entire sun will be blocked, you will only see a ring of light around the moon, and the land will be in total darkness during the middle of the day. How. friggin'. cool.

In our particular spot (this is important) the sun will be completely covered for 2 minutes and 28 seconds, quite a long time. The longest duration is 2 minutes 40 seconds, and that will happen near Makanda, Illinois. So we've got a nice long chunk of time to observe the eclipse. And if my calculations are correct, it will happen from 1:15-1:18 p.m.

You can see the path of the eclipse in the map below. The red line is the central path, the blue lines are the limits of where you'll be able to see it. As you can see, we are very near the central path; St. Clair and Leslie are nearly dead on, St. Louis proper is just out of reach.

So that's my excitement for the day. I'm marking my calendar. Maybe I'll listen to some Pink Floyd. Space nerds from all over the world will travel to the US to see this. We just need the weather to cooperate. How disappointing would it be if it was raining that day?!

A cold is not just

I realized I never blogged my results. Sorry about that!

So after all those days of coughing, and the tests, it all came back to say I had a cold and a pulmonary exacerbation, which is the typical pulmonary thing I have when I go in the hospital. 

But boy, this sure was a doozy of a cold. And it didn't even feel like a cold! I didn't even have nasal symptoms until Monday. And even stranger, kind of, is no one has gotten sick from me. I'm relieved, obviously, but also because I always ask that everyone let me know when they're sick, and I feel bad I couldn't return the favor. In my defense, though, again, it just didn't feel like a cold or anything that was contagious, it felt like CF stuff. I almost wonder if I got a cold mid way through my pulmonary issues. Who knows. 

I'm doing better, but if I exhaled sharply for you, you'd hear how awful my airways sound; similar to a 70-year-old smoker kind of hacking. So I still have a long climb back up. And based on everything I've been hearing about cold season, even NORMAL people are getting colds that last 2-3 weeks. So this might take a while. I have no idea why the cold virus going around here has become so strong. 

We've said it before but this is proof in the pudding that a cold just isn't a cold for someone with CF, it can be a dire, possibly-send-you-to-the-hospital situation. Cover your coughs, folks! Haha

Not doing the best...

Well, I almost made it through cold and flu season scotch free, but it just didn't happen.

Last Thursday evening, I started coughing after I walked on the treadmill. It continued basically all night, while trying to watch a movie with a friend. I slept in the recliner, because laying down makes me cough in times like these, and semi-sitting up is the only possible way to get sleep.

Friday was much of the same: I coughed through work, I was extremely short of breath, I tried to take a nap but maybe only got 30 minutes. My parents wanted to take Jarrod out to dinner for his birthday, and I waited until the last minute to decide if I felt we should reschedule. We ended up going, and I made it through, but was still coughing consistently.

I didn't feel sick, it didn't feel like a cold or something. It felt kind of like a flare-up, some sort of pulmonary attack, possibly from my bugs I have down in my lungs all the time.

Saturday, still coughing. Again, I tried to rest all day because we had an event to go to that evening with some friends, and I really wanted to go. I still didn't feel like I caught something, this felt like it was all CF-related me issues and therefore I wouldn't be contagious. I decided to go to the event, but would leave if it got to be too much. I ended up leaving a bit early towards the end.

Sunday... the cough itself was worse. It was deeper, worse sounding. I kept up on my breathing treatments, and did my Aerobika for 4 hours hoping it'd help and then I would be done coughing. But it still didn't happen. I mean, it's still a good thing I cleared stuff out, but it didn't abate my cough in the least. I had a constant wheeze when I exhaled too, that varied in sound from a falling anvil in the Looney Tunes to a Tarzan cry.

I figured I'd reach out with my doctors on Monday, but then I got a low-grade fever, always a sign your body is fighting off something. I knew I needed to call my doctor, but I was so dreading it because I was afraid they were going to have me come straight into the hospital. You know how that goes, you want to ignore a problem and hope it goes away, but deep down you know that doesn't work and you need to do something about it, something you really don't want to do? I couldn't just ignore the fever, so I called my doctor, and she called in some antibiotics for me so I could jump start on those, and would have me come in for a chest x-ray and other tests.

