Recovering from "vacation"

I've always had a hard time on "vacation". I love traveling and seeing new sites and all that, but man, is it tiring. The thing you need to know about me is that I'm a "routine guy". I love knowing what I can expect and the less I have to think, the better. My body seems to like it that way too. I got plenty of rest and beach time during this last stint, but I still feel exhausted. So exhausted in fact that you'll notice their was no blog yesterday and this little mini-update today. We took some pictures that we really want to share with you guys, but to be honest, we're wiped.

I promise to get my rest and be back Wednesday to share with you the exciting vacation that we just returned home from. Thanks for understanding guys!

Home Depot Brings Out the Moron In Me

As this week comes to an end, I can only say one thing...I'm tired. It's been crazy since getting out of the Hole and things around here have been non-stop. The good news is that I have not let it stand in the way of treatments whatsoever, the bad news, I need to get my running shoes on!! I haven't missed a morning walk yet, but when my lungs are this healthy, just a morning walk doesn't cut it. Now, I haven't been totally lazy physically, but it could certainly be a lot better. It's going to take a TON of discipline these next few weeks to get back into my running schedule. If I'm not working, I'm working on the house and if I'm not working on the house, I'm shopping for it. I welcome you guys to call me out on running like you have so many times before; I need it!!

I didn't post a Thankful Thursday yesterday cause I wanted to make sure that you all had the Tylenol recall info as it relates to the CF community. That certainly doesn't mean however that I don't have things to be thankful for. I could literally write daily in a blog that had nothing to do with anything but thankfulness. I'm of course thankful for the new digs, but that leads me to what I was SUPER thankful for a couple of days ago. Home Depot workers.

Am I the only person who feels like an absolute moron when setting foot into Home Depot? They have hundreds of aisles full of millions of things, yet I can only identify a hammer. And that's only if it's a classic looking hammer like the one that came with my Playskool tool kit. I feel so overwhelmed in that store it's crazy. Luckily, they have some of the nicest and most helpful folk around. When Mandi and I went in there a couple of days ago, we had a worker willing to go on a wild goose chase with us all around the store. Without him, we would have been totally hosed. So thank you random Home Depot worker. I don't remember your name, but I will never forget your willingness to help :)

So that's it for today. Remember, call me out and help me get back on the running trails. I need to get in tip top shape for this little event I have coming up :)

Listen to Your (Lungs) Body

I can tell that I'm coming towards the finish line folks. It's getting harder and harder to fall asleep and then I of course feel more and more tired each morning. I realize it's a cycle that I need to break, but I also have other symptoms that point to needing a tune-up. Where should I start? I'm starting to cough up thicker, larger and greener blobs of mucus. I feel slightly sick after every meal. I'm not sleeping as well due to coughing during the night. My stools are getting to the point that we have to repaint the bathroom after every time I'm in there cause the paint starts peeling from the walls. I'm sure there is a myriad of other things but I don't want to sound like I'm complaining, cause I'm certainly not. My point is, when you know, you know.

As a CFer you need to get a good feel for your body and listen to it when it's either whispering to you OR yelling loudly in your ear. After 29 years of doing this, I'll I need is a whisper from my body and I know it's that time. Too many of my CF friends ignore what their body and specifically lungs are YELLING at them and put off extra treatment or a hospital stay. And I know you've heard this 1,000,000 times from doctors, but lung damage is irreversible. Now that doesn't mean that you can't improve you PFT's, but what it does mean is that if your lung turns to scar tissue in parts, that lung ain't coming back. And if that lung ain't coming back, the chance of your numbers increasing get slimmer and slimmer. You need to stop the downhill slide when you start down the hill, not when you've reached the bottom. Ok, enough preaching for today! Now on to my workouts.

6:00pm: So today was another crazy "off" day. It was busy in parts and slow moving in others, but by the time I was ready to go to the gym, it was too late. Don't get me wrong, I still could have physically went to the gym, but I didn't feel like fighting the crowd. From about 5:30pm to 7:00pm it feels like you're in some packed dance club. I'm not a huge fan of dodging people while I lift, so I decided to stay at Mandi's and use some weights she has at her house to lift on my shoulders. It went well, but I got pain in them shortly after the workout started, so I limited myself to just 3 different lifts. Free weights have a tendency to do that with my shoulders, but I was hoping that they wouldn't notice that I wasn't at the gym :)

After lifting, and eating some Indian food (I think) with Mandi's parents, Mandi and I set off on a dog walk. Jezzabel was super excited for her walk and grabbed her leash and started walking herself before I had a chance to grab it from her. Her excitement did fade a little bit though as we set out on our walk and the temperature of the air hit us like a hot punch from Iron Mike. As I type this (it's 11:10pm) it's still 99 degrees outside. That means that during our walk it was over 100! The sun was setting as we were walking which was beautiful to see, but that beauty certainly didn't stop the sweat from covering my body. I was dripping liquid by the time we got back to the house. In fact, when we got back inside, Mandi's brother said, "Apparently it's still hot outside" after seeing the streams of salt water fall off my body. Here's the best news of all though: My feet don't hurt one bit. Maybe these orthotics are going to do the trick?!

Total Distance: 2.0 miles

Total Distance for Day: 2.0 miles

Some Answers About My Foot

11:00am: So my day didn't actually start at 11am today, but that was the first time that I left the house. I decided to sleep in this morning a bit (until 7am) and by the time I got up it was a little too toasty to walk outside. I was very excited to get to the foot doctor today and see if he could get everything figured out. I got some answers which I will do a full blog on tomorrow with pictures.

3:00pm: It was off to the gym for a little chest and back. I've been a little tired today so I knew it was going to be a challenge to push through my entire workout. Luckily, Mandi wasn't really in the mood to be at the gym, so we were able to be unhappy together while we lifted :) We managed (somehow) to do the full workout and it was actually a decent one. I was able to increase the weight on almost all of my lifts and felt much stronger than I thought I would. I also sweat probably 43 gallons of sweat into my shirt. I was absolutely soaked. It looked like I had entered a wet t-shirt contest in Cancun or something. One reason I was so sweaty was because Mandi and I decided to take very short breaks in between lifts so the "misery" wouldn't last so long today. We both just wanted to jet. Like I've said many times though, if you can stay committed on days like this, imagine how easy it will be on the other days? Current Weight: 187 lbs.