Compliance and Vacation

I understand the concept of compliance. I'm pretty good with it at home, it does indeed, make me feel great. However, when those bags get packed and the meds are meticulously counted out per day (along with a day or two extra -- you never know), I lose it. I simply cannot be on vacation and be anywhere near compliant. It's a little ridiculous. I do believe that is part of the stress when 'vacationing' aka going home.

But not doing my meds adds even more stress, so that when I get home, I don't feel well and I'm down because I was doing so well before we left only to erase all my hard work of compliancy. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I don't TRY to be compliant. I try alright, I try. But somehow things just go undone. I also think its much harder to be compliant on vacation. You're having too much fun to just sit down for 45 minutes to vest. Especially if everyone around you is pulling you in 20 million directions.

that's the other thing about going home. I need to see aproximately 20 million people when I get there. Okay, people, I just drove for 12 stinkin' straight hours, so no I would not like to go out breakfast as soon as we roll up in the driveway. I want to crash on a bed and screw up my sleeping schedule.

Oh, sleep. That's a good one. My whole schedule is out the window. In a 4 day span I only got maybe 18 hours a sleep? This coming from the girl who like to get 10 hours a sleep a night. Grrrr. So everyone expects you to travel all over the place to come visit them. Hello! We're the ones coming up. You get off your lazy bum and come visit me, in my pajamas because I'll be napping the whole day I arrive.

Anywhoo. There are also people I simply do not have time to visit. Who make me visit them regardless. That really gets me. I'm now just complaining. I really only wanted to vent about how I cannot remember to sit down and do pulmozyme while in a different setting, and how amazingly frustrating that is.

My actual visit was nice, considering all the above mentioned nonsense. I didn't get to see one of my old high school friends which was such a bummer because I haven't seen him in literally 4 years and I miss him.

But now after driving 12 hours to arrive yesterday morning, then throwing off the sleep schedule once again by sleeping from 7am to noon, then 330-500 and back to bed by 1130... I'm up at 6 to get right back into the swing of things. I always need a vacation after a vacation. I need a break.

My sister could also use a break. She was escorted to childrens hospital via ambulance equipped with 1 MD 1 RN 2 EMT's. Oh yea, she got the special treatment. But what really threw me off was the part of the message that said "... they stabilized her, and now she's off to hasbro" ... excuse me did you just say they had to stabilize her?Oh dear, that is never good. Along side with throwing up until you pass out, that's never good too. What is good? She is officially double listed at Cleveland Clinic. Lets hope those lungs come soon.

Off to start the day my day with two pint sized trouble makers. At least today its just Thing 1 and Thing 2 and no 3rd child.

Obla dee, obla da things are all right!

Excuse the horribleness of:

A. Not know the correct spelling and/or words to the song in my title

B. The complete LACK of posting for eh, a month

C. The randomness that is about to follow--

Lets start off by saying a week is a long time. Now, sometimes a week can FLY by, and other times you begin to think you actually might comprehend the meaning of forever... A lot of things can happen in a week. Your car could break, you could get a job, get your car fixed, have an interview for said job that you're getting, travel to airport, take all your meds -- or not take all your meds in my stupid stupid case-- get your hair cut, cut your tendon? (a fellow blogger did this and I can't for some reason get out of my head how unlucky that was, but how lucky it was it a clean cut; she's a trooper and seems to be doing well, give the circumstance - I DIGRESS again) But like I said, a lot can happen in a week.

Well, a lot has happened in this past week, and a lot will be happening in the upcoming week. This past week I had a college friend come down to visit. We did so many things! We kayaked, we went paddle boating, walking, riding our bikes, shopping, history tours, swimming, beaching, clubbing... oh my the list goes on. Amidst this hectic fun-filled week was also a slacking week on my part. I started off doing ALL my meds, like a good cherub, but thennnnn I felt like I had to be entertaining my guest 24/7 and missed a cayston here, and missed another there, but no biggie right? Until it was a pulmozyme then an advair (I'm real upset about this one, Jess's post convinced me I needed to start committing to my advair; I have it for a reason right?! and I was doing so well, 2 weeks without a missed dose!) then before you know it, I'm coughing and hacking and well it's not pretty.