Sunday evening was kind of my breaking point. After coughing for 4 days straight, I was exhausted. I didn't even have the energy to cry about it. I imagine it's a similar exhaustion parents of newborns feel; just when you think you're really exhausted and couldn't possibly be more exhausted than you are right now, you wake back up to a crying baby—in my case, my cough—and your exhaustion reaches new levels. I could barely function, but I couldn't quit coughing long enough to actually sleep or rest. I wanted to lay down, I wanted to give my back a break, but I couldn't because like I said, laying down—even in bed with 4 pillows—made me cough. I was so exhausted I couldn't even really cough anymore. I had a Derek Zoolander I've-got-the-black-lung-pop kind of cough because I just couldn't muster the strength.

Today, Jarrod took me to Columbia for my tests. I didn't meet with the doctor, but we'll get the results tomorrow morning and determine where to go from there. I would have done all of it out here, but out here they can't do the sputum culture, the most important piece of the puzzle in the event this gets worse and I need to go in the hospital. I'm glad to report that I'm not coughing as much, but now I'm on damage control. I've got a lot of gunk to clear out. I was able to treadmill for 15 minutes, so that's a good start.

But I ask for your prayers. Gosh this has been a rough one. I've had times like these before, and I always get through it, but I don't think I've ever had a cough consistently last this many days. I could be wrong.

Jarrod has been wonderful through all of this. He took care of everything over the weekend, with cleaning and cooking and more. Even when I attempted to help, he would tell me to go sit back down and focus on resting.

Josie has been wonderful too. She has been hopping up on the chair to lay with me, cuddling with me often, and just generally checking on me if I'm gone from the room for a bit. She even just sat right next to my legs yesterday while Jarrod tried to comfort me with a hug (except, not really a hug, because we couldn't hug, because on Saturday I thought it'd be a GREAT idea for him to smoke a chicken, but really I could not have picked a more AWFUL time for him to smoke meat since smoke bothers me, and therefore I couldn't even be around him until he changed clothes and showered. Brilliant plan on my part... yeesh.)

So again, I'd appreciate it if you kept me in your thoughts and prayers. I'll let you all know how the tests come back tomorrow.

Friday Fast 3

I'm only doing three today, since my three that I have are long.

Nummer Eins
Our dog can be strange sometimes. Almost daily, Josie will wander off. I'll notice she's gone after about 10 minutes or so, and decide to go find her to make sure she's not doing something she shouldn't. I have lately been finding her in our bedroom or bathroom, but it's so odd it makes me laugh. Sometimes she's standing in our bathroom, staring at the floor, sometimes she's just laying near the foot of our bed. One time I found her half standing in our shower, half not, staring at the floor like like she was confused. Another day I found her just laying down in our closet. Not, like, curled up in a ball, but paws forward, head up, like it's the most normal thing in the world to want to chill out in the closet. It's so random and goofy. Maybe she's playing hide and seek with me, because she probably knows that I will eventually always come looking for her. I'll see where she decides to hide out next week...

Nummer Zwei
This week Apple re-introduced a smaller iPhone the same size as the one I have from 2 years ago. I'm glad, because I'm not a fan of the bigger phone trends. Along with that, they updated their software which I installed on my iPad yesterday. One new feature is the "Night Shift" option. Night shift removes some of the blue light from your screen during evening hours. The theory is that all of us who use our devices an hour or two before bed are getting less or poorer sleep due to the 'blue light' emitted from the screens. It is said that it messes with our brain and sleep chemicals our body produces to help us become tired and fall asleep. But the jury is still out on whether this is true or not, or how much it actually affects sleep. 

However, what is known is that blue light is damaging to our eyes. I know this from my eye doctor and since I wear glasses, I am always offered (and encouraged, since I have a job using a computer) to add a protective coating to my lenses that helps block the damaging effects. 

