Friday Fast 5

For those new to my blog, sometimes I do my "Friday Fast 5" which are five quick things, usually unrelated, that have been in my mind or happened this week.

1. I had my second chemo treatment yesterday, and still feeling pretty good. I am feeling tired and drained, though, which could be partly due to me not getting much sleep the past couple nights. But thankfully still no nausea! Or really any other major side effects. I am so thankful.
2. I got to see an old friend at the cancer center Thursday, actually. She was in the waiting room for something when I was in there too. It was so great to talk with her and catch up a little, and even though I was wearing my mask—something I always do if I'm in a health care facility due to my CF—I hope she could tell how much I smiling and happy to see her. 
3. Josie turned 6 on Monday, and I can't believe we've had her for six years already! I got her some awesome toys from Bark Shop, so she got a piece of cake, a piñata, and some balloons. She also got special dinner, which is the Grammy's Pot Pie canned dog food by Merrick. Is she not the cutest? Sitting there with her presents and a meek little smile on her face. :)
4. I'm running Rosie the Roomba right now, and she is clearly lost. It looks like she's trying to find her home base, but it's not going very well. She's been spinning in circles for like 5 minutes now. 
5. Some lady flipped me off the other day in the Jimmy John's parking lot. I have no idea why. Really, neither of us was in each other's way, we weren't speeding, I was 'technically' going the wrong way (since, at the Washington one, you're technically supposed to follow the arrows around the building to leave, but it was an off time so I just went the way I entered the low), but that's about it. What a sad existence... to get so upset by such a minor thing that you resort to flipping them off. I understand the use of the finger in certain cases, but this was not one of them.

Friday Fast 5

Five quick things!

1. I really can't believe Sunday is Easter. Holy cow, where did the time go? Is this the earliest Easter has ever fallen? I think part of the reason it seems weird is because it's still so cold and rainy here. Spring is hardly anywhere to be found. I saw our Easter photo from last year, and I was wearing a sleeveless dress. Granted, Easter was two weeks later than this year's but still. I haven't even switched my closets over to my spring/summer wardrobe yet, it's been too chilly.
2. Jarrod turned 30 on Wednesday! In the morning I picked up doughnuts from Schulte's for him to take to work and we went out for Korean BBQ after work. I'd never had it before, but he had it a couple times in California last year and really liked it. And it was good! I was proud of myself for trying a bunch of stuff too, kimchi for one (it's not for me, but hey, I tried it.) Turns out tofu isn't that bad, especially if it's been cooked a little. 
3. It's funny, though... for both of our 30th birthdays, I realized we went to places where we had to cook our own food, haha. For mine, he took me to the Melting Pot, where you cook your meats in your fondue pot of boiling broth. And for the Korean BBQ, you cook your meats on the grill in the middle of the table. Both of them were also a LOT of food.
4. Trivia Night is coming up, and I've been busy finishing things. I can't believe it's a week away! As always, if you're interested in getting a table together, it's April 7, let me know and I can send you the flyer.
5. I bought Josie a new ball and it's turned out to be one of my best purchases. Josie absolutely LOVES to play ball. She chews the fuzz off of tennis balls, so a racquetball proved the best kind for her. But ever since we put in hardwood, playing ball became downright dangerous. Since the racquetball is so rigid and made the way it is, it bounced all over the place on the wood floor. Not only did Josie slip and slide everywhere trying to catch it, I started to fear for our home. One wrong bounce could send it flying into something breakable or leave marks on our walls. We had to only play ball outside :(. On a whim, I bought her a new ball. It's not perfectly round, and the material has more give to it, all meaning that it doesn't bounce all that much. It's great and she loves it. Woo hoo!

