Breathing Deeply: My Life With Cystic Fibrosis

My golden birthday (I turned 28 on the 28th) didn't go like I had planned. It was BETTER!

I puttered around the house for a little while this morning, then I got a major case of baby fever, so I grabbed some sandwiches and sodas and drove up to my friend Kelly's place to see the twins. I felt a little bit bad about showing up unannounced, but I figured if I brought a peace offering of food, she couldn't turn me away.

The babies were sleeping, so Kelly and I got in a nice girl-gab session while we ate lunch. Then when the little ones woke up I changed their diapers and got to feed Julia a bottle while Kelly feed Ava. It was SO hard for me to leave. I just wanted to stay by their cribs and watch them sleep.

As I was driving back home Brad called and said he had bad news. Our restaurant is apparently closed on Mondays. Boo. However, on the plus side he was done early with work and was going to head home so we could hang out. When I got home we changed into our swimsuits and headed for the tide pools. I haven't been in the ocean in such a long time. BRRRRR! It felt wonderful though! I went in just up to my thighs. Brad took a few photos of me playing in the water.


We left the tide pools and Brad asked what else I wanted to do. I said I wanted to go somewhere for frozen yogurt. The only problem was, neither of us knew where there was a yogurt shop, so we planned to find a Trader Joe's and pick up some tiramisu for dessert instead. We were driving along and suddenly, there it was! "TCBY!" I yelled. We made a sharp left turn and ordered ourselves some tasty treats.

We sat outside in the sun, proud of ourselves for taking advantage of living in San Diego. It was a beautiful day.

For dinner I made us shrimp scampi since Brad had gotten me a spaghetti server I was eager to try it out. For dessert we had strawberry shortcake and we FINALLY drank the champagne from our wedding. Good stuff. I was too lazy to put our desserts on our wedding china or pour our drinks into our champagne flutes, so we drank out of juice glasses, and ate our dinner in front of the TV while watching Enchanted.

It was a beautiful, special birthday and one I'll remember for a long time. I'm so glad we got part of it on camera.

Truly this was a HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY and I'm so thankful to have an adoring husband who did whatever he could to make the day so special.

Once upon a time there was a sad little bunny named Gimli. Gimli was sad because he didn't think anyone would ever love him. Day after day he sat in the corner of his hutch at the animal shelter hoping that one day a nice family would take him home to live with them.

Then it happened! A nice lady named Lauren came and sat with Gimli and held him very close in her lap. Her hands were gentle as she pet him. Gimli couldn't remember when he had ever felt so calm and comfortable. He was disappointed at the end of the day when Lauren went home.

As he sat in his hutch that night, nibbling on hay, he thought "I wish, I wish, I wish that Lauren would come back and hold me again. I wish she would pet me and talk to me nicely again. If I ever see her again I will be the nicest, sweetest bunny I can be! I'll be the best bunny!"

Gimli's wish came true and Lauren did come back the next day. She even brought along her husband, Brad. They had come to the shelter not just to pet Gimli, but to adopt him. Out of all the other rabbits at the shelter they picked Gimli to come home with them.

When Lauren and Brad showed him his new house he couldn't believe it. So much room to run around and play! There was food that he didn't have to share with anyone, and toys that didn't get put away at the end of the day. He even got a nice soft little blankie to sleep on instead of the hard plywood of a hutch. He could hardly believe how wonderful it was.

As much as Gimli loved his new house, there was one thing he loved even more. He loved when Lauren tickled his cheeks or let him sleep next to her on the couch at the end of the day. Still late at night when Lauren and Brad were asleep, Gimli stayed awake wondering why Lauren and Brad chose him. He wasn't beautiful and white like Bun-Bun. He didn't have very pretty eyes like Marcel. He wasn't big and puffy like Snowball or Cotton. He worried that maybe Lauren and Brad made a mistake. Maybe they'd grow tired of him and bring him back to the shelter. Every night he promised himself he would be the best bunny he could be so that they'd always love him.

One day while resting under Lauren's chin, Gimli began to notice something warm and wet falling on his ears. He looked up and saw that Lauren's eyes were misted over and he heard that she was speaking softly to him. He listened carefully as she said "Little bunny, you don't know how special you are to me. God made you to be just the right amount of softness, the right amount of playfulness, and just the right size to be exactly the perfect little pet for me. You see, some days I get sad, and when I do I just have to look at you and know that God gave me a wonderful, beautiful creature like you to remind me that he loves me and takes care of me."

That's when Gimli knew that he really was the best bunny. He put his little paws on her cheeks and licked her chin because he was so happy that Lauren and Brad chose him. He was never sad again and did his best to make sure that Lauren didn't have many sad days either.

