Everything huuurrrttsss

Central location of pain ATM: my right shin. Playing soccer at night with no lights with college guys and without shin guards, yet not backing down from any tackle because that's not my style results in a skin colliding VERY hard with a knee or foot or whatever that was. Thought I broke it at first, but apparently I just can't break my own bones (knock on wood!) so thankfully it's just a big ol' bruise. But, because it's never fair, you can't see my big ol' bruise! It's hidden, but hurts like crazy!!

Whoa, rewind. Yeah, that's right. I played soccer tonight. It was so much fun. As one of the few girls playing, I have to earn my respect. Working on it.

Seriously? About 2 weeks until my next doctor appointment? Didn't I just go?! Awesome...

I'm so tired. It's time for bed. Gnight.

I feel terrible.

-Annie

Oh, hang on. Graffiti party was epic. 100000x better than last year, and I loved it last year. I got there around 10:30 (started at 10) and the place was already packed out. I was there from 10:30 until 1 when the cops shut it down for noise. I mean, 800+ people, of course it's going to be noisy. So much fun. I bloodied up my foot though, but it's ok. It started hurting again about an hour into the soccer tonight. Happens. My shin welp still isn't visible but it hurts and it's really hot. Weird. NOW it's time to go to sleep.

Sleep, Zenpep, and new walking shoes!

How many hours of sleep did I get Saturday night? 10, and woke up still sick, but not tired! I was miserable Sunday morning.... again. Mom gave me a mani/pedi to help make me feel better. That combined with my puppy helped. I tried eating some food, since I hadn't eaten since lunch the day before, and I felt so incredibly sick afterwards. Luckily everything stayed on the correct course south, if you know what I mean. Sunday night, I hung with some of my very favourite people: Casey, Alissa, and Vizza. We had a girl's night at Alissa's house and had a great time catching up! I felt just slightly sick last night/this morning too. Not ok! I'm taking all the meds, so I should be feeling fine. We even upped my enzyme dosage... ugh I'm keeping an eye on it.

Sunday my mom and I went new walking-shoe shopping! We both needed good shoes for walking all over Boston and we found some! I got the Asics Strike 2 and I love it. (The colours aren't right on the link: I got purple and silver; I searched online for 20 minutes and never found my shoe in the right colours online, so that's the best I can do for ya!) They are the most comfortable shoes I've ever put on my feet. My mom also got a pair of Asics and she loves them.

I joined the Z-points program! It's for those people who take Zenpep enzymes. After I registered and logged in all of my Zenpep bottles, (including one I went recycling bin diving for thanks to Mom) I had enough points to order two $50 Amazon Giftcards!!!!!!!! I'm saving up for a Kindle! Almost every month I'll have enough points to order another card, and I'm really excited about this. It's kinda like back when TOBI used to allow us to order a $5 Blockbuster card or a $5 McDonald's giftcard with each TOBI refill, except 10x better (literally). Thank you, Zenpep!

If you are not a part of this program yet take Zenpep and want to be, LET ME KNOW because I get a lot of points for each person I refer.

Time to Wii Fit!

-Annie

Gut problems: day 4

STILL SICK.

I ate lunch today. That's it. Do I feel hungry? Not in the least. I actually feel like I ate dinner about an hour ago. Not stuffed, but not wanting to eat. And Dad even cooked potato soup, which I LOVE!! Luckily there are plenty of left-overs for when I feel better.

I've been having serious issues with waking up. Not sure what's up. It's amazing how long I can sleep. I'm about to try it tomorrow. Because of how miserable I've been, I'm sleeping in tomorrow instead of going to church. I'm going to try and get as many hours of sleep in tomorrow as I possibly can. Let's play the game: How Long Can Annie Sleep? Any bets? I'm thinking 11 hours and I still wake up tired. I'm going to go to bed at midnight tonight (finishing treatment now) and wake up and get out of bed whenever. No alarms, nothing. The dog will wake me up, but with the way I've been sleeping, it won't phase me in the least. I'll pass right back out. It's almost like I'm sick, but side from the gut stuff, I don't feel sick. And the gut stuff is not normal sick, it's "me sick". Which isn't really sick! Man oh man this is complicated.