Friday Fast 5

1. I am really trying not to be paranoid, but with all these stories about the bad flu season we are in, and cases where normal, healthy kids are dying, it's hard not to. I still have to live my life, though, but I'm cautious. I don't make unnecessary trips out; I don't browse around stores for the heck of it, like I might during the summer, things like that. I have Jarrod make small trips to Schnucks when I can, instead of me going. And I still attribute the two habits I have mentioned on here to my [so far] success in avoiding colds and the flu this season. I also try, as much as possible, to keep my distance from people no matter what. That's about all I can do without being confined to my house for 4 months. And that sounds like zero fun and no way to live your life. 
2. Jarrod and I officially joined the Jaycees at the end of last year. We've jumped in with both feet, Jarrod being the new webmaster and I am... planning a trivia night! I've been busy writing questions and organizing everything for it. It will be April 7th, starting at 7pm at the VFW Hall in town. If you're interested, let me know and I can send you the flyer. Or contact me to reserve a table! 
3. I've started crossing something off my bucket list: I'm learning how to sew! Since Toni in town retired at the end of the year, I gave in to the fact that it was time for me to learn how to hem pants. Both Jarrod and I always need to have our pants hemmed. Mom's good friend Gwen is teaching me! I had my first lesson in November, and actually hand-stitched a pair of Jarrod's dress pants at Christmas! I was so proud of myself. I'm glad I finally decided to give this a try, because it's really not as hard as I thought it would be. 
4. We are looking forward to the Olympics. Jarrod likes the winter games more than summer games. We actually signed up for Sling TV for one month, then we'll cancel it, so we can watch more than the highlights they run on channel 5 in the evenings. 
5. Josie is getting pretty scruffy these days. Her face is in the "slightly shaggy but adorable" phase that I really like, but the rest of her hair is getting long. Problem is, it's still pretty cold out and I'm hesitant to groom her anytime soon. She just might be a shaggy dog for another month or so.

Josie and the Beeps

Years ago, there was a terrible thunderstorm in the middle of the night. Lightning struck a house on the street right next to ours, causing a huge boom. It freaked Josie out, who was laying on the bed. When it happened, it also made my oxygen concentrator beep due to the surge. All of it, combined, made her want to run for it. To where, I have no idea, but we tried to keep her on the bed with us. Knowing what I know now, that was probably not the best thing for us to do, but we had no idea.

Ever since then, she has been scared of thunderstorms, especially ones at night. I've worked with her a lot to try to calm her fear and redirect it. If possible, we play or go in the basement. And if she tries to hide under our bed, as I now think she was wanting to do that initial time, we usually don't block her. If that's where she feels safe, then we shouldn't try to stop that. That being said, my biggest fear with that (and still is) is that a storm might progress and get so bad that we actually NEED to go to the basement, and it will be hard or impossible to coax her out.

Anyways, lately I've noticed a new thing she's scared of: beeps.

I'm not quite sure where this came from except I can say the first time I ever noticed it was about 4-6 months ago when we had a beeping smoke detector in the basement. I actually asked my dad to come over and fix it around 11am, instead of waiting for Jarrod to come home, because it was bothering Josie so much.

So in this case, she shakes. You'd think she is shivering, but she's nervously shaking. Even up to an hour later, sometimes I still catch her having tiny little shakes.

This is on my mind again because last night, as I was demonstrating my new glucose meter to Jarrod, we later noticed she was sitting in a corner of the kitchen, shaking. It took me a second, but then I realized that it must have been the tiny beep that my meter makes when I turn it on. Wonderful... this thing I'm now supposed to use 4+ times a day is going to make her nervous.

I love Josie so dearly, but I gotta say this is the last thing I feel like tackling right now. I'm going to have to do some good research on training her out of this, because this is not going to be good if we let it go. Fortunately, it doesn't seem like our alarm system bothers her, and maybe because that's predictable. She knows this thing in the house beeps when we leave, and it beeps again after we open the door and are back home, which is almost always followed by the sound of the garage door. But even the other night I was watching Star Wars, and I noticed her ears move every time R2-D2 made his beeps and boops. Luckily she didn't start shaking, but she was definitely noticing it.

Le sigh... I can turn off the beep on my glucose meter, which I might do, but still. We really need to fix this problem before it gets any worse.

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.

