Breathing Deeply: My Life With Cystic Fibrosis

It’s been awhile again since I’ve blogged. A lot has been going on in my life, and praise God, it’s stuff that’s so much better than a year ago. I know there are a lot of people who read my blog to find out how I’m doing, so I plan on treating this particular entry as more of a comprehensive overview than I usually do. Sit back and enjoy! I know I am.

Church

Ever since we moved to our new home, we’ve been working on inserting ourselves into the congregation at New Life in a more meaningful way. This was difficult for awhile, since it was rare that I had energy for church or that I was healthy enough to go at all. Another part of our problem that kept it from feeling like we were a fully functioning family unit (regardless of the fact that we’re a 2 person family) was that we often woke up at different times and got ready at different speeds. This was further compounded by the fact that on some mornings Brad was participating in the worship team, so he’d leave for church early, giving me more time to roll out of bed and get ready.

Clearly, that wasn’t working for us.

Brad and I have recently implemented a great little plan that gets our butts out of bed and into the church pew. We set the alarm for 7:30am, regardless of whether we need to be there early for choir or worship team practice. We’ve found that it puts a much brighter light in our eyes and prepares our hearts for church much better when we do this. Occasionally we attend the evening service too.

Work

At the end of this week I will have completed my first month back in the office. I’m loving it. Granted, it’s still a challenge to expend all that mental energy all at once, but it’s really not wearing me out. I only work 3, 8-hour days a week, and that gives me just enough stimulation to keep me sane. It’s also almost exactly the amount of activity I can handle without feeling exhausted. I love the feeling of coming home at the end of the day with enough energy in my reserve to make us a nice meal, and then just unwind.

The projects I’m doing are all in-house stuff. No fieldwork for me anymore. I’ll miss the variety that it would add, but I won’t miss how tired it would make me. I’m also not going to miss the anxiety of traveling by plane with all my medications and the worry that I might pick up some nasty bug.

Writing

As some of my faithful readers may have noticed, I’m taking a break from writing Pools of Grace. With the other transitions going on in my life right now, I haven’t yet ramped up to the point of fitting that into my schedule. I’m quite busy on more pressing writing projects.

Dear Future Husband is in progress. We were going to have it published with Shulamite back in September, but that turned out to be a less professional route than we wanted to go. The initial draft was completed quite some time ago, and now I’m working hard on a rewrite. I’ve received some excellent feedback from my friends and colleagues in the professional writing biz. I’ve been encouraged to draw up an official proposal for the book, complete with sample chapters and market analysis, and submit it to publishers at the Mount Hermon Christian Writer’s Conference in the Spring. I’m praying daily that God will use my words to touch people’s lives, and that my testimony will inspire them to give God full control of whatever is going on in their hearts.

In addition to Dear Future Husband I’m doing a few other projects. One is with Judith Ann Hillard, author of The Other Woman at the Well. Please pray that her newly-formed non-profit organization, Addiction Overcome, Inc. will receive the publicity and funding it needs to make a difference in the lives of those who are impacted by addiction. Anyone desiring more information about Addiction Overcome, Inc. or Judith’s book, should stop by her blog. She’s currently in the throes of her holiday outreach called Operation Band-Aid, and could use any financial support you can give.

Gimli

An update from me would hardly be complete without a mention of my dear sweet bunny, Gimli. Gimli has adjusted well to my being out of the house during the day. He’s always quite happy to see me when I come home. He stands up as tall as he can on those furry little feet of his, and presses his nose through the openings in the cage. I kid you not, his tail even wags sometimes. He knows that once I’m home he’ll get to either a) run around for awhile b) come downstairs for some parsley, or, c) get a sweet snack.

He’s quite an intelligent little critter. I don’t even have to say “bedtime” anymore for him to go into his cage at night. If I just stand there and open the door, he runs right in. Gimli has recently overcome his fear of the stairway, and likes to hop down and sniff along the length of each individual step.

Health

I’m doing great. Brad was quite sick last week—congestion, fatigue, snots, cough—and praise God, I didn’t get whatever bug he had. Granted, I slept on the couch for about 5 nights so as not to expose myself to his cooties, but it’s amazing that I didn’t get sick. I have a slight cough right now, but that’s pretty typical with this Santa Ana weather.

I finally got my eFlow at the beginning of the month, and I LOVE IT! I can’t believe how easy it is to use and how quickly the treatments go. The finer particles of tobramycin do make me cough a lot while I neb, but that’s okay. Now all I need is a PARI proneb Ultra for my other nebs, and I’ll be good to go.

Yes, I still lift weights. I mostly do curls and bench presses lately. I haven’t been as good about stretching out my leg muscles, so I need to get back to that. I’ve noticed it’s harder for me to touch my toes again lately. But then again, maybe that’s because I have this wonderful extra padding on me! I’m staying up above 120 lbs., doing my vest at night while I type, and I’m eating like a horse. In fact, I feel so darn good lately that I cancelled the CF clinic appointment that I was supposed to have tonight. Frankly, I’d like to be able to coast through the holidays without having to think so much about CF and doctors. Come January I’ll check in again so I can do all my annual labs.

Well, that’s it from me! Thanks for sticking with it for this LONG LONG post.

// posted by Lauren @ Wednesday, November 28, 2007