17 Book in 2017

Time for my annual re-cap in books I've read this year! I once again surpassed my original goal of reading 17 books in 2017. I ended up reading 21, so I will press on with the trend and set a goal of 18 books for next year. I also started three other books, but haven't finished them, so those will end up on next year's totals.

Enjoy.

Better Than Before — This one is about habits and learning about yourself and your tendencies, but unlike most self-help books, does not proclaim one singular way to achieve whatever it is you are wanting to accomplish. The author Gretchen Rubin acknowledges, and celebrates, that there are fundamental differences in how people operate and what works for one might not work for another. A great book!

Four Seasons of Marriage — Meh. The first part, describing the seasons, was somewhat interesting. But the last two parts were very repetitive and long-winded.

Pride and Prejudice — I know many of my women friends love this book, and love Mr. Darcy, and love Jane Austen's writing in general, but it's just not my cup of tea. I tried, but didn't like this book.

The Dorito Effect — Also meh. The initial information presented was interesting, especially learning about how food has progressed and changed through recent decades. But the author gets a little too wrapped up in his analogy that practically everything is a victim of "the Dorito effect." I kept waiting and waiting for the author to present a solution or some sort of upward, motivating thinking to solve the problem or get real flavor (not fake flavors) back into our foods, but it never really came. (So basically we're all screwed, ha.)

Scent of the Missing — Loved this book! Very interesting to learn about search and rescue; well-written, a great book for animal lovers.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up — This book is not even that long, but it is way too long. What could have sufficed as a well-written essay was drawn out, repeated over and over, for 4.5 hours (in audiobook.) This book details Marie Kondo's self-made method for picking up your house, but she is so self-righteous. She feels this is the ONE and ONLY way to truly "tidy" your house. There is no other way. Final answer. This was presented as the end all, be all method. I have a problem with that. The book drove me nuts for a few days, trying to adhere to her advice, until I decided to promptly forget it. I've been happier since. Read at your own risk... some people love this book. I am not one of them.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo — Re-read this book in preparation to read the new, 4th installment in the series. Still holds up, still really enjoyed it.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child — Underwhelming. The plot was predictable but I think the format is what really bothered me. I'm even a theater person, I've read many a script, but this one is lacking, written as a script. It's like-able enough, but I definitely did not love it. In a perfect world, I would have much rather Rowling write this on her own, work with the other two to create the script for the stage, and they can coexist as both a full blown novel AND as a play.

The Girl Who Played With Fire — Again, re-read this one. Probably my least favorite, so far, in the series. It's just kind of slow to build up the plot, in comparison with the others.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest — Also re-read this. I had forgotten the most about what goes on in this one, so it was nice to rediscover it.

Not My Father's Son — One of the best 'celebrity memoirs' I've read in recent years. For me, this is because it is actually a story about a particular subject rather than the mish-mash of cheap jokes, gossip stories, and life advice most celebrities compile into a book (which are not my thing.) Though tragic, the story was told beautifully. I think the audiobook was even better since it was read by the author.

We Bought A Zoo — Boring. This is one of the rare cases where the movie is much better than the book. I really like this movie and it's uplifting, positive message. The book is hardly like the movie, and how the movie producers were able to come up with such a fine story from such lackluster source material is to be commended. After 2/3 of the book, I completely lost interest.

Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials that Shape Our Man-Made World — As someone who is constantly fascinated by physics and chemistry (though did not have an aptitude for those school subjects) I loved this one! Written by a materials scientist, this book is not dumbed down, and therefore won't be for everyone. But for those curious about 'stuff' on an atomic and molecular level, it is very interesting. Full of detail, yet concise and well-written.

The Girl in the Spider's Web — A continuation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books, but with a new author since the original author passed away. Slow to get going, but once it did, it was hard to put down. A worthy continuation.

Pax — My first foray into YA lit in a long time. It's about a boy and his pet fox, Pax. It was good, I guess, but not great. I expected so much more from this book.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? — This is the source material for Blade Runner, and what an interesting story this was! The version I read was a graphic novel adaptation of the original book, but it was really good. I enjoyed it so much more than Blade Runner. 

Lord of the Flies — Never had to read this in school, so this was my first time. I thought it was very good too. It's a great commentary on how societies and communities are built, what they're built on, and how they can so easily fall apart. Short read.