Friday Fast 5

Today's is EXTRA random and semi-pointless, but nevertheless, here's what's been plunking around in my brain:

1. This fall weather has been great! Although it was a bit on the cold side last weekend.
2. Monday, I noticed a bunch of juncos—aka snow birds—hopping around on the deck! It's a good sign when the juncos have arrived from Canada. In other bird news, the squirrels continue to be a nuisance no matter how many times I send Josie out on the deck to scare them off. Those buggers just never learn... Anyways, it made me laugh the other day because there was a line of birds on the deck waiting for the squirrel to be done pigging out. They kinda hop around and turn their heads, looking at the squirrel like "Hey, you done yet? This is OUR food ya know!"
3. There is a new majong club at the library here. For half a second I thought that'd be fun—I play majong on my iPad, learning how to play in real life could be cool. Then I looked at our Missourian photo gallery from their first meeting, and it was literally a bunch of people sitting around, instructions out, trying to figure out how the hell you play majong. Maybe they figured it out eventually, but it didn't look encouraging.
4. I just did a small load of Josie laundry. I washed all of her sweaters in preparation for the cooler season. They kinda smelled, all piled up together. I probably should have washed all of them at the end of the season earlier in the year, but oh well.
5. We are getting a new paper shredder, and I could not be more excited. We had a tiny one that bit the dust a few weeks ago. It just stopped, mid-shred. I couldn't get it to back up or advance, nothing, so there is a mostly-eaten Walgreens paper just stuck in the thing. It was never a great shredder anyways and was so annoying because it constantly quit, saying the bin was full when it wasn't. I hated that thing. I have probably 3 boxes worth of stuff that have piled up over the years and I am so ready to get rid of it!

Proud dog mom/nerd

I am quite the proud dog mom!

Last Friday... I groomed Josie. And I am so stinkin' proud of myself.

I don't know if I've ever really talked about Josie and her grooming needs on here before. In efforts to make a blog post out of this, I'll share, but I'll try not to bore you to death.

So when we got our little cairn terrier, I was oblivious to the special grooming needs of a cairn. I did a lot of research and learned she is supposed to be "hand stripped" which is a term for pulling (aka, stripping) out dead coat. It sounds weird and painful, but it's not. The old hair will come right out with a gentle tug. With the proper tools, the old dead hair comes out while any new, good hair stays in place.

Now, I should make a note here: most cairns are not groomed this way. Unless they are show dogs most cairns get taken to the groomer to be trimmed or clipped just like any other small dog. For 97% of people, this is fine (and certainly MUCH easier), but there is a consequence to doing it this way. The hair follicle grows differently than ours and over time, trimming it off—instead of pulling it out and allowing a new one to grow in—will soften and damage the coat. Cairns are supposed to have a harsh, weatherproof coat, and cutting the hair almost surely gets rid of that texture and rain-resistant benefit.

I've searched far and wide, and there are virtually no groomers around here who will hand strip a dog. It is extremely labor intensive, and I determined that if I wanted her to have a natural, proper, hand stripped coat, I would have to do it myself. I actually enjoy it too. It's kind of calming and a bit like creating a sculpture. If my allergies and lungs could tolerate it, I might have switched careers to groom dogs, but that's just not a good idea.

I cannot tell you how many hours I've spent thinking about and agonizing over what to do about Josie's coat. I want to keep it rough and how it's "supposed" to be because I do like that look. It looks more natural, there's better color variety, and I like the harsh feel of it. Plus, it's much better for her skin to get rid of the dead hair.

Over the years, I've taken her to two different groomers in town. I became frustrated with the first one, then tried a second one. I started to groom Josie a little more myself, then would take her to my second groomer for her to tidy her up. She did a good job, but I started to worry way too much of Josie's coat was getting clipped.

Back in May, at the cairn terrier event at Purina Farms, I met one of Josie's Instagram friends from California. She was the sweetest lady and gave me a crash course in grooming Josie the right way. It was amazing, getting a hands on lesson, and I started to think I might actually be able to do this!

Since May, I've worked on Josie here and there, small areas at a time. I finally bought a grooming table, which was pretty much the final 'tool' I needed to fully commit to this.

Last Friday was the day! After about five or so smalls sessions, about 30-45 minutes each, on and off the table, we finally finished! And I think she looks really good! It's not perfect, but I'm still learning.

I'm just so darn proud I can do it! There are still some areas I trim with a scissors, because battling with her to tug out her hairs just isn't worth it. Most of it comes out easily, but some of it does not. Some areas, like her belly, are very very sensitive and simply don't need to be stripped, they can be trimmed up.

I've been smiling at her every time I see her, knowing this is the product of my hard work. She looks very cute, and she also looks like she lost a few pounds with so much of her hair gone haha.

Here's the before and after:

#dogsofinstagram

Storytime!