I tried out the "Night Shift" option last night, and it basically makes your screen more orangey. But after some time, you get used to it. And when I went to turn it back off, the quick shift back to normal on my screen actually hurt my eyes. Apple is pushing this as a way to help us sleep with set hours for the option to come on the evenings, but I'm wondering if it should be enabled all the time? If my eyes were already more comfortable in that short time, maybe it's something for me to consider. The problem is, being the designer and creative I am, I like my colors to be as true as possible. White is no longer white, it's a warm off-white. I went back and forth with LED lightbulbs because I didn't like the slightly different light they cast, but now I admit I'm used to it and don't notice as much if it's different than incandescent. I'm due for my yearly eye checkup, and I think I'm going to ask my doc about this feature, see what he says. But maybe I should just put up with it for the sake of my eyes? 

Nummer Drei
As Lent comes to a close, I'm faced with a decision: keep up with my Lenten resolution, or go back to old habits? I semi-failed at my first Lenten resolution, so partially in to Lent I switched it up and gave up Facebook on my phone. I need it for my job, so I couldn't just stop entirely, but taking it off my phone felt like a decent plan. 

The first week was the hardest, and I realized that checking it was something that was hardwired into my brain, because I would swipe over and hit Facebook with no thought, only to be met by the login screen because I forgot I signed out for Lent. I had this innate desire to look at it for that first week, but once I got past that point it wasn't so bad. For the most part I didn't miss it a whole lot. I won't pretend I was necessarily making 'better' use of my time, but I'd rather watch a show or movie I enjoy, or read or crochet, or just sit in silence, than scroll through stuff on my phone. So personally, I find that a better use of my time, even if it's still not all that useful, haha.

For now, I think I'm going to stay logged out. I'll allow myself to log in on occasions I need to, like for a group I help manage, but I want to try to stick with this. I'm a bit of a news junkie, which fits well with my job, but I gotta be honest that the election coverage is really getting me down. I realized that seeing those headlines so often—even though it's unintentional—in my feed is bad, and I need to distance myself from it. When I log in to Facebook less, like I have been, the most important stories are on top from people I care about, it takes no time to get through them, and the rest is just filler.

Allergies: The Bane of My Existence Right Now

Last week, I started up with allergies. Off and on I'd have days with sniffles, drainage, and increased cough. I've gone through like 4 boxes of tissues in the past week. It became clear that my Zyrtec wasn't working for me anymore and it was time to switch to something else. This is common—even though it sucks—where your body gets used to an allergy med and then it doesn't work anymore.

Tuesday I had a checkup with my doctor, and we agreed to give Allegra a try. And I had a good checkup, too. My PFT's were still pretty good, though not as good as a month ago when I had those unbelievable numbers. But I still had not lost much ground and I blamed most of it on the allergies.

Wednesday... totally different story. I was blowing my nose constantly and coughing my head off. It was a terrible day, and it had been a terrible night too; I got little sleep and woke up coughing 3-4 times. I was starting to worry I was sick, but it just doesn't make sense because Jarrod hasn't caught anything from me and this just feels like allergies.

Thursday I started the Allegra and noticed some improvements as far as drainage and cough, and I thought I was getting around okay until I went to treadmill... I could not breathe in deeply at all and could only make it 15 minutes. My oxygen sats were awful.

Today is worse. I'm coughing my butt off this morning and I don't even feel like I took allergy medicine.

I feel like if I'm going to have any chance of maintaining my good numbers, I need to get better fast, and that's the most frustrating part: knowing that I need to turn this around NOW, not later, and every day that I can't is another day I'm more likely to stay this way. I need to clear out the gunk in my lungs before it settles in and is harder to clear out days later.

It's just so frustrating, maddening almost. Of all the things that come with having CF, of all the daily things I go through, this is possibly the most aggravating thing of all.

It's not the 2+ hours of daily treatments, the 30+ daily pills, coughing for 1-3 hours every morning, the oxygen tubing... It's the fact that one day can be so vastly different from the next, with no apparent warning or reason. On Sunday I felt great, and did a lot at the gym, Monday was decent, Tuesday I had a good checkup, and then Wednesday it all just went to craps and all of my progress at the gym on Sunday was pointless. I'm back to square one though no fault of my own. I'm doing about everything I can to stay on top of this, yet these allergies are making my life terrible right now.

It just plain sucks and I cannot put into words how frustrated I am.

The Driveway

This morning was kind of a big deal. It snowed an inch or two, and it was the perfect day to stay in and bake cupcakes (or brew beer, if you're Jarrod.)