I caught up with an old friend of mine! Lucy became my friend in kindergarten, back when everyone thought we were twins, and stayed close until she went off to a different high school and college. We grabbed some Starbucks and sat in a park and caught up today... it's like we were never apart! She really brightened my day! Thanks, Lu. :]

Almost bed time!

-Annie

Gut problems

These last few days have been really rough on my gut. Remember those stomach problems I have? The stricture in my colon? Yeah, well it gives me problems sometimes and these last few days have been rough. Today while I tried to cook dinner (because I needed to eat despite feeling sick), there were times when I had to crumple up on the floor in pain for a few seconds while the worst of it passed. I'm still doing that now, sometimes curling up and sometimes stretching out. I'm really not sure what makes to decide to curl vs. stretch, but neither really help or hurt, but it makes me feel like I'm doing something. I didn't finish my dinner, but I did get about half of it in before calling it quits. I was dreading doing my Vest this evening, with all of the stomach pain/nausea, when I remembered that I did (what I thought was) an extra Vest session this afternoon!! So yay for trying to be a get-ahead patient and ending up solving that problem before I knew I had one.

Mom refills my pill box when I'm home (yay!) and it looks much less intimidating now that we've gotten rid of a few pills. I've also, at the recommendation of one of the CF doctors at clinic, replaced the NeilMed saline sinus rinse with an Ocean Spray. I used the Ocean Spray right after my sinus surgery so I remember it from before, but never thought of using one over the other. I mentioned my nose-bleeds after using the NeilMed and how discouraging that made rinsing and hoped for a solution. We'll see if this is it!

Treatment is done, I'm so tired and maybe a good night's sleep will make my gut feel better... that's sometimes the case.

-Annie

Home Home HOME!!

Oh my GOSH. I can't even try to explain how happy I am to be home. I am EXHAUSTED and in PAIN right now, so I will not be giving an official update right now about how camp went and how I'm feeling since I have a doctor's appt in a few days. I will soon though. I'm just so tired. As an overview, camp is over and I'm not doing the second week. I can't. It was a very very very long week. I'm glad I did the camp, it was a great experience, but it's not something I'm capable of doing a second time.

The pain is mostly in my feet from doing a ton of walking and the pain finally hit when I woke up from my nap this afternoon (first thing I did when I got home). My thighs hurt from yoga, dancing, and other physical activities I did this week. My calves hurt from a 1.5 mile run I did (in not bad time). My back/shoulders/neck hurt from the stress of the camp. So right now, I'm trying to recover. I loved the campers I was in charge of, I hope they keep in contact, especially if they need to talk to someone. I made some awesome friends, the other counselors. I don't think I've ever bonded so quickly with a group of people I didn't know. As a group, we bonded so quickly because we had to! That was the only way to keep sane. I'm really going to miss our meetings and after-meeting meetings!

Ok. Time to veg out. I need my brain to shut down again. It's been waaaay too busy this week. This update was a little longer than expected, but hey- it's ok.

-Annie

Sore from shopping?!

I woke up with my back hurting, my arms hurting, and other random muscles hurting. I wish I could say these were from a great workout... but they were just from my fun shopping day with Mom on Sunday. This is insane. Honestly, unless I went and worked out in my sleep last night, that's the only thing I can even possibly be sore from. How sad is that? I mimicked the "taking off a shirt" motion and my arms surged with pain. Yep. It was my shopping day with Mom. *sigh* I've said it 100 times and I'll say it again: I'm old, fat, and retired.

I'm going running again today with sis-in-law Sarah if the weather is good. Last night the rain was so bad I, along with everyone else around me, had to go 40mph on the highway just to get any sort of clear vision. It was bad bad bad. So if the rain comes again tonight, we will put off running. Maybe I'll Wii Fit it up again. I do love the Wii Fit.