So, Josie has her own Instagram account, if you didn't know that. She has over 600 followers from all over the world, most of them being cairn terriers like her. I know, it's mega dorky and probably lists me in the crazy-dog-mom column, but it's actually quite fun. It's hard to explain, but after a while, you kind of start to feel a connection with these other dog owners. Some dogs have actually started sending each other postcards in the mail. Back in May, I actually met a woman from California who is a sweet lady and owner of 4 cairn terriers (who follow Josie, and we follow them too.) It all came about because in one of her photos, she mentioned they were prepping for a trip to Purina Farms for a big event. I messaged her saying I lived nearby, and she wanted to meet up! It was great! 

Today, one of Josie's Scottish cairn pals had a photo saying they were raising money for cystic fibrosis.

Record scratch... what!? Really? I had to reload the picture twice to make sure my eyes weren't making things up.

They had a link in the profile for their little charity type thing. I sent them a private message and got a reply from the dog's mom, who has CF. She was pretty excited I had reached out.

But wow. Like, what are the odds? How amazing, that I would 'meet' someone from Scotland with CF via my dog's Instagram account? Crazy.

Friday Fast 5

1. A new book store opened in Washington yesterday. I wish them the best, but they have a definite uphill battle to fight, it is just impossible to compete with online sites like Amazon. 
2. Jarrod and I went to the Thirty Seconds to Mars & Muse concert on Tuesday. What an awesome show! Jarrod isn't so much a Muse fan, but I am, but we both like "Mars" so he bought me tickets for Valentine's back in February. Thirty Seconds to Mars was really good, although they were just the opener, so they only played for 45ish minutes. The lead singer, Jared Leto, busted his knee in another show two days prior, so I think he was maybe a little less energetic than normal. That's not to say he mailed it in, he definitely didn't, but I would guess it would have been just a tad better if he could have ran around like normal. Then Muse... oh wow. I've read bits and pieces through the years saying that they are one of the absolute best acts to see live, and I'd agree. They put on an awesome show, and even Jarrod was impressed. I'd totally go see them again in a heartbeat if the chance arises. And we both already want to go see Mars again as a headliner, I know it would be an even better show. Luckily, Mars is releasing a new album this year, and Muse announced they will have a new one in 2018, so I think we will probably have our wishes granted in the near future.
3. This upcoming week is the Race Across America bike race. If you never read the story from two years ago when I met the team Love, Sweat, & Gears, I recommend it. It is one of my favorite blogs I've ever written and is still a story that blows me away. I hope I can get a chance to say hello to them again this year.
4. I saw a video yesterday that was interesting... it was in some foreign country, two people were using pitch forks to stir up dirt on their farm, and there was a pack of terriers. As they worked the soil, rats came out—I didn't even know rats lived in the ground like that, like a mole. The dogs went after them, caught them, shook them in the their jaws and killed them. Every time my Josie shakes her head, with a toy in her mouth, so hard it seems like she'd hurt her neck, that's that instinct right there; that's exactly what those dogs were doing to those rats. It was A, kinda gross, the size of some of these rats was disgusting. B, kinda brutal, even though completely natural. And C, kinda neat to see the dogs doing the jobs they were bred to do. Terriers are ratters, they were bred to hunt vermin and protect farms back in the old days, and somewhere in the world they obviously still serve their very useful purpose.
5. While I'm talking terriers, have I ever told you that Josie is left-pawed? She is!

