Last post for 2009....

So it's GOODBYE 2009 tonight! Lots of people say 2009's been a bad year for them, however I can't say the same. The worst was probably Lynn passing away unexpectedly after transplant, and Maryke because she never got lungs in time.

For me 2009 was by far mostly positive, and I have LOADS to be thankful for! To much to list right now, but will do so early in the new year probably. Getting ready now to spend New Years with some of my favourite people in the world... Family, Chris, Louzanne, Antoinette, Daniel etc... Going to be the best one I've had in a few years I think!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bye Cape Town Hallo Port Elizabeth! Some CT pics...

MERRY CHRISTMAS! I'M ON HOLIDAY!!!!!

So I'm FINALLY on holiday... My first Christmas away from home was pretty decent, the weather was good, the food was great, the company was great... All in all a great day. Today was also just spent lazing around, eating, playing games. Tomorrow we'll be seeing some of Chris's friends and doing some sightseeing, hope the weather's good! Gotten used to Joburg's predictable weather now.

Hope your day was also filled with fun, family and food...

O, and PS, at the end of my last post I meant to say: "may the best of 2009 be the worst of 2010", not the other way around!!!!!

23 months for me today!!!!

Just 1 month to go till the big 2 YEARS!!! And 2.5 working days till my short but fun HOLIDAY. The weekend was great, spend lots of time with Jolandi's family, swam a lot, ate a lot, lots of fun. Had a picnic on Sunday (some of the guys were fishing), and Louis joined us. So here is a pic of 3 (out of the 6) CF lung recipients in SA! you can see they're only like 1.5 and 2.5 months out and I'm 23 months... I'm the fat one, lol! But they're doing great :-)

Won't be updateing again till after Christmas... so MERRY CHRISTMAS and may you and your loved ones have an awesome time together. And may the worst of 2009 be the best of 2010!

over 200,000 visitors!

I was trying to get a pic when it reached exactly 200,000, but you people are too fast! Thanks for still reading this, even though there's not as much action and drama anymore, lol :-) WHICH IS A GOOD THING!

Soooo the pic below was taken exactly 2 years and 2 days ago. I've posted it before, but it's one of the few pics I have where I look and feel REALLY crappy. As you can see I wasn't even that happy with it being taken! The reason I'm posting it is because after what happened to Lynn, I realise EVEN MORE how blessed I am. It's SO EASY for something to go wrong in that operation. But mine didn't go wrong, and I'm here today, healthy and happy and BREATHING. I've been having a few anxious dreams (between my not being able to sleep) where in the dream I get rejection and can't breathe :-( And then it feels so familiar and I freak out. However after sleeping yesterday afternoon (was public holiday) and about 9 hours last night without a sleeping pill, the feeling has passed. Also had a gym workout just to affirm that my lungs do in fact work FINE. Let's hope the sleeping trend continues! I wanted to be relatively rested when I go on holiday IN A WEEK'S TIME!

Yes, that's right, exactly next Thurday this time Chris and I will be landing in Cape Town to spend Christmas with his family! It'll be my first Chritmas away from home... so it's rather exciting. We then fly to Port Elizabeth on the 29th to spend New Years with my family! Then back to the grindstone on the 4th of Jan :-(

post # 421

So last week was rather tough. The worst being obviously Lynn's sudden death, which resulted in bad sleeping and dreams and tiredness for the rest of the week. Still not sleeping as I should. I either wake up the whole time, or just can't fall asleep. Well tonight I'm being chilled at home, having milk before bed, reading my book,and taking sleeping pill. Let's hope it works. Also doing some last gift wrapping for xmas, and sorting out my room. bought some storage boxes to pack some of my crap away in. Blissfull evening...

Did the talk at the Jogurg General Hosp on Thurday last week, which was cool. The physio's were all very interested, which always makes a talk great. The past weekend was great, did our Christmas shopping AND had brunch in less than 2 hours :-) Then spend the rest of the weekend with Jolandi and her fam, and swam a few tomes, which was great. Just what I needed, although still tired!

Only 6.5 working days left till Christmas for me... Wednesday's a public holiday, yay!!!!


The pic below was taken at picnic last Sunday...

RIP Lynn...

