Bloggin' it up y'all.

What's up y'all?

I'm back again. You'll never escape me!!! :) Hope everyone had a wonderful Monday. Ughhh I hate Mondays. But, actually, my day was pretty good. I had rehab like I mentioned in the last post. I surprised myself with how good I did. I broke a couple of my treadmill records. I actually walked for 45 mins non stop. Before, 40 mins was the max. I had walked on the "Beast." And also, I walked at 1.9 for a lot of the time, which is the fastest I've ever walked. Before my transplant, I couldn't walk more than like 1.2 or 1.3 without thinking I was going to pass out. So, Yay for me.

After rehab, we walked up to the 4th floor to the Tx clinic b/c I needed to make sure I had my appointment down for Friday. And I had left my personal copy of my PFT's from Friday in clinic, so I wanted to get another copy. After we left the clinic, we walked down to Anderson South, which is the unit I was on after ICU. I wanted to see the nurses for the first time since I got discharged. I saw a couple of them and then asked them if my friend Candace was still there on the floor. She had her double lung transplant earlier this year. But when I was in the hospital after mine, she was readmitted with some complications. Two weeks ago I was told by the social worker that she wasn't doing very well, so while I was at the hospital today visiting the floor, I asked them if she was still there b/c I wanted to see her. I found out she was in the ICU on the 2nd floor. (Where we all go straight after the transplant surgery) One of the nurses led us down there and went into the ICU to see if she could have visitors. She wasn't able to have visitors, but her parents were in there. They were upset and didn't want to talk at the time, so they gave the nurse permission to let me know what was going on with Candace. I won't go into it, b/c it's not my place to tell, but she's very sick right now and they don't know what is going to happen. It makes me so sad. It is so upsetting. I found myself crying in the hallway. Please keep her in your prayers!

I'm changing the subject before I cry again....

After we left the hospital, we were both hungry, so we went to Bailey's to eat lunch. Mmmmmm Bailey's. The food was excellent. And we had a really nice waitress. Plus it wasn't very crowded. That's always a plus. After we got home, I've just been hanging out, resting from rehab. And of course I talked to Luke. You know that is always a given. :)

My brother sent me another pic to my Crackberry today of my 'lil pomeranian prince, Neeko. I can't wait to go home on Saturday and see him. I want to hold his furry little body in my arms and squeeze him for hours. I hope he still loves me and doesn't feel like I've neglected him or ignored him on purpose. Surely he'll understand, right?

Well, I'm off for the night. Sleep well, my loyal followers. For tomorrow is another day. And you never know what it may bring!

Go lungs go.

Hidey Ho, stalkers. :) (jk)

I hope everyone has had a good week and weekend. My week was decent. I just did the usual routine that I'm pretty much getting used to by now. Rehab on Mon, Wed and Friday, along with tx clinic on Friday as well. Rehab went okay this week. I had a couple minor issues that were Non-rehab related that kept me from doing as much as I could on a couple of the days, but nothing serious. I intend to make up for it this week. Tomorrow morning can't come soon enough. (Pysche Pysche, your momma ride's a motor bike.) lol For Seeeeerial though, I do want to kick ass in rehab from now on b/c I have a lot of travel plans to make for the not so distant future and I intend to be in shape so I can take the most advantage of my trips.

Where do I plan on traveling to, you ask? Lots of places. KY to see Luke, MD to see Monica and Mike (where we'll also go to DC since they live so close). Also, I intend on going to Wilmington one weekend in October I think it is, to attend a party with Emily and her brothers. And of course I will take a trip down to Myrtle Beach to see my Dad's side of the fam. I'd also like to save up some money and go on a cruise. But who knows if that will happen. lol I've been spending enough money as it is.

Clinic on Friday went well. I went up 5% on my FEV1. (Forced Expitory Volume over 1 second - part of the Pulmonary Function Tests,for you non-lung disease folks.) The blood work was good, except they said my liver stuff was elevated a little bit. But they said it could be from the Bactrim they started me on as a profalactic. So the Dr. just told me to quit taking it and they would recheck it next time. He said my x-ray looked the same, if not a little better. So that is good. My blood pressure was pretty high though. But, I think that was mostly b/c my mom and I weren't having a "good" day together, so I had already been arguing and stressed when I went into clinic. So, all in all, they said I was doing great, so that was a relief.