Friday Fast 5

1. I'm so glad those storms on Tuesday didn't amount to much. They kept saying they would likely be severe, and a few places did have some devastating tornadoes, but it missed us. Thank goodness. Josie still woke up once the storm was almost here. I swear, she can feel the air pressure change or something because when it is supposed to storm, she tends to act funny, sometimes a whole day in advance. She did better this time, though, and didn't pee anywhere in the house when she was scared. So that was improvement!
2. I started 2017 off by reading Better Than Before, by Gretchen Rubin, who studies habits and habit formation and how they can help us live happier, better lives. One habit she really believes in is setting a bedtime for yourself. We all have one as kids, but most of us don't have one as adults. I decided to give it a shot, and I made a concerted effort to be in bed by 10:30 during weekdays. Obviously, my nighttime routine is a little different than most. Depending on what we're doing, I may or may not get to bed late because I need to do my vest for 30 minutes, then sometimes an extra neb after it that will take 4-10 minutes. The point is: it takes some planning ahead. Well, more and more lately I've actually been meeting my goal. And most nights this week, I was in bed well ahead of 10:30. It seems to be a little easier for me to fall asleep, but I'm not sure if I'm actually getting more sleep because now I'm having trouble sleeping past 5am. I'm also finding I get tired earlier, which kind of sucks. So yeah... not sure how this is going to pan out for me. I 'feel' good about myself for going to bed earlier, but I'd honestly rather stay up a little later than wake up a little earlier. 
3. I have had Bone Thugs-N-Harmony's song "The Crossroads" stuck in my head for 3 straight days now. It's getting a bit old...
4. Lent really snuck up on me this year (side note: apparently "snuck" is not a word. But to say it sneaked up on me just sounds really weird...) Anyone else? I had no idea what to do for Lent until Wednesday afternoon. 
5. A new season of Survivor starts next week!

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!

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.

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.

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 :).

Just Some Thoughts & Tidbits

I hope I'm not upsetting anyone over what I'm about to say, because I loved seeing all of my family members, but I am very glad that Christmas is over. We have so many Christmas celebrations to attend and by Saturday, I was downright exhausted. And not, like, normal-person exhausted, but CF-related-running-myself-into-the-ground-I'm-going-to-get-sick-if-I-don't-stop exhausted. I slept or laid around practically all day on Saturday, but it wasn't enough. I'm finally feeling a bit more up to snuff today, but wow I was running low on gas.

But Christmas was great. It was really nice visiting with everyone, especially my cousin Megan from the Watson side, who I haven't seen in ages. We have a tendency of missing each other at family get-togethers, either I'm there or she's there but we're rarely both there. So that was nice, and it was great meeting her boyfriend.

Saturday was a ruff day, pun intended. Friday night was when all of this rain started, and it all began with a whole bunch of thunderstorms. Josie's storm anxiety has gotten worse, and I was up for a while trying to deal with her. It's hard, and a long story, but we have tried about everything we're supposed to do but it doesn't seem to help a whole lot. I have a couple ideas for our next steps, but yeah. Off and on Saturday there was thunder and lightning, so she was stressed out pretty much all day. Poor thing.

But it's back to real life now. I have to work all week except for New Year's Day, which is typical. Though I'm pretty sure if the newspaper said We're foregoing our usual Weekend Edition due to the holiday (for Christmas, too), I doubt anyone would mind. But that would be blasphemous; the news must go on!

Jarrod started his week off by having to replace our garage door opener. Fun fun fun... He determined it was unfixable and we needed a new one. It started acting up Christmas Eve, he took the dog out Christmas morning to find the door had actually only half shut and been half open all night long. But at least the new one has a keypad, which is something we kind of missed from the Wentzville house.

As you may recall, he also replaced our garbage disposal last month, and next month we'll probably be needing a new hot water heater. So we're pretty tired of things breaking around here. It's all hitting about the same time, isn't that always the way?

In better news, I have been out of the hospital for 6 months! Woo hoo. However, I am on an antibiotic right now. I started it last week because I was coughing more and more, especially waking up at night. I don't think I had two-consecutive nights where I didn't wake up coughing in well over two months, so I was pretty darn tired of it. I'm hoping this gives me a small 'boost' and I can continue my stay out of the hospital. I can't say I'm feeling a ton better at the moment, but I'm hoping it'll help.

It's funny, though, because CF is such a huge roller coaster ride. I completely acknowledge that I am only prolonging the inevitable. I still think it's a good choice, because as I've said before, the less I need IV antibiotics the better. The more time that I can stay away from antibiotics in general, the better it will be for me and the less resistance I will have to these meds. But still, eventually I will go back in, which would be the lowest point of the roller coaster, and then I will go back up a sharp hill quickly, stay on top for a little while, then slowly descend over months and months until my little roller coaster car comes to the bottom of another hill. And then it's back up again!

Snowy Saturday Morning

Upon checking the weather this morning, I discovered the very-distinct-line between rain and snow was upon our town. I opened the curtains and decided to lay in bed and semi-watch for the snow to arrive.

