Because the moment was so great...

I took a picture of the LAST TOBI EVER!!!!!!!

(disclaimers: 1- This assuming I never have to be put back on it, 2- Sorry, it's 8 in the morning, forgive me for my appearance.)

I took a picture where I know I look so excited I look like my IQ has dropped several tens of points, but I also know I really am that excited.

Still with family and coping well.

-Annie

Easter!!

Easter! The real celebration for Christians! "Anyone can be merry at Christmas" as my pastor says. "But Easter is the real deal." I sang at my church in the choir for both services today and had so much fun. What a fantastic service! Mom drove over to watch me sing and my Big Sis and her boyfriend came too.

So driving back to college-town yesterday to get to choir rehearsal, Dora (my car) had a tire blow-out. 14 miles from my college, the tire decided to give out. So I puttered at ~40 miles the rest of the way after calling Dad. I checked the tired and didn't see anything wrong with them at the time, so I thought it was mechanical. However today after church, my Mom and I pulled into the apartment parking lot to find the tire completely flat. On the plus side, it's way better than we anticipated. A tire is way easier to replace (and cheaper) than the engine or the tire rods and such. Not cheap, but better than we could have hoped for. So Dora lives on.

Mom brought me back home after the amazing church service and my puppy and I took a nap on the couch for a while. Then, I watched a movie I LOVE but haven't seen in ages: The Brave Little Toaster. Such a great movie. :] One thing I noticed today watching it, I didn't notice when I was younger, was the line "Of course he's graduating! He's a hard worker!" One of those underlying messages that's just barely touched on, but still important. So there, children! Work hard and graduate! Anyway, it's a great movie that's so cute and still makes me laugh even after all these years. Those early Disney movies have a way of doing that.

Tomorrow I go back to college-town, riding with the boyfriend, and get Dora to the Walmart car repair center thing. Hopefully Wally World will take good care of her and get her fixed soon!

I spent time with the rents this evening playing Rummikub and Mastermind (with Mom) and really enjoyed it. Good bonding time before I head back to school.

Ok, this post would be longer but I'm starting TOBI again tonight and don't like to use my laptop with TOBI. Makes everything gross. Instead, I'll be continuing reading a book by Betsy I bought the other day.... OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!! I left it in my apartment because I was reading it last night.... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO........... Ugh I have to wait until I can keep reading it. Boy that's frustrating. Now I have to find another way to entertain myself for 30 minutes... I guess I'll pick up another book for the time being.

ANYWAY, I was going to say that it's such a good book already (a few chapters in) and I'll give a baby-review on it when I'm done. The link to her blog is on the side --->

and on my last post.

Night and Happy Easter!

-Annie

Leaky Nebs?!!

Is it just me or do all you CFers out there deal with the frustration of leaky nebulizers??! Seriously, it's driving me nuts. I can't tell you how many times I've been embarrassed to turn in homework because of the "water" droplets. Albuterol and TOBI are the worst with this. Time to discuss each one:

First, I want to start with the really cool travel compressor. It's not bad about leaking, but I just wanted to point out how awesome it is. Ta-da!

TOBI. Ugh, my least favourite . When it does the condensation thing, it drips from the blue flap. Otherwise, it leaks from the crease where the mouthpiece meets the "body", no matter HOW tight you make it.

So this one is a little different than the one I have, but not by much. It leaks where the top and bottom screw on. Sometimes, really badly. Like tonight. My other complaint is that they didn't make the piece where the tubing attaches long enough. Very vulnerable to the hosing popping off. Scares my puppy every time.

Not terrible, I don't think. I only have one of these. Seems pretty standard amount of leakage I guess, where the top screws on to the bottom.

This one is the WORST!! And I have a ton of them. But at the connection point of the top and bottom, it's a river of albuterol flowing out.

Sorry the picture is so small on this one. It's an older and the only picture I could find was this size! This neb, by far, is my favourite. It leaks very little, if at all, but is so much larger than the rest, it probably wasn't money-efficient to keep making them. And they take up a lot of room in my drawer of nebs. But it's a good 'un.

I wonder if it has something to do with the method of cleaning the clinic has told us to follow (based on what they said is CF regulations). Or if the manufacturer's have gotten lazy in design and figured a drop or two of medicine leaked isn't much? Or if the compressors we use now are too strong for the nebs? Who knows, but I will continue to set down a sheet of paper to catch the drips of medicine so I don't have to get a paper towel later....

-Annie

TOBI did WHAT?!??!

Hear ye! Hear ye! A few weeks ago TOBI did something new that caught my attention quicker than words can describe! Read my story!

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It was a quiet day in the apartment. My roommate was gone and I was enjoying some down-time at the computer while doing treatment, a common sight. I was talking online to my not-actually-related sister when something surprising happened: the fire alarm for my apartment complex started going off. I calmly told my "sister" I would be right back, grabbed my keys, put on some shoes, turned off my machine, and walked outside. To my surprise, no one else was exiting their apartments. Nor could I hear any other fire alarms. Only mine. I go back inside and the fire alarm ceased within seconds. I then understand: TOBI set off the fire alarm in my apartment. It was the only explanation. I told my "sister" and of course she was amused. Then a second thought hit me: that means police and the fire department are on their way. I walked out of my apartment on the street side and a cop was leaning over the railing with 2 cop cars behind him. "Did your fire alarm go off?" "Yes sir..." "Well? What's the problem?" "Umm.. let me see if I can explain this. [fidgets] I have to do this medicine... it makes a thick mist and it somehow set it off..." [in his radio] "False alarm. Medicine"

Thinking back later, I'm surprised he didn't call a drug raid. "Medicine" that makes a "mist." Riiiiiight. It was code for "weed" obviously... haha. I asked the cop what I was supposed to do because I couldn't NOT do TOBI! He gave me the phone number and told me to call if it ever happened again so they wouldn't come out.

I called my parents after that. My mom laughed REALLY loudly when I told her the story. My nurse practitioner was amused too. As was a few of my CF friends. *sigh* Glad my little college-life story could amuse everyone!

To solve the problem where I could do TOBI without turning the air on really low so it would run for 30ish minutes, my smoke alarm went from this


to this

at least for now. When I finish TOBI I'll take it down... we have 3 other smoke alarms in this tiny apartment so I'm not really too worried.


So watch out TOBI users!! Smoke alarms and TOBI do not mix!

-Andrea

Annie, meet schoolwork. Schoolwork, stop attacking Annie.

WOW has school taken off. With only a week left until my break (I leave for Lake Charles Friday morning at 8 for a soccer tournament!!) I have a lot left to do! I have been procrastinating from writing here because I don't have the time. I probably still don't, but oh well.

Drama drama drama drama DRAMA. And I'm just going to leave it at that.

And coughing! When did this start because I don't like it. Had a scary morning too. I kept coughing up (not too much...) but normally I'll cough up just a TINY bit and it's over. This time it was continual. It freaked me out and I finally just held my breath to stop coughing altogether. I ran today and that was probably a bad move. I'm suppose to wait 24 hours after coughing up for physical activity, but I honestly forgot until now. Whoops. Maybe my capillary will heal overnight and I don't have to worry about it.

I haven't been getting much sleep (schoolwork again) and I'm getting up between 5 and 5:30 everyday because treatment, plus Tobi, takes 45 minutes in the morning and and hour at night.
So no sleep, plus really stressed, means I don't eat. Which means I'm probably dropping a pound a week (like I did the two weeks I was on IV antibiotics...) and that's not good!! Maybe over break I can stuff myself silly and gain some of it back...

Ok. I really need to do schoolwork. *sigh*

-Andrea