Pics from Friday Night

Friday Night Out - Downtown at 6th and Vine

Hey my bitches!

Hope everyone had a good friday night and the weekend is going well. I had a great night last night!!! But my body is sooo tired. (mostly my legs and feet though) Yesterday, except for going out to P.T. and to the library (Yes, you judgemental whores - I read occassionally and decided to pick it up again for a while), I spent most of the day finishing up my packing to come up here to Winston-Salem and getting ready for the evening.

My co-ordinator was supposed to call in another order for Cellcept (diff. mg dose) to my pharmacy and the plan was to pick it up on my way out of Lexington, so I would have it to start taking again last night with my 9:30 pm pills. Well, I get ready and was running a little late, so I hurried to CVS to pick up my meds. They had 2 of them that I needed, but *Gasp* No cellcept. I guess Ken got busy and forgot to call in the prescription. That's okay Ken - Becky to the rescue! So, I immediately called paged Becky and she called me back. She supposedly called it into the pharmacy, so I havent checked yet but I hope it's there. I'm going to stop on my way home b/c I really should have taken it this morning.

So, anyway, after that minor setback, I drove on to Winston-Salem (YES ALONE after 6pm - first trip driving out of town (usually I'm the passenger when traveling out of town) since my transplant. I made it! YES! I am so proud of myself. I was a little nervous at first but was able to hold it together. YAY!! So, I met Emily and we parked my car. Jay and Gray were running a bit late so we stayed in the heat of the car for a few minutes before making our 1-2 block trek to 6th and Vine. GOD I LOVE BREATHING. I was so happy to just be walking downtown going out and being normal with my oldest buddy ever, that I wasn't even dwelling on the fact that my feet and ankles were getting tired after doing P.T. earlier as well. Fuck it! I was alive and enjoying it!

Anyway- we got to 6th and Vine and went in. 45 min wait. Fuck it who cares. Let's get this evening started. OOPS. Super crowded- no where to sit. That blows. But I was still high from life and ready to live it up. So Jay (our old friend) and Gray (Emily's brother) showed up and the night began. We had to stand around for over an hour until we finally got seated - which definitely took a toll on me from the waist down. I"m sure I annoyed hte hell out of them by complaining a lot but overall, It wasn't the end of the world and it definitely wasn't the first time I'd suffered in that way. :) So finally - two seats opened up at the bar and Emily and I sat down. We had to wait like another 30 minutes before we got our table though, but it was okay b/c I was finally sitting and resting my legs!

To sum it all up, we finally got a table. The food was fabulous. Champagne good. Service outstanding. Just really liked the whole enviroment of the place and would definitely love to go back again soon! I had a great night and I think everyone else did too. It was awesome to spend time with Emily again, since we haven't gotten to spend a lot of time together since we lived in Greensboro - and especially with me being healthy, sans o2 tanks! And to see Gray and Jay was super awesome too. We got there about 6:45 and left to go back to Emily's around 12:30 or so.

But- of course because i'm ME and live MY life - something had to go wrong in the end. As I was following Emily back to her apartment, Mom's car started acting up again like the dumbass it is. Well techinically I blame the step dad since he never took it to a real mechanic to have it checked last time this happened about a month ago on the way back from Chapel thrill. So it started jerking so I had to pull off the road and cut it off. Emily came back around and met me in the parking lot where I stopped. I started the car and tried again and we took the back roads, so I was able to make it to her apartment without the car fuckin' up anymore but I didn't go over 40 mph. So - it ended well but I should have known that the night wouldn't be perfect! :)

So now I'm about to call home and make plans about what to do about driving home, etc. Sorry for such a long post - I'll holler at y'all later. Hope everyone has a great rest of the weekend!!! TOODLES, bitches!

P.S. I'll add pics from last night later when I get home!

Loving life today. Back to the land of the living!

What's up my babiesss...!

Hope everyone has had a good week and that y'all are gearing up for a great weekend. I know I am. I'm slowly getting back to myself after the horribly hell ridden last week I've had. I'm back!!! Which means I'm back at P.T. after almost 2 weeks and to back to leaving the house whenever I possibly can. Gone is the puking, the sharting, the emotional rollercoaster of everyone bitching at me and not giving a shit that I felt like warmed over ass on a soggy hamburger bun for over a week. I'm even going to attempt to drive myself to Winston-Salem tomorrow evening! My back is still hurting, but it will be worth it to get away again. I'll be staying the night at Emily's again tomorrow. We're going out to dinner with our old friend Jay and probably going out for a while afterwards too. It's so good to be able to just go out and not worry about breathing or oxygen tanks or anything else that held me back pre-transplant. Life is such a blessing!