I'm thinking my neck is sore from sleeping with my puppy last night. If there is even a slight roll of thunder, she's super-extra needy for hours after it's over. With the serious storms last night, she sat in my lap and shook. I was going to take a picture, but my camera wasn't nearby. I had to take her outside to go to the bathroom one more time, before she went to bed, right in the middle of those storms. I walked out with her with an umbrella and plopped her in the grass. She was fine until some thunder roared: she jumped up and over and right out from under the umbrella. She wasn't as happy about being outside anymore. I finally got her to do some puppy business and we went inside. I got her a towel and kept her in it until I was sure she wasn't wet or cold. My neck might hurt because when she sleeps with me during storms, she is almost under me she's so close. She might at one point have wedged herself under my neck or my back, placing my neck at a funny angle. It's ok though. She needed me.

Time to wash Cayston stuff so I can do this morning's dose. Having 2 pieces for 3 treatments is wearing on my last nerve (but! I'm biting my tongue and being positive about it). Luckily, I end my first round of Cayston Thursday night!!! Only a few more days!!

-Annie

"We don't feel pain"

Finally! A good day in college town! I had had a pretty great 7 day break (snow, family, home cooked food, etc.) but yesterday and today were back to the grind, and they turned out pretty great! One day during break, I did a little retail therapy to help lift my spirits. I spent most of it on make-up and other g.irly items (weird, for me) but I'm so glad I did. I will actually put forth the effort in the mornings to make myself look decent! That helps motivate me to get up out of bed after doing TOBI. That, and my new hair dryer. I'm in love. Just look at it! I pretty much leave the little attachment thing on because the stylists use it on my when I get my hair cut and I love it. The shower-head looking thing makes me a little nervous! I'm off-topic now. Yesterday, both of my morning classes let out early. While I normally groan when my 8am gets out early because I just sit in the same building until 10am, I have found that I really enjoy chatting with some of the people who are also in both of my morning classes. They can be pretty entertaining! After my second class let out, I did some homework and waited for the boyfriend to make the drive from home to college. We made a trip to SuperOne (much needed!) and I baked a cake (yummm). While it was cooling, we went to the gym. YES you read right. I finally made it back to the good ol' gym. The boyfriend is helping me with arm muscle building machines so I can gain my arm strength back, and I always work on my legs. However, while I was doing one machine, my knee popped funny. It doesn't hurt unless I put a lot of strain on it, but I was nervous about running. So I ellipticaled (lol) a mile instead of running. I was proud of myself, but disappointed with the time and respiratory results. So...

Today I made it back to the gym! Yayyyy!! 2 days strong and I'm proud of myself. Today I did the treadmill instead of the elliptical machine and I could feel a difference. The pounding of power-walking (I dislike running on a treadmill) definitely loosened some junk up and I was coughing away (much to the worry of nearby joggers). I had a lot of good, productive coughing for the next 20 minutes after that too. Oh, and before the treadmill, I did all of the arm/leg machines again. Got to put weight on me somehow! And I miss my strength from being an athlete.

I was encouraged by Lauren's post (Read here), but I haven't yet had the time in my day to add in extra miles. With adding all of the weight work too, and working with a partner, it takes up a lot of time. That's not a complaint, but when I have the time, I'll definitely up the distance. It may be some serious power-walking, but it helped! Baby steps....

So the boyfriend has put himself on a diet. Using my amazing new Kines knowledge, we have worked out a calorie amount for him to lose weight to, along with working out. So less about the "weight" and more about the "fat", if that makes sense. Anyway, because of our VERY different needs in calorie intake, we've come across some problems that will only get worse with time: how do I feed both of us together?? I need excess calories/sodium/fat and he needs just the opposite! We're trying portion differences if we share something cooked (I eat 2/3; he gets 1/3). He's cutting out most snacking (unless it's healthy/low calorie; and then it's limited) while I eat constantly. Me eating makes him want to eat too. Poor guy... I really do feel badly about it, but there's nothing either of us can do right now. I need to gain weight and he's trying to shave it off. I'm the one who is really pushing the gym right now, and I know he'll always go if I go. So go we shall!!

Oh, and the gym. So two days now, and there's only one part of my body that hurts: my hands. I'm building my calluses back and they HURT!!! Working out was so painful today, but mostly in my hands! Oh well. Another day at the gym with the phrases "We don't feel pain" and "I ha.te you Chase Wooten" running through my head.

