Andrew's first Thanksgiving

I know I've gotten really bad about updating my blog. What can I say, it's hard to do when you're busy :) and I like it that way :) but this is my late Thanksgiving entry.

I had today off work and didn't have any appointments, so I spent most of the morning catching up on my fellow CF blogs and forums. So much has happened with them, including a lot of CF deaths. It just hits on a deep level that is hard to describe. There's been a few CFers that have received their lung transplants, which always makes me smile. Then there's one cystic who's blog I've been following, she's #1 on her list right now. Maybe she'll get lungs by Christmas! Reading everyone's transplant journeys makes me remember my whole experience and I can't help but smile. While it was one of the hardest things I've ever done, the rewards I've received after have been wonderful!

It all reminds me of all that I have to be thankful for this year. I'm alive... above and beyond anything else, I AM ALIVE! Truth be told, I wasn't sure I was going to be here this year for Thanksgiving. So I leave this entry with just a simple thanks... Thank you to all of the organ donors (especially mine :) ), to all of the members of CF.com which have given me such support, and most of all, my family. Without them I wouldn't have had the strength to get through this last year.

Yay!!

So it's been a month since they biopsied and collapsed my right lung. That's all healed and I'm returning to dance tonight. I didn't quite feel up to dancing since I was dealing with the pain in my lung. It wasn't constant, just when I took a deep breath. Ya know, the thing you do when you're dancing and exercising :)

I started working last week. Most of Sunday I spent with my head in the toilet because of an antibiotic I was taking for infiltrates they saw on my xray when I saw Dr. Trapnell. They stopped the antibiotic and I felt much better. Thought I should give work a try since I was scheduled and knew I wasn't contagious. So Monday I went in and tried to work 11-2. I spent most of my shift sitting in the back office because I kept getting light headed and whiting out... not black out, white. I think it was because I was dehydrated from being sick Sunday. I worked again on Tuesday and only had to take one 5 minute break because I felt a little weak. I worked again on Friday and that went much better.

Thursday I was back up in Cleveland for the repeat/9 month bronch. Cleveland does bronchs with biopsies at 3 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and one year. Then I'm done unless a problem comes up. It was the never ending day... 7:30 started it all with bloodwork, like always, and my bronch was at 3:30. We finally got in the car around 5:30 and didn't get home until 10pm. Dr. Budev did my bronch this time and said that everything looked wonderful but wouldn't be surprised if I had a slight amount of rejection because of my anti-rejection med levels being pretty low. Well, here's the best part. I talked to Cleveland today and everything about the bronch came back negative. So I have to reduce my prednisone and I'm off all of my antibiotics as of tomorrow! yay!

So off to work I go tomorrow for 3 days and then tap on friday :) Life's good again :)