Also, I sold my engagement ring today to the pawn shop. Of course I didn't get much for it, b/c it's platinum and most places only want gold these days and the diamonds aren't a solitaire, but I was tired of having it around and I can use the extra money for bills. It feels good to be free of it. Also, Jeffrey told me that the police chief at his PD told him they were going to call me soon about doing some volunteer work at the station. Yay! Something to do to occupy my time. Especially while I search for work. I'm still hoping I will get a call from the Sherrif's department about the dispatcher position. *fingers crossed tightly*

On a high note, I *THINK* I might have lost a couple lbs! YAY! My stomach doesn't look to be protruding outward as much as it has been. I've been watching what I eat and the amounts I eat lately, plus I've been pissing like a pregnant racehorse. So, I'm hoping that part of it is fluid/water weight from all the prednisone I've been on lately with the rejection and therefore my face and neck deflate soon.

On a more serious note: Please keep your thoughts and prayers with my friend Christy (Hubbard-Hamilton). She's incarcerated right now in Duke hospital getting treated for chronic rejection. She's doing okay but had a reaction to the first treatment she got today. I know she is in great hands though and they will figure out the best treatment for her and will have her back on her feet in no time!

Also - last but definitely not least - my dear little friend Garran. He and his family are my 2nd family. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers tomorrow while he undergoes a bronchoscopy (complete with biopsies this time) to check for rejection. He's not been feeling so well lately, plagued all week with unexplained fevers and such. So let's send good positive vibes Garran and Christy's way! They are both under the care of the best transplant teams in the world!

Okay - I'm going to end this post here, b/c I have a date with my DVR before I fall asleep tonight. I love dates with my DVR. No expectations and I don't even have to shave my legs. :) PURE AWESOMENESS!

Have a RI-DONK-ULOUSLY amazing weekend!

P.S. GO DUKE! yet ANOTHER win! March Madness here I come!

8 months and still counting!

What's up!

Happy 8 month Lungiversary to me! In 4 more months it will be the big 1 year mark!!! I can't believe it. It seems to be going by so fast. Or is it slow. Sometimes I can't really tell. I just know I feel so blessed to still be here and be breathing with these beautiful new lungs that were so graciously donated by my donor and their family! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! From the bottom of my heart and the deepest of my breaths! Thank you!



P.S. Keep sending your thoughts and prayers to Eva, they are helping!! Keep on keepin' on girl!  XOXO

Week from HELL

What's up my bitches??

Part I:

Hope everyone had a good week and is having a good weekend so far. My week has been one hellacious nightmare. Definitely one for the record books. It all started Tues. morning. I woke up and took my pills around the usual 9:30-10:00 ish time spot. I swallowed them all down (Including the 50 mg of Prednisone for rejection ugh) and then within 5 minutes, promptly projectile vomited all over the floor b/c I couldn't make it to the bathroom in time. And to make it worse, as I was vomiting, my lower back popped painfully. I felt it and heard it. GREAT. Just fuckin' great! I proceeded to puke two more times within that same hour. THEN - about an hour later, the shits set in. I WAS IN UTTER HELL. I called my coordinater and he informed me about a horrible virus that was going around. GREAT-just my luck. I was told to drink lots of clear fluids and call back if got temp. I spent the rest of the whole day feeling nauseous (although I didn't puke but only one more time) and glued to the toilet by my asshole. Then night time set in. I spent the whole night, TRYING to sleep but felt so sick that I couldn't even do that. Not to mention the fact that my ass was still glued to the toilet every hour on the hour. And all I had been able to eat and keep on my stomach the whole day had been a small cup of apple sauce.

After struggling to sleep all night, I finally was able to pull myself out of my bed - nausea, back pain, diaraherra and all - and make it to the den to check my temp. My body was aching all over and I was freezing. YUP - I was right. 100.8. Fuckin' wonderful. I felt even worse than the day before and now I had temp. to go along with it. Paged the coordinator on call and ended up making an appointment to go to clinic that morning to be checked. They felt it was possible that it could be CMV so they wanted to check. By the time we left for Chapel Hill, I felt so shitty that I could barely walk out to the car and was swaddled up in blankets in the passenger seat like a little Eskimo child, whimpering everytime I moved from the back pain. Once at the hospital - I had to use a wheelchair b/c there was no way I could walk around the hospital feeling so utterly shitty.

