Nothing Like Meeting Up With an Amazing Friend!

Today has been quite the day! Started off with having to be at ATC at 10:00 for weekly lab draws and a dressing change. The nurse and I chatted up a storm, while she changed my central line bandage. I several the worst part is taking the tape off, my skin will be so happy when we are done! After she got the old bandage off, cleaned up the site, and then applied a new bandage. After that was complete she started flushing each of my lines, and nether one would give blood. Guess they decided to be stubborn today! I’m pretty sure the nurse tried every trick in the book, and still nothing. So we had to resort to the last option which was put Cathflo in each line and let it set for at least an hour. Cathflo acts as a clot busting agent, it destroys or “eats” any fibers that might be in the line or at the very end of the line. The longer you let it set the better it works. You have to at least let it set for an hour before you can do anything. Once the Cathfo was in I walked to the coffee cart, got a delicious blended vanilla mocha and just waiting in my little procedure room at ATC. I enjoyed my mocha and did a few things on my phone. As an hour pasted the nurse came back in and gave my central line one more try. As she pulled back on the syringe blood started gushing out each side. Looks like the Cathflo did it’s job! After a few minutes of filling up test tubes, flushing each line with saline and then heparin I was finished and on my way! One thing to check off the list!

Next I met up with a special friend for a late lunch/early dinner. Molly Boye is a special education teacher and a science teacher at Canyonville. The past couple of years I have gone to her classroom and talked about Cystic Fibrosis in her 8th grade science class. This year I was unable to make it to her class, but instead her kiddos made me all kinds of goodies, sent me care packages and we even facetimed. She is one amazing teacher, and she has a great group of students! Molly, her students and even her staff have been very caring, loving and nothing but supportive throughout this journey. So needless to say I was beyond excited to give her a huge hug! I tremendously enjoyed visiting with her, it’s like we didn’t miss a beat! Ahhh so glad we got the opportunity to enjoy each others company today Molly, I truly thank you!

When I came home I kept working on my “spring cleaning” projects around the house. I got our bedroom finished, a majority of the living room complete, and then moved on to the guest room. I’ve been putting this particular room off, because it looks like World War II hit it! Yikes! I had the office all cleaned up, but then I decided to move some stuff from the guest bedroom into there and now it looks horrible again! Oh well, I will eventually get it all put back together. I have to say it is so nice to move around my house, bending over, lifting things, and walking around without getting short of breath or without having to take a break every 5 minutes, or just having a tube shoved up my nose! It’s the little things in life that I love!

Well tomorrow is a big day, sinus surgery! Check in time is 8 am. Not really sure how long I will be in surgery. Dr. Schreiner scheduled it for two hours, but doesn’t think it will take that long. The longest part is always the recovery processes. So far this will be a day procedure, unless something goes wrong then I will be admitted to the hospital. The team feels everything should go smoothly and I will be recovering at home with my pups! Several people have asked me if i’m nervous for tomorrow, and no i’m not nervous just ready to get this over with. I feel it’s like the last thing we have to “button up” before we can officially heal. Don’t want to contaminate my new lungs with bugs from my nose! Let’s do this people! Ha ha!

Well I better go finish my nightly routine and get to bed. Will be an early day tomorrow. Hope all goes well! Hope everyone had a great Monday!

Until next time……….

~Jen~
“Just Breathe”