The one bad thing that they told me was NOT to sleep with a fan on. WHAT? Are they insane? I don't think that I can go the rest of my life without feeling that relaxing sound in my ears and comfortable breeze against my face while I sleep. They just don't understand. I will have to revisit this topic with them on Friday and see if I can make them see it my way. Wish me luck. lol 

This weekend has been pretty laid back. Friday I don't think I did anything but rest after rehab and clinic. Then on Saturday, family and Nate and Susie came into town for Bo's belated birthday dinner. We went to Carborro to Tyler's Tap Room. Good food, HORRIBLE SERVICE. DON'T EVER GO THERE. My cousin said he and his wife have been to the one in Durham several times and it is great. So MAYBE i'll try there one day. BUT NEVER will I step foot in the one in Carborro again. It took them and Hour and half to seat us. And we got there at 7pm. Then it took them another hour to bring our food. And they didn't even take my appetizer order. they completely skipped me. So, I had to order my appetizer with my dinner. PLUS, they completely neglected to bring my cousin Matt's food at all. He finally got his food when we all were finished eating and they were taking our plates and bringing Bo's cake out. And speaking of the cake...we brought our own. Which they promptly informed us was against the health code and that they would be charging us $1 per person to eat our own cake. RE-FRICKEN-DICULOUS!!!!! We were about to leave, but everyone had come from out of town and was already there, so we decided to stay. I offered to pay the $11 extra dollars for the cake fee. I'm so sweet. :)  But luckily, I didn't have to pay it b/c they waived the fee since we they gave us such shitty service and we had to wait so long to feed our face holes. My cousin Matt really let the manager have it when we were finished. It was AWESOME. Muahahahahaha. Take that, Tyler's Tap room!

Plus it was hot as hell in there. I was sweating like a whore in church and I had let my cousin borrow my only hair twisty. But that's okay. I love my cousin even though she pinches and it hurts like hell. And my gut hole sprung a leak before dinner and I had to go to the bathroom and fix that disaster. But besides all the negative, we enjoyed seeing everyone and Bo had a good time. Maybe a little too much of a good time, since he promptly passed out when we got back to the house in Chapel Hill. :) Happy Birthday Bortle!

Today, Mom and I went shopping at Stein Mart. It was the first time I'd ever been to a Stein Mart, b/c we don't have one in our town. It was pretty cool. I spent $85 of my birthday money on a new bag, some socks, a pair of panties, some Burt's Beez lip stuff, and a couple pairs of earrings. I also discovered that they had Kathy Von Zeeland bags. It took every ounce of my lung transplanted ass not to buy one..or two. But at least I know where to go to find them for cheaper. But, the new junk I bought wasn't the good part of the day. The good part was that it was the first time I went really shopping in 17 years without o2 or without being in a wheelchair or having to sit down every 5 minutes and rest. And we were there for like close to 2 hours. YAY ME! But, I was super tired and sore when we were done. So we stopped and ate some dinner and then came back to the house.

I'm beat. I got rehab tomorrow morning at 11. And of course have to start my treck up the Pill-alayas at 9:00 am. So...I will bid you good night. Have a good week.

Peace and chicken grease.

G-tubes are evil and can go to Hell!

Hey Y'all.

I'm beat. Although today wasn't all that productive. I had rehab today of course. (It is Wed. isn't it) But, Mom and I gaged the time wrong and ended up getting there 10 min late. My appt. was at 1pm. We stopped to get lunch at Quizno's and Mom had to run in and get the food, then rush to P.T. Rich (the p.t.) was nice enough to let me eat and take my pills before I started working out. By the time I started it was like 1:30. I got on the treadmill and then 12 min. into it..the hole in my tummy from where they had the g-tube, sprung a leak from under the bandage. (sorry for graphic description, but hey, that's my life) So, I had to stop and change the bandage. By the time that was all done...It was time for my appt. to be over. He told me I was done for the day.