But the kicker is the whole time I was feeling guilty about it. Every time I could have just so easily gotten up and taken 7 minutes out of my day to do a med. It was really that simple. Oh, but no, not me! Goodness gracious if I ever just stick to my gut and do what I know is best for me. Well, it sure has bit me in the arse (as Gem would say ) because my friend who flew down to see me, picked up a lovely little virus of some sort on the way. We thought it was just allergies - I mean these southern allergies are the worst this year in 10 years or something crazy like that. But then came the headaches, sore throat and FEVER! YIKES! And even though I know medicine doesn't necessarily make a virus less catchable, it does make you stop sneezing and coughing and spewing stuff EVERYWHERE. And my friend just so happens to be one of those people who 'doesn't like medicine' because it 'freaks her out.'

That's fine in any other situation, but you're in my home and I would really prefer if you took an antihistamine so you're not sneezing your germs all over my couch which I sit/lay in daily. Please? No go. Again, that's fine, I didn't pressure her (ok ok I did a little but I still let her have her way) and she continued to sneeze and cough and yada yada.

Today my lovely readers, I now have a frog cough (nothing productive) that makes me throw up instantly if I cough more than 3 times in a row. Lovely, I know! A really humongous throat, sniffy nose, you name it I got it. No fever yet, although I did feel a little fever-y but I ignored it.

I wouldn't really care too much, except for the fact that I feel like an absolute douche. If I had been the good little cherub and taken my pills like the doctors say to, I could have avoided this (most likely) . But now I'm sick, and I have my first day of work tomorrow as a nanny. This would also be fine, except its the first day of work and they don't really know much about CF so I gave them a very general overview. When I say general, I mean, way way above general, I wouldn't even count it as an explanation! Terrible, I know, but I like the families to get to know me first, and see that I can handle the job then ease them into the disease. I mean, come on, would you throw a 2 year old in the pool and expect them to swim? No way jose! You put them in a bubble suit, with bubble arms and a bubble belt, obviously. Then one by one take the bubbles away and they can swim fine. That's what I'm doing. Except in the ocean and not a pool. haha

So all in all I'm freaking out. Stressing out. BIG day tomorrow. I hope this thing goes away nicely and I feel better tomorrow and not worse. And you better believe I have done all my meds so far today (although thanks to the bullfrog in my throat I decided that antibiotics look much prettier in the toilet with some cranberry juice than in my tummy).

Even with all this stressing me out, I have decided I'm going to try this "stress free, worry not" approach, and just let it happen. Whatever it may be. Maybe this is a lesson about sometimes putting yourself first is OK.

And with that I'm off to clean the apartment because it is a disaster area.

PS. I got new dishes and I am super duper uber excited. I can hardly contain it. They are white and beautiful and corelle so they'll last a long time and if I keep saying "and" I might just be able to make this the longest run-on sentence in the world. Don't you just love my grammar? I'm lucky if I remember "i before e, except after c".

Hope all is well for everyone else.

Family Love

Family is down to spend the week of the 4th of July here. Although they didn't go out with me and kyle to see the fireworks. So glad you came for the 4th of july in one of the most historic places of the USA -- greeeaaaaat. But I didn't mind. We had had a long day.

I'll have to update later about what we've been doing. I've been SO exhausted - but luckily the week after they leave I'll be going into the hospital for a tune up/ getting my wisdom teeth out. Fun fun fun.

Heres just a small list of the things we've done so far I'll elaborate next week when I have ALL day and ALL night to do NOTHING! woohoo. Gotta love hospitals.

Things we've done:

1. Went to a waterpark and stayed ALL day
2. Ate out at restaurants (quite a bit!)
3. Swam swam swam swam swam
4. Kayak on the huge lake
5. Went to see a Movie

Thing we are going to do:

1. Spend the day down in VA Beach
2. Swim swim swim
3. Have a mother/daughter Spa day
4. Go to the river to swim some more

I'm not too sure what else, but for right now that seems plenty for me. haha.

hope everyones doing well!