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir — Meh, nothing special about this one. This was one man's story of his upbringing in a dysfunctional, poor, white family.

The Green Mile — The book was good. It was originally released in pieces as a serial novel. But now that I've read it, I can tell you that the movie is SO well done. Everything is almost to the letter of the book, which is to be highly commended for a movie. There's not much to be gained from reading the book in this case, but it was still a good book.

Color Me Beautiful — Since I love color theory, this one interested me when a friend told me about it years ago. The writer posits that the color of your hair and your skin tone (warm or cool) determines your "color season." You will look This book was published in 1980 and has never been updated, but I actually appreciate that. The rules and theory never change, so it didn't matter if it was stylistically outdated. Not for everyone, but if you're curious why you look great in the color blue, but something just seems 'off' when you wear the color orange, this might be for you.

The Innovators — This book book details the history and collaboration behind some of the most important technological advances in history, starting with Ada Lovelace, punch cards, transistors, and onwards. A fascinating story for nerds like us (Jarrod actually listened to this one on audiobook and enjoyed it.)

Snow

Saturday morning when I woke up to snow, I excitedly exclaimed "SNOW! IT SNOWED!" like a giddy child. I imagine many of us were like that. There is just something about the first snow. And it was the perfect kind, too, where it was on the grass but not on the roads.

To my delighted surprise, I woke up this morning to find it lightly snowing. Jarrod wasn't awake yet, just me. I turned on the tree, put on some Christmas music, turned on my candle warmer, and sat down.

I noticed the squirrel was at my bird feeder. I grabbed my camera. I snapped away as he ate up my sunflower seeds. And he was such a ham, haha—at one point, as if he noticed me, he turned around at one point and didn't face me anymore. Then later, as if he embraced the whole exercise, he hopped to another rail of the deck and practically posed for a perfect side profile shot. It made me laugh out loud.

You know, I don't particularly enjoy the squirrel eating my birdseed. I mean, it's for the birds, not for the squirrels. My biggest gripe about the squirrels is how quickly they eat the bird food; I have had full feeders when I go to bed, and then drained by morning. But aside from sending Josie out on the deck to terrorize the squirrels every once in a while, there's nothing else I'd really do about it. I could never hurt a squirrel, because I realize they have to eat too. And this morning, with him sitting there in the snow, reinforced that.

After he was finished, the birds started flying in for breakfast. As always, it makes me smile that the birds eat breakfast and supper roundabout when we do. A cardinal couple came along, and I was able to snap those real quick. Cardinals are so beautiful in the snow. They were followed by some juncos and finches. And then the squirrel came back, and I was kind of happy to see him again. Merry Christmas little squirrel, congratulations you won me over, enjoy the bird food.

Sinuses and Sugars

Last Friday was a quite a day.

I started bright and early at Mercy South to repeat my oral glucose tolerance test. I haven't really talked about any of this on here, but a couple months ago I did my annual test and it came back borderline. I wasn't quite diabetic, based on those numbers, but was most definitely in a pre-diabetic gray area.

So we wanted to repeat the test, and I chose to do that last Friday. It took way longer than it should have, and I was there for almost 4 hours. I had just enough time to come home, eat something (since I hadn't had anything yet, save for the glucose beverage), and vest, and turn around and leave to go to my other appointment that day.

I had set up an appointment to go to an ENT. I've been having more sinus symptoms in the past months, and lately I felt I was clearing my throat constantly due to drainage. Sinus symptoms are very, very common in CF and I've been lucky to dodge any major issues until now.

The doctor was up in Saint Peters. My CF doctor, when I asked her about seeing an ENT, mentioned I could see one there or there was another doctor who everyone there had loved, but he left and was "in Wentzville." She was a smidge off on the towns, but close enough. I said "Oh, well that's out by me, I could go see him." So I set up my appointment with him.

Immediately during my visit, it was clear I made the right choice to see him, versus seeing any ol' ENT in town. He has dealt with CF patients before and knows the drill.