CFers and food. It's a relationship that those who live beyond the perimeter of CFland fail to appreciate and all to often, misunderstand. For CFers, the old addage "you are what you eat" rings quite true. Eat a fatty meal such as poultry, dripping with grease, served in a bucket, and without doubt we too will be smelling fowl [sic] and wiping at an oil slick or two.

Not all our encounters with food need to be distressing. In fact, our ravenous appetites can instill a sense of awe and wonderment to outside observers. The experience is heightened all the more when a CFer of smallish, seemingly fragile frame can readily consume approximately half his or her body weight with precious little effort and a rather impish gleam in the eye.

Perhaps the greatest experience to be shared between CFers and our friends of sturdier pancreatic constitution is when the two groups come together for a shared meal. A CFer's home is a place of feasting. Nary an empty cupboard to be found there! The question of which side dish to serve is replaced with the more appropriate "how many side dishes to serve." Ultimately, the answer is "however many the CFer wants to eat." No one ever leaves hungry from the table of a CFer. A CFer always plans for leftovers. After all, getting all those calories ingested in one day should hardly involve needless expenditures of energy.

The next time your friends or acquaintances suggest getting together, why not offer to prepare dinner for the lot of you? Serve up something fantastic, (preferably buffet style so it doesn't cause your kitchen table to collapse,) then sit back and let the ooh's and ahh's waft before you like the mist from your nebulizer. You'll be the hero of the day.

(But don't forget to take your enzymes!)

I've been in the doldrums for awhile (to say the least) but some things have happened this week that just blew the lid right off the doldrums and ushered in extreme joy.

The most exciting thing is that my sister is engaged! She called last night and we did our girly "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" noises for about half an hour before we decided to call it a night. She and Tom are a great couple, and I couldn't be happier for them. From what I've seen, the two of them are very well suited for each other. I've been praying for them for awhile now, and am very happy to see that God has brought their relationship to this point. It will be fun to have a sister who's also married. It's like having a built-in double-date.

An additional blessing is that the man she's marrying has a son. He's a very cute kid, polite, and has the best little gap-toothed grin you'll ever see. I hope that Brad and I will be an important and appreciated influence in that kid's life. Goodness knows we've got plenty of "aunt and uncle" energy to give!

Okay, so as if my sister's news wasn't monumental enough, today I had my performance review at work. Wow. This was my first review with my new supervisor. I didn't really know what to expect. I was very, very pleasantly surprised. My supervisor had good feedback for me about how to improve, and was complementary about my job performance. Very complementary. I received a promotion, and with it a nice raise. The best part is that I'm no longer just a "junior level technical employee." I'm now considered an industry professional. I'll have more responsibilities, but also more flexibility in my schedule. I think this might be just what I need to stay on track with my health while still being able to do my job well.

Other great stuff that's happened this week has been in how our home life is going. Brad and I have really settled into a good pattern of my work schedule, his work schedule, my resting, and keeping up with the house, etc. It's all in a nice balance. Being home more during the week has been good for my health, and our marriage. I have always enjoyed doing "woman's work" type stuff around the house, but couldn't always budget my energy for it and all the rest of life. Now that I'm home 2 days a week, I have a chance to catch up on laundry, plan the meals, keep the house in order and take the needed time for myself to rest. The end result is a happy, well-adjusted, healthy wife who greets her husband with a hot meal and a hot kiss! Hehehe.

It amazes me daily that the first relationship God ever established between man and woman was marriage. He is daily present in our marriage and we thank him for all the gifts he has given. I pray that my sister will have such a marriage, and that God will bless her soon to be newly-formed family.

I was a teacher's pet (still am, I guess.) I loved school, loved my teachers and they loved me. My parents instilled in me the importance of education, and they took my experience as a student quite seriously. Perhaps too seriously as I found out one spring day in 1992.

I asked my 6th grade teacher to write me a fake detention slip. On the space where he had to fill out my offense that warranted this discipline slip, he wrote "Lauren constantly talks out of turn and disrupts the class." On the reverse he wrote APRIL FOOL!

Putting on my best hang-dog face, I brought the detention to my dad. I waited for that moment where I could grin and yell "Gotcha!" but that moment never came. Dad began reading me the riot act and telling me how it was unacceptable that I got a detention. Privileges would be lost and an apology to the teacher was in order when I returned to class the next day. While Dad was disciplining me, tears were rolling down my face. What seemed like a fun prank was quickly becoming quite painful. Between hyperventilated gulps of air I managed to squeak out "but Daddy, it's a joke!"

Without missing a beat Dad collected himself and said sternly "Now you know what would happen if you brought a real one of those home."

I never brought home a detention, real or otherwise ever again.