Life with CF — Page 9

The Day That Started Out Nice…

August 24, 2011

Today started out on a high: booting up my new Mac Mini Server with my old computer’s backup migrated onto it from overnight.

Today is ending on a pretty sour note: in a LaQuinta in Locust Grove, GA – an hour south of Atlanta – stranded with a burned out alternator… when we should be halfway through Tennessee now.

Here’s my story about a grandpa

My grandpa. Where do I begin? Now I don’t think my dad will take any offense to this since he would agree that it’s a good choice, but I can’t think of anyone in the living flesh that I could aspire to be and look up to on every area of life than my Mom’s dad. He’ll be 81 in November and has had diabetes for well over a decade, had both knees replaced a few weeks after turning 65 (his big retirement present after Thanksgiving), and congestive heart failure.

He’s had his ups and downs with his sugars, potassium, and all the stuff associated with things that go wrong when you have both heart issues and diabetes. I’d be a huge liar if we didn’t get concerned every time we hear that he’s having another issue like some skin cancer spots, kidney issues, etc. What can we say, we’re crazy about my grandparents and want to get every chance to see them that we can. Last year, we spent Labor Day weekend with them so we could go to their county fair: one of my fondest memories growing up.

Well, Monday morning we got an e-mail from my aunt who was visiting them that they took him to the ER at 2am with shortness of breath (we all know about that, don’t we?), O2 under 80%, and disorientation. She said she noticed last week that he’d had breathing and confusion issues. While he’s quite old by my present age, that is very much out of character for him.

We are the closest (willing) relatives to come give them a hand, so we packed up the Sorento after gathering things yesterday, clear up until 9:30pm, got up at 6:30, and were on the road at noon with a plan of driving straight through with a nap at a rest area to arrive at or after lunch on Thursday.

It was a good plan.

It was a good plan that wasn’t going to happen.

Oh… crap

We were in Georgia right about 4pm. A couple of exits past Valdosta, the cruise control kicked off. I looked at the gauges and the battery, ABS, emergency brake, and traction control lights were all on. A minute later, the gauges started acting funny before dropping to the bottom of their respective arcs and the car started running rough. We got off the exit without any gas because the manual said that it was a brake system issue. The brakes worked fine coming up the exit ramp.

I almost stopped the car there to shut it off and see if that reset everything, but proceeded on to turn right (not seeing a darn thing to the left). We passed a boarded up and overgrown BP station (great exit, Jesse) [Read more…]

Business Is Like a Box of Chocolates

June 18, 2011

Forrest Gump - 1994: Paramount

As most of you know by now, I’ve been running my own business for over 2 years now. I can safely say (since we don’t have kids) that it has been the singularly most frustrating and rewarding thing we’ve done. I hear they’re more of the same, so business should be extra fun when that time comes.

The business has largely been the reason I’ve decreased my writing frequency and topic quality over the last 3 months, especially. It’s just plain been rough, but there are patterns and cycles based on the calendar and other strange things. Here are a few of them:

Full moons – we are the furthest thing from superstitious that you can find, but Beautiful and I both agree that people are just plain weird on full moon days. I don’t have any scientific reason for it, but after both of us working in customer service positions of some sort for a combined 18 years, there is a definite connection of weird people stories being escalated on those days.
February – my saddest month each year, even though my company anniversary day is on Groundhog Day. Sales in February are miserable! I think people get their Christmas credit card statements or just paid their January 15th estimated taxes and have nothing left for working on their online presence.
June – well, it just so happens to be June, doesn’t it?: our best month! There is something about June that just makes people step into the batter’s box and get things done. Last June, we took a 1-week vacation and still made more than 3x what I needed to at the time to make our household budget work. This month, well, I’ll tell you after this list.
Jan. 15th, Apr. 15th, Jun. 15th, Sep. 15th – my 4 least favorite days of the year. Those not in the know, those are the days the IRS demands that we pay homage to their tax code based on what we think we will earn the next quarter, plus the actual tax day. The first year, we didn’t pay quite enough and owed a lot in April. The second year, we paid a lot, lot more and still owed money. Last year, we paid a lot, lot, lot more and still owed. So… this year, we’re paying what the CPA recommends and see if we hit the mark this time.

Oh, look! It’s the end of the list.

Back to this month. What a rush! [Read more…]

Tight, Tight, Tight, But Not Sick

June 10, 2011

Today I went in for an unscheduled clinic visit because I’ve been having seriously labored breathing.

There have been precious few times that I’ve actually been scared for my mortality because of my breathing (thinking about mortality and having physical feelings are so different). This week was one of them, as I’d climb into bed with my CPAP on, lay down on my side, and actually struggle for breath for a couple of very long minutes. I imagined that I looked like a fish out of water, gasping. My lungs hurt, or at least my ribs did, but it felt like my lungs.

I’ve also had episodes of a stabbing pain in my lower right ribcage, similar to a running stitch in the side about every other time I do my Vest. I have just had a general feeling that my lungs aren’t supple enough to expand or contract any more and that I’m wearing a very tight belt around my chest most of the time. Oh, yeah, and the whole blacking out episode – it’s all making me feel pretty nervous about where my health is at this point.

So, after doing PFTs, Bill said that my volume was up 10mL from last time, so even though I’d gained quite a bit of weight since my last visit, my FEV1 was up 1% to 35% now. What the heck?! I’m not saying that I’m not happy to have better PFTs, but I feel like they are going to think I’m crying wolf soon. I feel terrible, yet I’m still healthy.

[Read more…]

A Photo Tour of California

May 29, 2011

My head is a nice salmon pink now, after an afternoon in the sun on Wednesday and Friday. Strangely, the CA sunburns don’t hurt, I guess, because it only hurts when I take a hot hotel shower. We all have a nice, healthy glow now and are relaxing today after a whirlwind week and day getting back to La Jolla yesterday.

In keeping with relaxing today, I’m going to leave the writing to this long and continue with my favorite images of our trip so far. Enjoy!