Once in clinic, (after stopping in Registration and getting blood drawn OF COURSE) I was put in the infusion room where I was IV'd (Yes I've verbbed it lol) and given fluids ASAP for dehydration. More tests were done and I was giving Finnergin (sp??) for the nausea. I hadn't had Finnergin in YEARS. And forgot how fuckin' strong a drug it was. I struggled against it but my eyes kept crossing and in the end gave in and promptly fell asleep in my reclining chair. Then I was woken up to go downstairs to get a chest x ray done. OMG. Woken up from a Finnergin coma to be forced to actually leave my chair and ride downstairs and be x-rayed. I don't recommend it. I thought I was going to die. But, finally I was back upstairs in clinic, in the infusion room, in my chair where I belonged to finish the last half of my fluids. I promptly fell back into my Finnergin coma.

Not sure how long after that, but I was awoken. Was told I could go home and they would let me know the test results tomorrow about the CMV. I still felt like utter shit, but was feeling a tiny bit better from the fluids. And I definitely didn't want to stay over night in the hospital. Mom and I got my shit together and we bounced. Oh and good news. I was told I actually CAN take the Tramadol for my back pain. YAY! By the time we got on the road I was hungry so we stopped at the store and I got some cheesy poofs and some peanut butter crackers and a Sprite.
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Part II:

We finally arrived back at home around 5:30pm. I was still feeling shitty of course, but at least I had some fluids in me. My back was still killing me. My brother went to pick up my prescriptions. Then - I couldn't find the Tramadol that I had from the week before. When I was told I couldn't take it, I had thrown it down in my room (Still in the cvs bag). We searched everywhere for it and it was no where to be found. I wanted to die. My back hurt everytime I moved. I laid down in my room and fell asleep quickly from lack of sleep the night before. But - b/c of my no sleep the night before, I had sleep episode after sleep episode the rest of the afternoon. Woke up miserable. To make a long story short - I slept that night but had crazy dreams all night long from the sleep episodes that just wouldn't stop.

Thurs was an emotional rollercoaster. I still felt shitty - and still shitting every hour. But my back was the main problem. I was in so much pain. I had to have something. So, I paged the coordinator on call (Becky) and was able to get another prescription for the Tramadol since I couldn't find the one I had. Although this medicine doesn't take all the pain away, it knocks the edge off enough to be tolerable. even though it still hurts when I get up and move around and use the muscles. But, it doesn't make me high like Percocet. So, that's a plus. While on the phone with Becky, I was told the tests for CMV were negative. YAY!! So, that was a relief. I guess it's just the horrible stomach virus that has been going around! Anyway, aside from the physical sickness/pain, everyone at my house was being mean to me and acting like I was overreacting to feeling sick and in horrible pain. They were yelling at me constantly and I had two breakdowns and ended up calling Emily and begging her to let me come stay the weekend at her apt. in Winston Salem to get away from my house/family. What a great friend!

So...here I am in Winston Salem for the weekend. I arrived about 8:00 pm last night. (Thanks again Nate for the ride, you're such a great friend!) I'm feeling so much better emotionally and better each day physically, although still a bit nauseous and weak. But, getting there. Chris is coming up to hang out and should be here in a bit. It will give me someone to hang out with while Emily is busy with her school work on campus.

I'm signing off for now. Sorry about the long, ranting post. But, it had to be done. :) Hope everyone has a great rest of the weekend!

A tiny update.

Hey All!

Hope everyone had a good start to the week. Mine was okay. Pretty unproductive though. My tummy was upset this morning from the prednisone taper so I didn't end up going to P.T. at 12:30 as planned. SO, I just rested all day and hung out. Then tonight Bo and I went to Nate's to hang out for a little bit and just got home about an hour ago.

I've tried to cut back on as much snacking and eating today and have done fairly well. YAY for me! But, alas, here it is 11:10 pm and I'm eating a few cheesy poofs. Shut up bitches, I deserve it for doing so well today!!! :) Neeko and I have had a bunch of cuddles today. YAY.

The main reason for this post tonight is that I've come to a decision and wanted to let everyone know. I'm taking my Transplant Games Empty Pocket Fund link off of my blog and facebook. And canceling it. (If I can figure out how! lol) No one was really donating, but that's not really the point. lol  I've decided to sit out the games this year afterall, due to the on and off issues I've had post transplant with the rejections and all that. Just think it's best not to pressure myself to try and do the games this summer. And that I need to just concentrate on living my life and staying healthy! But, I will definitely be at the next one!