Long story short, we did a CT of my sinuses and turns out they're mostly blocked up. There is likely some infection going on, but not in the traditional sense of what people mean when they have a sinus infection. He told me that just like the CF lungs can't naturally clear out mucus, the same with the sinuses. I never thought about it, but that makes perfect sense. Anyways, we're trying to improve things in the meantime with rinses and an antibiotic, but most likely I will need sinus surgery. He said they typically try to tie in a sinus surgery after a hospitalization, since that's when you're feeling the best and, ideally, should be the most cleared out. Again, so glad I went to see him because not everyone would know about all that.

So it's a bummer, but probably a long time coming. I've read comments from other CFers who are 20 and have had like 13 sinus surgeries already. So with that kind of perspective, I've really lucked out. That being said, now that this is an issue for me, it probably won't be my only sinus surgery, and the doctor mentioned that too. He actually commented how lucky and rare it was for me to make it to 30 years old without needing sinus surgery.

So that's the sinus story. Not super fun.

The sugar story... is also not a great story.

I finally got my results Wednesday; my doctor and I had been playing phone tag. And they came back a little worse than last time. Last time, they were 103 and 201. This time, they were 111 and 209. For those who don't know, the first number is your "fasting" number, the second is taken two hours later after drinking the glucose. 100 or under is normal, 100-125 is considered pre-diabetic for the fasting number. On the 2-hour level, over 200 is considered diabetic. 140 or under is normal, that's where you want to be. And between 140 and 200 is pre-diabetic, which is where I've been. As you can see, for my test two months ago I really was right on the cusp, plus I was still trying to feel better and illness or infection can elevate the results. But since this second test was worse, it's safe to say that I am, indeed, diabetic. Not great news.

CF-related diabetes is its own beast. It's not like Type 1, it's not like Type 2, it's weird. I can't change what I eat because then I would lose weight, and since I already struggle with that, I need to keep eating just like I am. Cutting carbs is absolutely not advised. That being said, there may be a way to control it with diet in pairing carbs with proteins and fats, because those can counteract blood sugar spikes. So bring on the steak and bacon, haha.

Just like I sought out a specific ENT because of his experience with CF, I will be seeing an endocrinologist in Columbia because he has experience with CFRD.

So yeah... a lot of information for me to process. I'm really trying not to get too ahead of myself with the diabetes stuff, because I have no idea what the doctor will tell me. I don't know if I'll need insulin; I have to wait and see what he recommends. But it's hard. This is just more shit I have to worry about and fit into my day, which already feels jam packed. In trying to convince myself this isn't as bad as it seems, I'm trying to tell myself that we caught this early. Yes, I am past the diabetic threshold... but just barely. It's not like my sugars came back at 250 or something. Furthermore, I knew that the older I got, the higher my chances were that this would come up. 50% of adults with CF have CFRD. In addition to that, about 3-4 years ago we thought I had CFRD but turned out I didn't just yet, but it's not surprising things continued to trend this way.

Josie's checkup

As some of you may have already seen on Facebook, Josie had some issues yesterday.

I took her for her annual checkup and vaccines. I also talked with the doctor about her itchy ears, and he gave her a gel medicine in her ears to take care of any infection present. He said I could wipe off any excess that worked it's way out of her ears.

Once we were home her ears looked kinda gross, to be honest. She had shook her head enough, I guess, that a lot of the gel was coming out. I wiped them down, then went in my vest room to check something on my iPad. She followed me in there and proceeded to roll around on the floor, rubbing her head and ears on the carpet. I half expected her to do this, because any time we put medicine or anything in her ears, she hates it, and tries to rub her ears on the carpet. I tried to stop her. She got smart and went under the bed where I couldn't reach her, haha. But I could tell she was still bothered by it, because she was rolling around under the bed and licking the carpet compulsively. But it wasn't just her ears, it looked like she was just trying to rub the side of her face, in general, on the carpet.

I coaxed her out and noticed her ears were RED, I mean really, really red. They were also really hot. As I started to look her over more, and still trying to wipe off the goo and prevent her from rolling around and getting away from me, I saw the area around her eyes was puffy and turning red. A couple of her paws were swelling up and pink too. Okay, something is not right here, this seems like an allergic reaction.