So Jarrod made us breakfast and then went downstairs to brew. In the meantime I did my treatment as normal, but I was having a pretty good morning, I wasn't coughing a ton... 

So I had a crazy idea... I decided I was going to try to shovel the snow off the driveway. And I did! I shoveled the driveway! I've never done that since we moved here. I had to take one break, to come inside and sit with my oxygen on for about 5-10 minutes, then I went back out and finished. I was getting pretty worn out during the last half, and audibly reminded myself "You can do this... There's just a little bit left." And then I was done and I came inside to sit with my oxygen hose on again while my heart slowed down and my oxygen sats. came back up. 

I went down to tell Jarrod, since he had no idea, and he was surprised! And very happy for me. I am so damn proud of myself, I can't even tell you. I feel like I've had a slight grin on my face all day. Take that, CF! 

I did that! 

Friday Fast 5+5

It's been so long since I've blogged, I'm going to have TEN things this time!

1. I have barely been on my laptop, so I realize I never caught you all up regarding my recent hospital stay (and to the people I need to email back, I will get to it soon I promise :). I'm DONE, I finished my meds at home on the 31st, and am feeling really good. Actually, I had the best PFT I've had in years! The last time I had numbers this high was in 2011! I was able to achieve a 38% FEV1, which is just crazy. I can't stress how awesome and important this is. Now, I just hope to keep it up.
2. I felt the power of prayers this time, I must say. I started out with very, very resistant bacteria as stated in my previous blog. But midway through the course of treatment, the results came back with my cultures and showed my bugs had become more tolerant, and lo and behold they were responsive to the drugs we chose to use! I also have to really hand it to the parishes of Columbia. I was visited by a priest twice, who administered a blessing, a deacon, and volunteers who brought me communion. All told, I was there for ten days, and for probably 6 of those days someone came by my room to pray and bring me communion. Really great.
3. I've finally started reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I really like the movies, and the story. I'm really excited to read it and it's keeping my interest.
4. Once again, I have really struggled with a Lenten resolution this year. I think part of it is that I feel like I should do something new and different year to year, but I've pretty much run out of ideas. Honestly, last night I still hadn't come up with anything—I know, Lent started on Wednesday! Augh! But this morning, I decided. It'll help give me some needed inspiration day-to-day. 
5. I started a new prayer shawl the other day with a new, fancy stitch! I'm very excited. Jeff & Johanna gave me a book for Christmas with 500 crochet stitches in it! So I'm trying a new stitch from the book, and it's turning out quite nice.
6. I've complained on here before about the TV news just perpetuating fear, and the other day was proof again of what I've been saying. CBS This Morning had a report about the zika virus, and it was titled Zika at Mardi Gras. They sent a reporter down to New Orleans to talk all about the zika virus and the mosquitoes. The report went on and on for about 5 minutes, then at the very end he said "Now, officials say that they're not concerned about mosquitoes at Mardi Gras because it's simply too cold. But the threat of the zika virus will continue as the year goes on." So basically the report was about absolutely NOTHING because it's not even a concern anyways. But it might be. At some point in time. Everybody stay scared!
7. I've often thought Josie looks very fox-like. I looked it up, and contrary to popular consensus, dogs are split in two groups: those related to wolves and those related to foxes. Josie is definitely from the fox category. Just look at her!? 

   

   Josie shows her good side to the camera, haha.

8. Does anyone else forget to drink your coffee in the morning, haha? Almost every morning, I pour myself my cup of coffee, take two sips of it, then I forget about it. And then it's cold, and I reheat it, and forget about it again. 
9. I feel like our tolerance for snow here is going down, likely it's caused by the TV weather people, and we're all drinking the Kool-Aid, including myself. I'd love to watch a weather broadcast from the 90s or 80s, and see what they said then. Because now, even the mention of snow in Missouri sends schools canceling classes sometimes. Many people freak out over 1 inch of snow. But I don't feel this was always the case. Snow-freaking-out-ness is definitely relative and dependent on where you live. If you live more north, it takes a great amount of snow for things to shut down, if you live more south it takes a dusting to freak everyone out. We've always been in the middle with snow totals, but it's still expected that it will snow a few times a year here. Why are we all such wimps about it now?
10. With our recent snow, I've had a TON of birds on my deck and coming by the feeder. I assume it's harder to find food when snow blankets the ground, so I've been happy to give them some easy-to-find bird seeds :).