I am utterly devastated to report that Lynn passed away this morning. I don't know what went wrong, last night her brother still told me opened her eyes and was responding to them, they were going to take her off the ECMO today, now she's gone. She was such a strong fighter, I never even doubted that her transplant would go well. I'm really shocked. But I know she's in heaven breathing easy now. However my heart breaks for her mom& dad, brother and the rest of their family. They were just as hopefull as mine was and she was so excited when she got the call... so sad :-( Still hard to believe.

Weekend and another Lynn update.

Had an extremely busy weekend, which I love of course, although this one could maybe have been a bit quieter... We spend Friday eve and Sat with family, my cousin from New Zealand and his friend is visiting! Haven't seen him in more than 2 years, when I still had the old lungs, so was very nice. Sunday was even busier, with church, baby shower picnic, went to chill and swim at Jolandi's house, and then went on to visit Lynn. Will post pics one of these days...

Lynn's still stable and slowly moving in the right direction. She was put on ECMO on Thursday, and they might take her off it on Wednesday and hopefully the vent can take over. She's also being slowly woken up. So I'm assuming the next few days are VITAL... please continue to keep her and her fam (and the donor fam) in your prayers.

Lynn update

Lynn’s been having a bit of a tough ride. She had to go back into theatre and is doing a bit better now apparently. PLEASE KEEP HER AND HER FAMILY IN YOUR PRAYERS. They need it right now!

LYNN'S GETTING LUNGS TONIGHT!!!!!!!!

WOW another one of my friends getting lungs today!!!!!!! I first met Lynn when she had her work-up, somewhere during last year, and she was following my blog before that. When I got the text message from her this morning driving to work that she got the call late last night I got Goosebumps all over (first time ever that's happened), and probably almost caused some accidents! She's from Cape Town, but has been waiting in JHB for a year now. However she was getting sick of waiting all alone with the rest of her fam and friends being in CT, so she was planning on going back to CT on the 10th of Dec, and rather wait there for lungs, with the risk of not getting to JHB in time should the call come... I was still joking with her brother saying it's always a good idea to tempt Murphy :-) I went to say bye to her old lungs during lunchtime today, and she went into theatre a while before 6pm SA time, and heard just now that the donor lungs are all good and ready to give her her life back! So please pray all goes well, strength for the surgeons etc! SSOOOO HAPPPYYYY for her! Was thinking on my way home frm work, @ last year's heart/lung tx function I was the only young person there, now we're 4 :-D

Last post for NOVEMBER... scary

Quite a bit's been happening! Loving my sister's visit! This past weekend we chilled on Friday night, I made flapjacks for breakfast on Sat morning, watched myself on TV, went to the Transplant Group Network meeting's year end function, visited Jolandi, went to Parker's Comedy Club. On Sunday we went shopping in Sandton, and walked around a bit on Northcliff Hill. So I'm just going to post some pics...

ALSO, I finally found my last x-ray taken with the old lungs, a few hours before surgery. They look crap, but the way my lungs were feeling I think they should've looked worse!

On TV tomorrow...

If you're in South Africa then you can catch me on SABC 3 tomorrow @ 10h40 AM on The POwer Within... if you do manage to watch, let me know what you thought!

22 months today with new new lungs on the 22nd!

Today is a very cool lungaversary date-wise, as I'll never have a 22 month one on the 22nd again! Had a pretty relaxing weekend, spend some time with Jolandi (who got her lungs on the 12th of Oct). She still gets some nasal gastric feeding while her throat is healing, but it may come out on Friday, holding thumbs!!!!

My sister's arriving on Tuesday!!!! Can't wait, haven't seen her since August before I went to the Games, so it's going to be great. Don't have much else to report on, so posting a few lics of my year end function last weekend and today's outing with Jolandi and her fam to the Botanical Gardens. Have a good week!

What a week!!!!

And not in a particularly good way! This week's been so rough I've barely had a chance to breathe. Work's been CRAZY BUSY, weather's been MISERABLE (hasn't gone above 20 degrees except for Monday, and raining the whole time. Real England weather :-( Apparently by Monday it'll be better...

My year-end function last weekend was pretty cool, will post a pic or 3 later. This weekend is going to be quiet and snuggly hopefully! Recovering from a hectic week and preparing for the next one in the rush to year-end... *sigh*

Jolandi and Louis are both doing great! Louis was discharged today (2 weeks and 2 days post transplant), and Jolandi is on track with getting energy back and getting used to the meds etc.

