Lying low and keeping my head down and blinders on so I can wrap up a boatload of project work before my week off for Christmas and my surgery date set for January 6th. It’s been a heck’uva first half of the month blasting work out the door, but I need to have a bit more cushion for January to hold us over if my antibiotics make me too nauseated to work again for the duration.
We celebrated my 32nd birthday on Saturday with some cool presents and a day with the in-laws and out-laws, I mean parents – they live on a tropical island by choice, not in exile. /grin Dad took me to Lowe’s in the morning to go pick up my present from them. I was clueless, but my heart started racing as we kept walking along the power tools section, stopping at the hammer drills. Since Beautiful has a pre-disposition to hang things on our walls, a good drill comes in handy around here. I just wish we had this baby back when I drilled 60 tap screws into our garage masonry when we moved in. The 3 holes that had gone unfinished due to some obstruction were obliterated in as many seconds, total, with my new De-Walt drill with a masonry bit. It went through like buttah, slamming the chuck into the wall before I knew I’d squeezed the trigger. Cooool.
We headed over to my in-laws’ after a lunch of steak stir-fry and played some Texas Hold’em. I was quite pleased to win a hand, and another, and another. In fact, I think I’ve only ever won 2 hands in my life, but I won about 6 in a row, much to the disgust of everyone else at the table looking at my pile of chips. I can’t wait to go back! /double-grin
For dinner, I got my requested Mom2 lasagna since my bro-in-law concurred, as we always share birthday dinner nights since his birthday is on the 10th. He be 20 now, so hopefully no one ever thinks I’m his dad when we go out and about again… he’s got me by 5 inches and 20lbs now anyway.
Health update
Back to something CF-related, since that’s why you come here. I was severely tempted to use my new drill on my right eye socket to open up a new passage to my bothersome frontal sinus on Saturday and several times since. I’m having a really hard time staying off the crack, I mean Ultram and Vicodin, to relieve some of the pain since they make me somewhat zombie-like. It’s not enough to make me unpleasant or non-functional, but Beautiful doesn’t like how I’m a bit spacy and unemotional when I’m doped up.
Last Friday I asked Sue about getting an Electro Flo 5000 automated hand-held percussion device by Med Systems. She wasn’t sure I could get that covered since my insurance already bought my Vest to the tune of about $10,000, but I said that it wouldn’t hurt to try. The worst they can do is deny it. By 6pm, I had a call from my approved durable medical equipment supplier to verify insurance and arrange delivery, supposedly today, though it is on backorder and I’ll get a call when they receive it locally.
I’m pretty pumped about getting it because I almost always have a spot or two that needs some work breaking up gunk that the Vest doesn’t touch or is unnecessary for when I could just target a wheeze or “shelf” of gunk with a couple of minutes of hammering. Shoot, I could use it now, but I’ll just have to strap on my Vest instead.
Excuse me, my crack is calling my name over to the bottle so I can stop squinting out of one eye.
It was fun to see your excitement with the new hammer drill :>)
Praying you get relief from the headache SOON!!
Mom
hope you feel better soon. let us know when you get our card and kaleb’s picture he drew you.
Check my Wall. ๐
You mean Beautiful doesn’t do the manual beating?? What fun is that?
We had the vest too but Greg always had stuff in his lower right area that was a pain to get out. With cupped pads in my hand, I would proceed to beat his chest like a bongo drum. I even went as far as to sing “Ba-ba-loo!”. (Hey, you make fun where you can!)
Happy Holidays and have fun with your new toys!
No manual beating here, but she’ll give me a good whacking when I have a shelf in my upper left that won’t drop the gunk.
After reading this post, I really want an Electro Flo 5000! You should make a video of it! I hope this next sinus surgery does the trick – stupid sinuses… aren’t lung problems enough trouble? Why sinuses too? I finally just got the loose ends tied up for the ambulance bill from my surgery back in July – oy. Anyways – I look forward to hearing more from you on your blog. Enjoy the holidays!
Thanks, Stina – no kidding about the sinuses. I have new smells from this infection that I’ve never smelled before. Glad you got that bill cleared up.
We have the VEST for AIdan but insurance denied the Frequencer when we tried for it. To see how you describe your sinus pain is horrific. Because now I know how my son feels. Both of his frontal sinuses are a mess very soon again after his surgeries. There are days I can’t even brush his hair or turn on the vacuum because the pain/pressure he has. We do rinses, steroid, nasal nebulizers but nothing goes all the way to the frontal sinuses, does it? It’s horrible. What do you culture in your sinsues? I feel like Aidan’s have gotten so much worse since getting MRSA two years ago. Feel better. Megan
Pseudomonas and I had a “dirt bacteria” for a while but colistin and surgery
wiped it out. The pseudo is susceptible to things other than my lungs so
they treat with diff. abx when it’s time for surgery than normal.