The March No One's Hearing About

There is safety in numbers. Unions, peer pressure, protests, petitions for change, revolutions, victims of rape from a celebrity figure all gain momentum because of this idea. Whether you agree with the cause or not is irrelevant, I think we can all acknowledge that numbers and mass support for a specific cause are the reasons things succeed and change happens, and lack of it is the reason things fail. 

I hate to be this way, but the media bias has never been more clear to me than it is as I'm typing this, their plan laid out in full view. 

In recent years, it seems we have become obsessed with reporting on extreme weather, so this week has proven a nice little frenzy for the news stations to continually talk about. With the impending snow storm heading for Washington, D.C. tomorrow, I am stunned that there has been no mention of the March for Life which will be taking place right in the middle of the blizzard on the national mall. Coverage of the March for Life has been practically nonexistent in recent years anyways, but I thought surely there would be some sort of mention due to the extreme weather situation the marchers will find themselves in. 

Nope. I was wrong. How silly of me. 

I can guarantee that if the marchers in D.C. would be marching—or buzz word of the year "protesting"—for Black Lives Matter, or income equality, or transgender rights, or whatever liberal cause-of-the-day it is, there would be TONS of news coverage. It would sound like this:

News desk: And now we're going to go to Sarah, who is live in Washington, D.C. with the protesters and some of the awful conditions they are starting to see there. Sarah?

Sarah: Yes Todd, I'm here on the national mall and it is getting cold here. Protesters have started to huddle together for warmth and protection from this absolutely brutal wind we're getting. They are bracing themselves for below zero temps and blizzard conditions and they have shelters and medical stations set up nearby in the event anyone needs to get warm. Simply terrible to think about what they will be going through in the coming hours. But they're not letting it get their spirits down. --cut to pre-recorded interviews with random people--

Random man: You know, it's not exactly what we were hoping for, it's a bit of a damper on things, but we're not letting it get us down. We have a right to be here and we will continue on as planned because we know that our message needs to be heard. 

Random woman: This weather isn't going to stop us, no way. The whole reason we are here is <insert cause here> and we will keep on marching come rain, snow, ice, fire, whatever!

Sarah: As you heard, the protesters are in high spirits even though they face an unprecedented storm. Forecasters have upped their totals to over two feet of snow now. But that's not going to stop them, and we'll stay here to bring you the latest as the storm intensifies. Reporting for NBC, I'm Sarah Smith. 

But no. Those interviews are not happening because the select few at the helm of deciding what is reported on in the mainstream media have deemed this unworthy of their time. 

In doing so, they alienate the pro-life movement. Deliberately. If no one is hearing about the hundreds of thousands of people who believe in being pro-life, then how can anyone know there is such a cause to believe in? Young people who may be on the fence about the issue are left to think that NO ONE is fighting to end abortion, save for the few who stand outside clinics and the occasional politician, and might as well join the pro-choice crowd because, well, they don't feel like there is much of a pro-life movement left to join. Surely if there was, they'd hear about it, right? But this is the media's agenda: report on what you like and want people to believe in, don't report on what you don't. No wonder more and more young people identify with democratic causes, they're not even hearing the alternative argument.

It is unnerving to me to think that if a march of hundreds of thousands of people is getting little to no coverage in the media, what else are they not reporting on? I hate to sound like a right-wing nut job conspiracy theorist, but seriously. Whether you agree or disagree, just look at the fact that that many people are gathering in our nation's capital to fight for a cause; it is ludicrous to think that it would go completely ignored. 

Hospital Time, Next Week

Well, the time has come. After 7 months, my out-of-hospital stint will run out. The plan is to go into the hospital next Monday, unless I get sicker and then I'll go in sooner.

I talked to Donna today and she let me know the results of my sputum culture. Not the worst, but not very good either. I'm almost completely resistant with one strain of bacteria, except I have an intermittent sensitivity to one drug. And it's a penicillin, which I'm allergic to, so that means desensitization again. We used this med last time, and it worked, though I had some side effects, which means I'll be staying there the full two weeks instead of doing some meds at home. The other strain of bacteria had two options, which still isn't great, but at least I'm not allergic to any of those. The silver lining in all this is no staph, so at least we don't have to worry about that right now.