So, I took the walk of shame out of rehab with my head hanging low, after only accomplishing 12 min. worth of exercise. Thank goodness no one else was in there working out at the time. That would have been even more embarrassing!

Tonight, my friend that I hadn't seen in years, Stephenie went out to eat dinner at Bailey's. The food was good. Mmmm teriyaki chicken. It was good to catch up with her. It was just like old times. We are supposed to go shopping tomorrow after she gets off work. She's in Durham for a month for work. Yay. We both need to get birthday presents for our brothers.

On another note...the lone part of my incision scab is seesawing right on the edge of coming off. YAY. Then I will start putting some Vitamen E on the scar and hopefully manipulating it into becoming less and less noticible as time goes by. :) *fingers crossed* Not that it bothers me that bad. It really isn't as bad as I thought it would be. Dr. Haithcock did an amazing job. Thanks again Dr. Haithcock! Hopefully my g-tube wound will be all healed up and I can go swimming before the summer is over.

How else am I going to start my early training for the Tx Games next summer? :) Watch out all you games participants, THIS  fish will be back in the water soon. Your medals will be MINE! Muahahahahahahahha! *cocky evil grin*  Enjoy the pic below. It's an REAL oldie but a goody!

Luke is supposed to call me back, so I'm gonna get ready for bed while I'm waiting patiently. I'm off like my prom dress never came! (LOL)


Me circa 1980'something!

Out on the town!

What's up Y'all!

Hope everyone is having a good Tues. It's good for me b/c it's one of my 2 days off during the week from Rehab. (Tues. and Thurs.) Yesterday was a busy day. I went to rehab and kicked the treadmill's ass. 40 minutes walking, without a break, sans 02. Then Mom and I went to Brueger's Bagels and got a cream cheese bagel. I'd never been there before. Man, those are some good bagels. After that we went to the grocery store. Stayed longer than I thought we would, so I didn't get home til around 4 pm and was exhausted.

But, alas, my day wasn't over. I rested for a little while, talked to my Luke for a few and then changed clothes. After putting on my makeup, Ann got over here to the house. We hung out for a little while and then left to go out to dinner. Just the two of us. It was awesome. My first night out on the town, sans O2, sans Mom. FREEEEEEEEDOM. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I got back home about 9:30. SO needless to say I was exhausted. Eventually when I got off the phone with my Babe again, I was ready to call it a night. But, couldn't sleep. So...I ended up staying up 'til 4 A.M. on the computer, organizing and editing ALL the photos on my computer.

I finally laid down and didn't sleep very well. Kept waking up. But, that was okay..b/c I knew I had the day off today. :) So today has been wonderful. All I've done is get up this morning, do all my morning transplant stuff, eat breakfast and then lay back down and nap. I got back up at 1pm and climbed the pillalayas once more and ate lunch. It's been a great, lazy day. I needed to rest.

Tonight, dinner is being cooked for the house in the dining room. We signed up to eat. BBQ Chicken. MMMM. It will be the first time i've left the comfort of our suite all day. :) But for food...it's worth it!

Below is a pic of Ann and I last night before we went out to eat. Enjoy!

Oxygen, Shmoxygen. Pshh!

What's up my loyal followers! :)

I'm back! As you most of you know or have heard or read through various social networking sites that I can't drag myself away from, even in the hospital after major cardio-thoracic surgery - I officially have new lungs! WOO HOO! I got my transplant on June 21. (Father's Day - thanks Daddy!) I was in the hospital for a month. I got out on Mon, July 20. Three days before my 29th birthday. What a great birthday gift, huh? BREATH. LIFE. A FUTURE. It's all so surreal, still. Ha that rhymed. :)

I was in the hospital for so long b/c my new lungs had a reprofusion injury. (look it up lol) It's not uncommoon, in fact I think it may happen to most people, on varying degrees. But don't quote me on that. They weren't too concerned with it. It's been healing and looks better each x ray. So that's a good thing. And also the 2nd or 3rd week post tx, (tx stands for transplant if you didn't know already) after I was already on the regular floor, I developed a bit of acute rejection that they quickly treated with heavy duty I.V. steroids for 3 days. Wow those were some miserable days! lol I had a slight mental breakdown the last day or so. Prednisone is no joke, y'all! Already having anxiety disorder, this whole transplant experience has been a bit nervewrecking for me. Thank God, they had Ativan on hand when I needed it. I don't think I could have emotionally survived without it at times.