Woah, I haven't posted for nearly a month! Geesh. Hey life happens, right? Well the past 2.5 weeks have been filled with Adventures. Kyle finished school and doesn't start research till tomorrow -- er-- today? So while he had all the free time in the day to spend with me, I still had work... or did I? Turns out Emily caught some upper respiratory infection bug deal thing, and I wanted to part of it - so I didn't have work for 2 weeks. Fine by me. =)

Kyle and I did a lot of fun things together. We went to the aquarium where we fell in love with the river otters - they were just giant versions of Duck Duck and Goose. Then we went to virginia beach with Lisa and her doggie (she also came to the aquarium with us). We went dumpster diving through William and Mary which is always fun! We snatched a really handy desk that we're using as a computer printer station. We got some great plastic drawers and a lamp, and kyle picked up about 10 vacuums thinking he could sell them on craigslist. *rolls eyes* needless to say he hasn't sold one yet.

We both got mountain bikes, so we biked to Colonial Williamsburg, which was nice, but then, I took kyle to the park I used to take the little boy I nannied for to... and it was awesome. It has a mountain bike trail that I didn't even know it had. its about 6 miles long through the woods, its pretty serious. We've done that twice. Although the second time was today and I was just emotionally a wreck. I have no idea why but every 10 minutes I was breaking down crying for some reason or another. I was very discouraged.

I think it had to do with the fact that we started at the entrance, as oppose to getting on an emergency entrance -- basically if you start at the entrance you must travel at least 3 miles to get to the first emergency entrance/exit. Well, there are 10 entrances so when we went the first time we started at entrance 10 and had to pass 9 , 8 , 7, 6, etc. to get to the end. I think I was freaking out knowing I had to go 3 miles to leave. Whereas before it wasn't a big deal because I could just leave at the next exit. Well anyways, I didn't have too much fun this time with all the crying I was doing. But I did have a good chuckle when Kyle flipped over his handle bars. He was fine, only a little scratch, but the way he sped around the corner all I heard was him going "THUD CRUNCH (because of the dead leaves)" followed by an UGHHHHH -- take this one slow!

I also crashed my bike into him. hehe. I swear my brakes weren't working when I tried to stop. And I smashed right into him about 30 seconds into the trail at the start. I cut his leg. oops. It bled too. That was the first time I cried, and asked to go back.

Oh I am a mess. I felt physically better than the first time we went but I was just so emotionally distraught that that made me feel physically ill too. Not a good combo. At one point I had a full out panic attack when we passed mile marker 3 and still no exit. Bring on the water works!

It was pretty embarrassing and I felt bad too because no way was this fun for kyle, but he was a champ and still stopped at every single hill so I could walk my bike up, or he'd go up the hill, park then come back down to walk my bike up for me. And since we were mountain biking -- the whole trail is one giant hill. Poor guy. I always feel like I'm holding him back. Like, if I Just didn't have CF, we would have had a great time! =\

Anyways, back to our pseudo vacation, i had a few doctor appointments sprinkled throughout the weeks, and I'm finally going to get my wisdom teeth out. =\ Fun? They're going to do them in the hospital so I can have a tune-up at the same time. Which is nice because I could probably use a good tune up by now. It's been almost 6 months since my last one! Which is kind of nice, because it shows that I had a rough patch but I'm still doing pretty well. But It kinda sucks because I know in march I wasn't feeling great, and then by april I was ready for a tune-up, but Cayston seems to be a wonderdrug and I've felt great on it since starting it. Shame I can't do any other meds with my Eflow. I'm sure I'd feel amazing if I could.

Oh, another fun thing we did was bowling on a saturday night. All you can bowl from 10pm -1 am. They had black lights and fun music, and disco balls. It was a ton of fun. We stayed the whole time! And it was only as expensive as going to the movies on saturday, so I think that might be a more frequent date night.

We also went to duke to visit Cal, for his 21st birthday and we went to a saloon. Hilarious. complete with mechanical bull. It was a lot of fun though. I love to dance and I miss dancing at clubs with girlfriends and what have you so being able to dance with some friends was nice.

Ah there's so much more to write about (see Beth, this is what happens when you don't blog for a month everything builds up!) but I need to go to bed, GASP it's 2 am? holy moly. I really gotta go.

Part 2 to come tomorrow.