Now, I will leave you with a pic that I took tonight via my phone while I was on the way home from Nate's. Toodles, bitches!

Meg the Ninja aka The Unabomber!

Japanese food, bitches!

What's up bitches!

Hope everyone is having a glorious Valentine's Day! Chris and I went to eat Japanese in Winston Salem last night. YUM. GET IN MY BELLY! I've eaten 10000000 cheesypoofs this weekend as well. But, actually from this angle, as I stare down at my dodgeball gut, I think it may actually have shrank a bit. POSSIBLY. I'm probably wrong. I usually am.

Okay, I think I'm tired of typing already. lol  Talk to you later!!!!

Meg the Human Marshmellow Goddess of Cheesey Poofs and all that is Edible.

HI Y'all.

Today I went shopping. Trying to find something on this god awful blob of a "figure" of mine. If that's what you want to call it. Not that it wasn't horrible before this week, but now the Solumedrol and tapered prednisone doses are already wreaking havoc on my already marshmellowy goodness. This shopping trip was an horrid EPIC FAIL of a trip. I got some stuff but it still looks like utter and complete crap. My boobs are gigantic (don't even know what size anymore - haven't bought a new bra yet) and jiggly. My tummy reminds me of a big dodge ball and my face looks like it ate itself, regurgitated itself  right back up and re-ate itself again for dessert.

And of course, b/c of the prednisone taper again, my ankles are swollen from being up shopping for 3 hours and they are sore. To top it off, my back is still hurting, but the medication that the family doctor here in town gave me for the pain has been shot down by the transplant team. Can't take it. Interacts with the steroids. GREAT. So, now I will be pitied with a bit of pain meds come this week for my back. But i have to wait until Monday and call my coordinator back to get relief from this pain.

Tomorrow evening, Chris is supposed to come into town. We are going to Winston to eat dinner for Valentines. (a day early) But hey, look out the window. It's fucking snowing. Great. I hope that doesn't ruin my weekend plans. If it does, it figures. This has been a fucked week.

I'll end this little post by telling you of a wonderfully gratifying experience I had this afternoon when I got home from shopping. I sat down, kicked my feet up to rest my weary, sore and swollen cankles and proceeded to cough. Well, as this wonderful cough errupted from the depths of my shiny new lungs, I promptly pissed myself a little bit. Right through my pants. For serial, ya'lll. There was like a 2-3 inch patch of pee on the cushion of the couch. How rewarding for a day's worth of depression and self hatred. FML.

I'm going to quit having a pity party now. Like I always, say, It' could ALWAYS be worse. and at least I'm still here and breathing! Peace and chicken grease.

Update - Rejection, no rejection, rejection? YES rejection. Poop.

Hidey Ho, My little bitches.

I kiiid, I kiiiid. You know I say bitches in the most appreciative loving way. :) I love my bitches! Shit, I'm a bitch! We're all bitches! Let's just be one big happy community of bitches and bitchiness! WOo hoo! Clasp hands and let's dance around in a circle and make a theme song for our Bitch Community. Let me know if you think of some lyrics, I'll write them down. :) lol

Anywho's....So, I went to Chapel Thrill on Monday morning to get my pft's re-tested. As Noted before in my last post, If they had gone back up they maybe would have refrained from treating me with steroids for rejection and just went with the idea that it was a false positive rejection result do to the virus I've had. Well, unfortunately (and just my luck as usual) My FEV1 had NOT gone up ,it had actually like every asshole I've had in my life , did a completely reverse asshole move and dropped dramatically. So it was only 39% on Monday. Greaaaaaaaaaaat. Fuck me.

So, instead of being slapped on my ass and sent on my merry little way, I was slapped into the chair in the infusion room at the clinic and given a painful IV. (But, I give her credit, she did get it on the first stick!!) Then I was giving my first dose of IV Solumedrol. Mmmm. Yumm. Panic/spastic/pyschotic attack city. While that was running, they contacted the home health ppl. and had them call me. After my IV was done, about 30 minutes later, my home health care package (with my 2 IV doses, flushes, and such) arrived and my brother and I promptly took the box and all the crap I'd brought with me and accumulated throughout the day at the hospital, and got the hell out of there.