I don't remember much of anything aobut the days I was in ICU b/c they had me so drugged and out of it. But, apparantly according to my Mom, I was pretty vocal. And stubborn. And a bit bitchy. And snappy. Especially when they got me up to walk. She said I yelled at them to all get out of my room and to leave me alone. I also apparantly cussed out one of the respitory therapists. And called a nurse Rhinocerous. But, in my defense..my MOm said some of the Dr.'s that saw me in ICU said some unncessary things to me, very unprofessional things. She had to go off on a few of them.  My cantankernous became a bit of a known thing during those weeks in the hospital. They kept asking Kristin (My physical therapist - who I already knew pretty well) if I was "Normally like this."  Tehehehehehe :) Also, my friend Lori told me I also kept trying to convince her that "they" were trying to kill me and not to let "them" near me. I must have been pretty out of it.

After the rejection was treated, things started moving along quicker and I was able to do more, etc, etc. But, because of the roadbumps, I was slow to get off my O2. So, I ended up leaving the hospital with it. I was using it for walking still and when I slept. But, now I can pretty much say that i'm officially FREE from the O2 and the choke hold it's leash had on my life. WOO HOO.

My surgeon, Dr. Haithcock is amazing. Very talented and obviously knows what he's doing. My incision is damn near as perfect as it can get. They DID have to cut my sternum though. So, I may hurt a little longer than those that don't have to get theirs cut. I've been on sternum precautions b/c of it. My PFT's (Pulmonary Funtion Tests) results have increased a lot! And they say that they should keep getting better and better. My weight has been up and down, back and forth, left and right, etc. And of course my face is getting fat from the prednisone. :-(  Not happy about that. But, hey at least I can breathe. I got my chest tube stitches out on Friday (the 27th) so they feel a bit better and are healing up.

The hospital food was actually halfway decent. Well...it was pretty edible most of the time. There were those days that it looked like something I'd rather starve than eat. But, Luckily for me, Mom was there so on those days she just went to one of the in-house cafe eatery places and got me some real food. Yay for Mom's. Although, we have been together every day since June 21st. So, needless to say, it hasn't always been pretty. But, I couldn't have done it without her. My friends have been great also. Coming as far away as Lexington (hometown) just to visit me, repeatedly some of them. I'm so lucky to have such wonderful friends and family. My brother has been up here most weekends which has been great.

As previously mentioned, my birthday was on July 23rd. Three days after I was released from medical prison. I wanted to have a big bash and celebrate since I had gotten the best early birthday gift EVER.  We had the party on Sat. instead of on my birthday on Thurs. b/c then people were off work and could come. We all went out to eat at this place here in Chapel Hill called Bailey's Grill and Pub. One of the Physical therapists at the hospital suggested it. The food was awesome. And apparantly the beer and alcohol was too, cuz my party sure was guzzling it down. :) (those of you know who you are) HEHE. I wore a big tiara on my head, in typical queen fashion. B/c it was MY night to celebrate. :) It was the first time some of my friends had seen me without O2 in years and years. Some of them had NEVER seen me without O2. So it was definitely a night to remember. Although there were some people missing that couldn't come that I wish could have been there. But, all in all, it was wonderful to celebrate my birthday with so many friends and family.

I have rehab (physical therapy) every Mon. Wed. and Fri. and also for right now, I have to go to transplant clinic every Friday morning as well. They draw blood to check my medication levels, do a chest x-ray, PFT's and then I see the Pulmonologists and sometimes the surgeon and ALWAYS Ken, my coordinator. Unless he's off work or out of town. Then Becky (the other coordinator) sees me. Friday she gave me the go ahead to go home for the weekend. I didn't this weekend, but weekend after this coming weekend, I will probably go home for the night Sat. I can't wait to see my dog and really walk him for the first time.

That's all for now. I have finally posted. Now it's bedtime. Nighty Night. :)