I called the vet, and they said to bring her back. I sat and waited while they checked her out. After some time, one of the vet tech's came out saying that she was definitely reacting to something, but they'd never seen a reaction like that to the ear gel. They had to call the doctor, because he was out on a farm call. He was surprised by the news, and wanted to look her over once he was back. That wouldn't be for at least another 20 minutes, so they said I could leave her there and come back to pick her up. They were giving her some Benedryl by injection, wiping out all of the ear gel, and they were putting cold packs on her ears because they were on fire.

I ran some errands, and by then it was silly to come home for ten minutes, so I went back a little early. The doctor talked with me, and said he thought she was having a reaction to one of the vaccines. I assumed it was the ear gel, since that was the only part of her visit yesterday that was different, but he explained for her to have such a systemic reaction, involving her entire body, instead of just locally in the ears, it was likely the vaccine. I mentioned she's never reacted like this before, just been a tad lethargic the following day. After hearing that, he was even more inclined to believe it was the vaccine. Even though I think lethargy after, like, a rabies vaccine is pretty common, I guess it's still kind of a reaction in it's own way. (All that being said, a tiny part of me still wonders if it was the gel because the entire episode seemed to start with her ears. Who knows.)

He said she was running a pretty good fever, her face was still swollen, and her heart rate was up, so he was going to give her something like "doggie Tylenol" to help with that. He wanted us to watch her closely last night, make sure there were no breathing problems and that her fever came down.

When they brought her out to me, she was a bit mellow. I'm sure that was partly the Benedryl; I know how I feel on Benedryl, and getting an injection is even stronger than taking the pill. But her face was still puffy around her nose and mouth. That part had not yet happen when I dropped her off, so that must have presented itself after I handed her off. Poor Josie.

Since posting about this on social media, I've had 4 other dog owners share similar stories of their dogs having an out-of-the-blue reaction to their annual vaccines. In some cases, they said it continued, and in others they said it was only the one year and every time since then has been fine. I'll see what they say next year as to what they want to do for her.

Muzzle still a little puffy and swollen

Unfortunately it's impossible to determine which vaccine caused the issue. She got her usual three yesterday. Maybe we'll try them one at a time next year, at least that would be my suggestion.

She's doing better this morning. I think her fever went away around 8:00 last night. I never took her temp, but I could easily feel she was hotter than normal for a while. I encouraged her to drink water and rest a lot, because she could barely keep her head up and her eyes open anyways. This morning she was a bit groggy still, but I think in the past hour she's started to act more normal. She's laying in the sunshine right now :).

We're very thankful this was a one day thing and she's been doing better. Here's hoping it doesn't happen again or, if it does, we can pinpoint the cause.

Yay tree!

The old tree.

We finally bought a new Christmas tree this year. Our previous tree was a hand-me-down from my parents. It served us well, but was a very big and FULL tree; larger than we would like. But, beggars can't be choosers, so we used it ever since we got married. But the thing weighed about 80 pounds. With Jarrod's back being more sensitive to strain ever since his car accident, it's not good for him to carry this thing upstairs.

He brought it up, set it up and plugged it in. All that to find out about 1/3 of the lights were out. And it wasn't all in one spot, like one strand, it was all over the tree. That was it; we're getting a new tree.

The new tree!

We had very specific criteria for what we wanted, and it turned out finding a tree was harder than I thought. On Cyber Monday I bought the tree. 

We got it on Wednesday! Fast shipping. I started fluffing it up, something that I actually enjoy for some weird reason. I've always been the tree fluffer, even when I was younger. 

Time to decorate! I had been using the same ribbon on my tree for 3 years, was it time for a new look? Not to mention, the ribbon I had would not "fit" right on the new tree, since it was much narrower. I decided to combine some old gold mesh I weaved in between the ribbon, bought some new silver ribbon, and added some poinsettias to the look (and thus had the "Silver and Gold" song from Rudolph stuck in my head for days.) I had to make a new bow for the top and added the flower to tie it all together.

I LOVE the way it turned out! I am so glad I chose to go with a new look for the new tree. I still have all my s'more ornaments on there! Never gonna give those up because they're so darn adorable. They still make them too, which makes me happy. Also, previously we always set up the tree in the front room because it was too wide for our living room. By default we did the same with the new tree, until Sunday when I pointed out we could swap the recliner and the tree and be able to enjoy the tree in the living room. I'm so glad we did!

S'mores everywhere!