Sure enough, in about 15 minutes, the wet sloppy snowflakes began. So we officially had our first snow of the season. It wasn't much, but I don't think Josie enjoyed it while she was out.

I contemplated going to get coffee this morning. Last week a friend and I caught up over coffee at a new coffee shop in town, and it was delicious. But in the end I decided to haul out my espresso machine and [attempt to] make myself a cappuccino. I haven't used it in a while, and afterwards I remembered why I would rather just pay someone to make my coffee drinks.

I asked for an espresso machine a couple years ago for Christmas with the hopes of enjoying coffee shop-quality drinks at home, for about 10% of the price. I have a cheapy espresso machine, as far as those go; they can run into the hundreds and hundreds of dollars. So it's nothing spectacular, but I suppose it does the job. But it's all so involved. Getting out the coffee grinder, grinding the beans; setting up the machine, making espresso, steaming the milk, then the huge amount of cleanup because you just dirtied 8 different things just to make one cup of coffee. I am not good at steaming milk, which is pretty much the key to the latte or cappuccino. I can get the milk to bubble up, but they dissipate quickly, and within 10 minutes of completing my drink, it's cold, which is really disappointing when you spent more than 10 minutes setting up and making the darn thing. I can't gulp down espresso in 10 minutes, neither would I want to; it's a drink to be sipped.

So yeah... back on the shelf for the espresso machine, only to be pulled out in six months when I once again forget how time-consuming and involved the entire process is for very little reward.

A couple days ago was Josie's "Homecoming Anniversary." I originally called it an adoption day, but I realize some people might find that misleading since she wasn't "adopted" from a shelter. But yeah, I can't believe it was three years ago that we brought our little dog home!

She's snoozing next to my feet right now. The snow has stopped, but it's very cold and windy outside, so I think we're going to stay in for most of the day and stay warm :)

Our Experience with Greenies: A Cautionary Tale

Yesterday I bought a few of those Greenies chew treats that are supposed to clean a dog's teeth. I wanted to give them a shot because we are not good about brushing Josie's teeth. I always intend to, then something comes up or I really don't feel like it because it's such a battle with our dog. She does NOT enjoy it and wriggles and fights to get away, not to mention tries to lick all the toothpaste off or bite the brush when you're trying to reach the back molars. In the end, her teeth barely even get cleaned—though I guess 'barely' would still be better than 'never'. 

Anyways, I did lots of research about Greenies. If you're unfamiliar, they're a small toothbrush-shaped 'treat' you give your dogs that helps clean their teeth. It's not a hard treat but bendy and flexible and it's mostly made of wheat.

I'd heard the cautionary accounts about Greenies which ranged from 'my dog got sick' to 'my dog had to have emergency surgery because this thing got stuck and caused intestinal blockage'. As with anything, on the flip side, there are thousands of people who have no problems and their dogs love them. So what do you do? I went to Greenies website again yesterday to read about what they said about them, which in short is that Greenies are good for dogs, safe for dogs, with one important disclaimer that stands out to me: as long as they're chewed up correctly. 

The dog is supposed to chew on this thing and, ya know, chew it up, not bite it off and swallow it (ergo, intestinal blockages.) So I gave one to Josie last night... and she ate it in three chunks. Not cool. I tried to reach in her mouth and grab out the last piece, but it was no use. Then I began to worry a little. Thankfully, she showed no signs of illness within an hour; she hadn't vomited, she wasn't acting lethargic, and she wanted to play. We went to bed as normal, and I was praying she'd be okay, or that if she was going to get sick in the middle of the night, I'd wake up for it. She made it through the night and went to the bathroom this morning like normal. Yay. All good signs. 

I held back her breakfast just to be on the safe side. She was very confused and followed me around the kitchen a lot, hoping that one of these times I'd realize I forgot her breakfast and would go and get it haha. Poor thing. 

I thought we were in the clear but then around 11:00 she vomited. It was like it hit her all at once: she stopped dead in her tracks, head down, and eventually threw up. I called the vet and explained and they said to bring her by. We did blood work and an x-ray, which thankfully all came back fine. But based on her having a fever, plus large pockets of gas in the x-ray, the doctor said she probably has inflammation and gastritis. I've got some meds for her to help with her tummy and I'm going to watch her for a while and make sure nothing else crops up, plus encourage her to drink so her fever comes down sooner. 

