Changing the standard of thinking.

So Healthy I Feel Guilty

Photo OpI have lived my entire life feeling “less than” in terms of health – well, my entire adult life. Childhood was fine, other than treatments and hospitalizations. I really don’t ever remember feeling “sickly” despite having pulmonary bouts that sent me to the hole for 14 days at least 7 times before I was in Jr. High and started on home IVs.

Now that I’ve had my sinus surgery and was on oral and IV meds for the sinus epidemic in my body, I feel better than I have in over 8 years… maybe 12 years, no joke. My sinuses were compromising so much of my system, I’m not sure how I was coping with such a brazen infection.

And this leaves me feeling guilty.

I’ve got CFer friends on Facebook and Twitter who are fighting for their lives in their low 20s and 30s on the transplant list. Others just got their transplants. Others still are fighting daily hemoptysis that makes every day a risk assessment of their bleeding status.
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Philips Respironics MiniElite Compressor Review

Philips MiniElitePhilips Respironics sent me a MiniElite unit with a SideStream Plus handset and slim lithium ion battery to test and give my expert review as a user of nebulizers for over 30 years, so I put it through its paces and have come to a conclusion about their product.

Description

My first impression of the MiniElite was amazement over how small it is. It’s about twice the size of an aquarium air pump! If I had this when I was in high school doing nebs on the way to golf practice and tournaments, it would have made life SO much easier. We used to have a DC to AC converter to plug in our 10lb compressor and then a dose took 20-30 minutes. I hated having CF every day of the week back then.

Imagine having a 1.4lb compressor with an optional thin lithium-ion battery that snaps to the bottom of it for use in the car or out anywhere you can’t get to an AC or DC outlet. It also comes with a carrying case that is smaller than my overnight toiletry bag and the base unit has a neb cut-out to stand the nebulizer up so the mouthpiece isn’t laying down on a dirty surface after use. Pretty impressive design.
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Fatboy and Beautiful Celebrate 4 Years of Bliss

Fatboy and Beautiful

Young Love - 2002

Well, not all bliss because it’s a super-rare case where a CFer has 4 years of no issues, and we’ve had more than our fair share of events in our 8 years together and 4 years with our wagons hitched in total solidarity. However, I’d be a fool to not acknowledge that they have by far been my best 4 years of my life.

No doubt

Beautiful has made her anniversary post about all of her memories of our Great Day – October 21, 2006 – on her blog, but I wanted to concentrate on my most emotional memory, which was the sum total of all of my excitement, fear, joy, and anxiety all rolled into about 20 minutes.

My best man slept over with me the night before to help me get everything ready for the day. We ran to the florist next door and got flowers to surprise her with when we walked in late that evening because we were headed on our honeymoon after lunch the next day and then headed to our church.

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Great Things Coming

I just had to let you all know everything is fine, other than nausea from my Levaquin. I’ve got it under as much control as possible, but it still disables me for a couple of hours every day. Thankfully, I’m done with it Thursday night, so I should have a productive Friday.

I can breathe better than in years (lungs and sinuses now) and am ready to conquer the world like never before. I’ve even begun shopping for new shoes on Zappos.com, pending Beautiful’s go-ahead to “invest” in our exercise if I’m going to have any chance of running a 5k in February. Business is booming and Beautiful has her food allergies figured out, so we begin eating a bit more normally today after I pick up some medicine for her that lets her eat foods without a reaction. We are very blessed to be getting back on our feet in every way possible.

On the site front, I have an exciting product review coming up and a whole string of articles coming down the pike, but I need to take care of business first – not for the immediate money, but to satisfy everyone who has paid their deposit. A nice place to be, because that means more income when each is done, so expect my best work ever after that because I’ll have time for once.

On a more secretive note, things are in the works to have a video or two of me interviewed about the benefits of one of the newer treatments I’m on. One would involve flying me or us (that’s how early this is) to the studio and the other would send the film crew here to me and I’d be taking a half-day to devote to filming. Words can’t describe how exciting that is. The same firm that is involved with this great opportunity has become close enough that I’m going to start calling him a friend after we talk on the phone for the first time, especially since he called me “an inspiration.” I’m humbled and ecstatic like never before – other than our wedding 3.989 years ago.

So Healthy I Feel Guilty

I have lived my entire life feeling "less than" in terms of health - well, my entire adult life. Childhood was fine, other than treatments and hospitalizations. I really don't ever remember feeling "sickly" despite having pulmonary bouts that sent me … [Read more]

Philips Respironics MiniElite Compressor Review

Philips Respironics sent me a MiniElite unit with a SideStream Plus handset and slim lithium ion battery to test and give my expert review as a user of nebulizers for over 30 years, so I put it through its paces and have come to a conclusion about … [Read more]

Fatboy and Beautiful Celebrate 4 Years of Bliss

Well, not all bliss because it's a super-rare case where a CFer has 4 years of no issues, and we've had more than our fair share of events in our 8 years together and 4 years with our wagons hitched in total solidarity. However, I'd be a fool to not … [Read more]

Great Things Coming

I just had to let you all know everything is fine, other than nausea from my Levaquin. I've got it under as much control as possible, but it still disables me for a couple of hours every day. Thankfully, I'm done with it Thursday night, so I should … [Read more]

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