Now, here it is Thurs. evening. I finished my last dose of IV  SOlumedrol yesterday and the nurse pulled the IV. YES! And today I started my rejection treatment prednisone taper. (Starting at 60 mgs a day for 3 days - holy shit) So, my tummy has been hurting today but luckily that means that the Prednisone Monster hasn't attacked me yet and I'm not shoving food down my throat at 75 mph.....YET. I'm going to try and do better this time around. I promise. *fingers crossed* Other than that I'm actually feeling a little better..feel like I have a little more energy already and ready to stop napping so much.

I'm sitting at Lori's hanging out in her bed and typing away and relaxing, while she is cleaning her house. Technically I'm supposed to be keeping Keegan (her 4 year old) company and out of her way, but he's a firecracker. He's hard to control. :) But, he's done well so far. But now I'm alone and he's in there. He couldnt stay away from mommy and daddy for too long! Rob, her man is cooking up a big dinner and it smells fuckin' awesome.

I am going out to one of my favorite Japanese restaurants on Saturday for an early Valentine's Day dinner with Chris. Can't wait! Then we are driving back into town and staying the evening at Lori's house so he won't have to drive all the way back to Lincolnton. Sounds like a good Valentine's Day! Can't remember the last time I had a good Valentine's Day. I think it might have been the last one before I got sick. Which was actually the weekend I got sick in 93. Which ironically, my ex fiance Justin was my boyfriend. ANYWAYS -

I'm going to go I think dinner is almost ready. And then Wii later. I'll Hollllllllaaaaa!

I hate Winter.

Wassup?

Okay. what the hell. So I was scheduled to go down to chapel thrill today, right. To get repeat PFT's and such. Well, thanks to the fuckin' weather, I couldn't go. So I rescheduled my pft's for Monday morning. But, I couldn't get in touch with my coordinator to ask him if that was okay, or if there was anything he wanted me to do until then, etc. Great.  So. I still haven no idea if i have rejection or not. My chest is still tight. And I'm still coughing some stuff up. Great. Just great. Now i have to wait 3 more fuckin' days. It better not snow me out on Monday. I'll be there come hell or high water!

I had a great time with the girls on Wed. night. I took a few pics but I haven't downloaded them yet. I will probably put them on facebook for the world to see. Ha.Ha. Yay Don' Juans!

I'm supposed to go to Emily's birthday party tomorrow evening, granted the weather behaves and the roads are good enough to ride to winston on. Chris is supposed to go with me. Yay.

Okay I'm going to go try and email my coordinator. Have a wonderful weekend!!! Peace and chicken grease!

Update: Rejection or No Rejection - that's the question!

What's up y'all!

So, Ken (tx coordinator) called me back on Monday and said that I have Adenovirus. And that it could have caused a false positive rejection result. SO - Now, I don't know if I have rejection or not. Right now, the plan is for me to go back down to Chapel Thrill on Friday. Get repeat PFT's, and if my FEV1 hasn't gone back up, then they will go ahead and treat me with steroids. So, I guess we'll see what happens. I hope my pft's will go back up. Not only b/c it could mean no rejection, but b/c i worked so hard and waited so long for my FEV1 to hit 60%! and Now it's back down to 55%...so disappointing. I want it to go back up!!! Keep your fingers crossed for me please!

Tomorrow evening, Mary Berk, Julie, Brooke, Amanda and I all going out to Don Juan's to celebrate Mary Berk's birthday. Yay, Don Juans! We haven't been in a few weeks. I'd love to have a few drinks, but I'm not sure how smart that would be right now considering I have that virus and the bronchitis. So, I'll probably refrain. Or just have a beer. Since we are having tacos tonight for dinner, I'll probably just end up eating nachos and dip. Mmmm, liquid crack. My favorite. :)

So, it snowed all afternoon Friday into the night and over night and some Saturday too. We got 8 inches! That's the most we've gotten in a long time at any one time. Bo (my brother) and our friends Nate and Susie and their family all went sledding Friday and Saturday and Sunday. I wanted tog o so bad, but I figured it was best for me to stay in since I've got the bronchitis. :-(  But, it's amazing to see all this snow on the ground!!!

I've pulled a muscle in my back and it's hurting like crazy. So i've been using the heating pad all day and I eventually broke down and took some Percocet. It's helped a lot, but now I'm itching like a bitch!

Okay that's all I've got for you right now. I'll holla at cha later!!!

P.S.  I'm taking the quote thing off my page b/c it's not working right.