Needless to say, I'm not buying Greenies again and I'm going to return the two individual ones I have left. I hate to be yet another alarmist on the internet, but I wouldn't recommend these anymore either. Right now I'm kind of guilt-tripping myself as to why I ever thought this would be a good idea. I've been hesitant about these for a while, and I should have just stayed that way, steered clear, but it's over and done. No use dwelling on that. I'm thankful that Josie is okay and her problems aren't any worse. 

Friday Fast Five

Five little things!

Number One
Josie is now on a diet, haha. I've kind of felt she was getting a tad heavy when I picked her up, so I weighed her the other day, and she is about 2.5 pounds over where I'd like her weight to be. So we cut back her food and plan to play with her a little more. I know she's not that much overweight, but I figure we might as well get her weight back in range before it becomes a problem.

Number Two
I'm really becoming unhappy with Facebook. This isn't going to be the usual Facebook rant of mine, but I've been noticing more and more items in my feed that I absolutely DO NOT care about. More often than not, it is showing me posts of things people liked or commented on from other people's pages. Why would I care that my friend commented on a post from one of their friends, someone I don't know?

I think I know what Facebook is trying to do: they're showing you these in hopes that maybe you know this person too and will friend them. But I don't know these people, so I don't give a care. It's getting kind of old.

Number Three
This afternoon I played ball with Josie outside, and while I was sitting there a hummingbird came by and got nectar from the rose bush!

Number Four
Please allow me a quick whine about my CF... It is a beautiful day today, cooler temps are on the way! I would love to sit outside and enjoy it this evening, but the problem is so does everyone else... with their fire pits. Which then means I'm stuck inside. Or I'd like to open up the windows and air the house out, but I can't. Even being many feet away from a fire, if I can smell it, then it will bother my lungs. I can't be around fire in the slightest. Trust me, I wish I could. I'd love to sit around a fire on a cool night as much as the next person. It's small everyday things like this that remind me why I really dislike CF. *Sigh...

Number Five

I'm not a very emotional person, but I shed a few tears this morning as the moment of silence and beginning of memorial services in NYC and DC were shown on the morning news. For some reason, I was overcome with emotions about the gravity of that day. 

My Pet Has A Pillow Pet

A long time ago, at the first place I ever worked, there was this giant stuffed dog we had lying around. The owners had bought it at a toy show in hopes of making something like it. They never did, so this dog was just sitting around the office. One time when we were clearing some things out, it was time to get rid of the dog and I offered to take him.

Pillow Pets are pretty cute, though.

Do you remember the Pillow Pet toy fad of a few years ago? The animal pillows you can fold in half? They're still around, but not as heavily promoted. I recall seeing a lot of those commercials around Christmas in like 2011-ish. "It's a pillow... it's a pet... it's a pillow pet." Well, this dog turned out to be a Jumbo Pillow Pet, I've never seen one like him in stores. All of the stores sell ones that are maybe a foot wide, this thing is almost 3. I've been holding onto it all these years for no big reason, and last week I decided to try out a new purpose for it.

When Josie was about six months old, I got her a dog bed. I happily brought it home, but she didn't like it. It would make me chuckle: on numerous occasions she would lay down and curl up next to her dog bed, but never on her dog bed. Nope, she didn't like it at all. For a little while, we started leaving her in the laundry room with her dog bed when we were gone. We'd come home to find her laying on it. Hey! Maybe she likes it after all! No... it was just comfier than the tile floor. Finally one day we came home to find stuffing all over the place. Out of boredom, Josie had succumbed and chewed up her bed. Oh well... she never liked it anyways, luckily I didn't spend much on it (dog beds can run really pricey, for a glorified pillow.)

So last week I figured why not bring out the giant dog pillow. Despite her 'small dog' label, she actually needs a fairly big bed. If she lays with her legs stretched out, which is probably half the time, she can take up a lot of space. Ergo, the dog pillow was perfect for her.

I placed her onto it a few times, and then what do you know, later she climbed onto it! On her own! And then last night, she laid down on it all on her own too. I've caught her laying on it when I'm not even in the room, so my conclusion is she must like it! It makes me smile, partly because it's a dog laying on a dog haha!

Resting after a great walk.