Time to explain. Chase Wooten was one of my keeper trainers/off-campus soccer coach/soccer camp keeper coach over the last 8+ years of my life. He was the only trainer I've ever had who I actually wanted to keep pushing myself for. He was a great motivator and a hilarious guy. (Oh! I'm saying "was" because I'm "retired" and he moved away.) If the training started to hurt, "Nope, we don't feel pain. Let's go." I don't think I've ever pushed myself harder than when working for Chase. He made training so much fun with his dry sarcasm and comments that made me laugh and want to do better. So, I personally adopted the phrase "We don't feel pain" as my workout slogan for when I don't think I can lift another weight or take another step. And I don't actually ha.te Chase, not at all, but that's another thing I would say to him as I worked because it hurt and he was the one pushing me. Just another joke to get through the pain.

So, if I was a great author like Betsy, CG, Ronnie/Mandi, or Lauren, I would end this post in a cute way, tying in "we don't feel pain" to some metaphor of life. But I'm not, so I'm just going to end it with this: tomorrow morning, I dye my hair. Goodbye brown. Hello red.

-Andrea

A Full Day of Sub-Freezing Temps

Wow. Just wow. For Louisiana, this is COLD! I can't remember a day when it was below 32 all day long. There are ice patches all over campus. When I walked to class this morning for my 8am, it was 18 degrees, 10 mph wind, felt like 6 degrees. Let me see if I can explain this... I DON'T DO COLD. I am not a cold-weather creature, by any stretch of the imagination. I have been wearing full-body underarmour as a base layer of my warmth. But the wind is unbearable. Southern cold is different from northern cold, and I've been in both more than once. Northern cold is dry. Southern cold has humidity that sticks to you and "chills you to the bone" (as I heard from a Northern lady visiting). Today, the humidity ranges from 60+% to about 30% throughout the day. That's enough water in the air to make anyone very very cold, without wind. Then add in the 10-12mph winds... ugh... needless to say, I didn't want to leave my covers this morning.

On a different note, it was roughly 2 days until I heard my upstairs neighbors use water again. And since my bathroom is not a rainforest anymore, I'm assuming it has been fixed. Yay!

Oh!! Last night was the College Football National Championship game! I cooked dinner for the boyfriend and his best friend (came out HORRIBLE. The recipe was just awful; not my fault. Never cook 3-cheese pasta bake from Campbells recipe book EVER. Smells good, but don't be fooled.) as we cheered on Bama (Sorry Anjea!! Nothing against Texas, but I like Bama more) as they won the National Championship! Roll Tide! It was a fun game to watch.

After I finish this post, I'm going to wash all the dishes from last night (and the tray we cooked the pizza on afterwards), load up Dora, and head home! Celebrating boyfriend's best friend's birthday tomorrow.

So I've been unable to run all week. For the first few days, I had a random hip-flexer injury where I couldn't even walk well. Once that healed, I now have very sore quads from my kines 292 class where we've been doing muscle strength trainings and workouts. So I still can't walk well. *sigh* Maybe Monday will be better.

-Annie

Shin Splints: You win... for now

Ok. Today I'm taking a break. My shins are so incredibly painful. Walking across campus and back felt like I was having my leg broken with every step. Plus my calves are still in constant "cramp" mode. I'm going to ice my legs when I get home (HOME home!) and run again on Saturday, Sunday at the latest. We have a stationary bike at the house, so I'll do some of that tomorrow if I still can't run. Hopefully it won't hurt quite so much. Besides, my mom is always a huge help when my legs are in pain, so going home for Christmas break will really help me out.

Speaking of, I need to pack!! I haven't even started packing up the apartment, and the boyfriend will be here soon to load up Dora (my car) for me! I haven't started yet because I'm waiting for a friend, a marine, to call me back on if he can help me (or get someone else) move our Sigma Kappa letters inside over break. They are WAY too heavy for me to move.

Oh, and my biology test today? Piece of cake.

-Andrea