My bugs are constantly battling it out down in my lungs for space. Pseudomonas is known as the chameleon, according to my doctor, because it constantly shifts in drug sensitivities and such. Right now I have a lot of pseudomonas, which means that potentially the pseudomonas knocked out the staph so they could take over and rule the kingdom that is Jamie's Airways. Who knows. 

My growing trend over the past year is more resistance, which does concern me a little, but I'm not letting myself dwell on it. Every single culture is different, which makes it confusing, but ergo: chameleon. I've had three consecutive cultures come back now that are mostly resistant, which isn't cool. More than anything, though, this just reinforces the importance of exercise and my treatments. If I can keep my lungs clear for longer, than that will prevent the bugs from ganging up. If there is less gunk for them to populate and grow in, then that's all the better for me. 

I'm hoping we can make some progress in this hospital stay, I have to have faith that we will, even though our drug options are limited. I really need your prayers, though. I'd love to turn this resistance train around, but it's out of my control.

Shared Videos

As I was scrolling through my Facebook feed earlier, I came across a video. You know the kind, the sweet, emotional tear-jerkers that someone originally posts, and then others share them over and over and over, possibly going "viral."

There have been many debates, especially regarding adults of my generation, about 'living in the moment.' As in Put your phone down, dummy, and enjoy this moment before it passes. A few months back, there was an article about people at a parade. Every single person (really, every one of them) was holding their phone up to take a photo or video as the parade came down the road. Everyone except for this one little old lady, who was smiling and actually watching the parade. I can say I'm guilty of this occasionally, though not nearly as much as some.

Thanks to our readily available smart phones, we've turned into a culture that wants to document EVERYTHING. And in some ways, this is arguably a good thing. Children born these days will have way more photos of their growth and development as they get older than any generation before. I take photos of my dog all the time. Do I need to take that many? No, but it makes me happy to look at them sometimes when I'm down.

On one hand, this doesn't seem all that far off from days gone by when a designated family member held the camera, looked through the lens, and took our pictures. I don't think I would have said they "weren't living in the moment" by being the family photographer for the day. But somehow it does seem a bit more extreme now, doesn't it? Way more narcissistic, when you add in the element of posting it online. I know some people who seemingly can't have a family get-together without taking multiple candid and posed photos. It's not like they're crazy people, they're just obsessed with holding onto those moments, capturing them for all time. Funny though, I think it's safe to say that never before have we taken so many photos, but had so few physical photos to show for it. For all these photos we've taken, we sure don't print out many of them. (Hey, remember the days of photo albums? That you actually flipped through, like, with your hands, haha?)

I certainly understand wanting to preserve memories. I'm nostalgic for the past, love looking at old black and white photos, and am a bit of a pack-rat when it comes to being sentimental about things. But I also believe that some moments should simply be enjoyed between the people in the room. There is something beautiful about that. Not everything needs to be documented, and beyond that not everything needs to be shared for everyone to see.

I should make a point here to say that I find a big difference between 'sharing things with only your friends' and 'sharing things publicly online.' I still don't feel everything needs to be posted, but I really don't understand the people who share things for the entire world to see—literally.

So as I was scrolling through my Facebook, there was a video of an old lady. She had just been given a very special gift. Her husband had passed away, and she was given a pillow that was made of an old shirt of his, so she can always "have his shoulder to lean on" or something along those lines.

Grandma was crying, obviously. It was a sweet moment, but this is just one of probably hundreds of videos now that I almost wish I didn't see. It feels awkward. I don't know these people, yet I'm somehow peering into this very special, very intimate moment in their lives. I almost feel bad for the grandma, that one of her family members is shoving a cell phone in her space like a television reporter so they can record every second of her reaction.

There was just something about it, the invasion of privacy, that led me to write all this. I think we could all use a moment to re-examine how we view our world via our phones. Take pictures, sure, but keep them to yourself and your loved ones. You don't have to invite the world into your living room.