That's all for now!

New layout!

I thought seeing as my old layout was a bit dark, I've picked a new one for summer!!!! Still working on it, so might change a bit...

Happenings

Wow can’t believe last time I blogged was Sat, feels like yesterday. What can I report on? Chris and I finished house-sitting on Tuesday evening, and seems like he has a bit of a cold/allergies, so I’m kind of staying away from him for now. Wednesday morning I went to Maryke’s funeral. It was incredibly sad and moving. I also realize that had I had to wait for lungs as long as she did, I also wouldn’t have made it. We’re the same bloodgroup, and almost the same size, so if I was put on the list later I most likely also wouldn’t have gotten lungs. It was just my luck that I was sicker earlier, got listed earlier, and got the perfect sized O positive lungies, cos there weren’t another pair on their way…

Last night I did another talk in a Jewish community centre, where the Rabbi was also present to answer questions. The big issue in the Jewish faith with organ donation is the concept of brain death. They believe as long as a heart is still beating, even though the person doesn’t breathe anymore. So the perfect compromise would be waiting for the donor’s heart to stop and immediately remove the organs, although I’m sure that has its own complications. It was an interesting evening, just badly attended unfortunately!

Tonight I’ll be visiting Louis, he’s really doing fantastically! Jolandi is home, and will be seeing her on Sat! So glad they’re doing good. I’ve also got my company’s Year End Function on Sat evening, which should be fun! Will post pics!

Please pray for Eve (mentioned her a few posts ago), as she’s in hosp, and urgently needs new lungs again.

awesome cartoon taken from Eva's blog...

Lots of news and happenings

ANOTHER CF’ER FRIEND GOT LUNGS!!!!!!!!!!! Louis, who lives up here and whom I’ve often visited in hosp finally got his lungs on Wednesday! He’s waited more than a year and a half, and was just discharged after being in hosp for AGES, when the hosp called and said he must come back! Apparently he’s doing really well, and I’ll go in to see him tomorrow morning. He had so many plans for what he wanted to do once he got the new lungs, and now he can actually start recovering and doing those things!!!

Jolandi is also doing great, she’s going home this weekend! She still has the NG tube though, which will stay there until her throat is all better again.

Some sad news… Maryke, the girl waiting for lungs who got married just over a month ago passed away yesterday morning. She had gotten better, but seems like she just took a turn for the worse again. May she breathe easy now. Feeling very sad for her husband and family…

My week’s been SOOOOOO busy. On Monday I had my 3-monthly check-up, and lung function (FEV1%) was 100% on the dot! Not even a decimal value… just 100%. I’ve been at 97% for MONTHS, so was a nice surprise to see 100%! Everything else was also perfect, apart from CMV (a virus that was in my body pre-transplant, that most people have, but because I’m immune-supressed it may cause problems post tx) starting to show up in my blood results again so I’m back on Valcyte, even though I feel great. Think I should just stay on it… problem solved.

Tuesday eve I did a short talk at the CF assoc’s golf day. Unfortunately there were mostly golfers and not many CF people, but met some cool parents of CFers! Also got some great chocolates and wine out of the deal :-)

Wednesday night I had church cell, and last night we had supper at a friend’s place! This weekend Chris and I will be house-sitting (well until Tuesday actually), so that should be cool. Just wish the weekend could start now though!!!!

NOVEMBER!!!!!!

Wow October flew past!! In two months this time we'll be celebrating New Years Day! Had a great weekend again, Yesterday I had breakfast with Cristy, a friend from church. Went to visit Jolandi, who's doing great! She's just having some pshycological issues with leaving the oxygen behind, even though she doesn't need it anymore, but I know what it feels like and it's normal! She'll prob be going home this week.Last night I did a talk at the SA National Blood Services awards Dinner, which was very nice. Posting a pic here with a guy who's donated 350 units of blood!!!! Amazing...

Some sad news... an awesome girl, my age exactly, who got her lungs 3 months before I did in Canada and stars in the movie 65 red roses, has chronic rejection and is on the waiting list for a 2nd pair of lungs... REALLY hope she gets them! Check out her blog here: http://65redroses.livejournal.com/, it's beautiful and very inspiring.

Oh, and I managed to get my counter on again, yay! Almost @ 200,000 visitors!

Anniversary picnic and World's Biggest Walk pics...