Cold, Hot, Rain, Snow, Sun, Wintery Mix...up and down and all around!

What does my title have to do with me?  Well, welcome to Chicago, Illinois and my life. 

Lets tackle the weather first!  Everything I described in the title is basically what our weather has been like for the past two weeks.  Maybe it has not been hot, but to Chicagoans standards in the winter, 58 degrees is certainly a heat wave.  We have dealt with whipping cold weather, an over abundance of snow, and even massive flooding.  Chicago's weather is as dramatic as some people's lives.  

Speaking of drama, how about that awesome Govorner of ours?  Talk about up and down and all around.  He is really off is rocker, and is bringing unnecessary drama to this wonerful Land of Lincoln!  Blago is definitely keeping the news interesting during the Holidays this season, especially with appointing a senator in place of Obama.  Really Blago?  Is this the way you are going to play the game?  I can honestly say I am glad my life is not that dramatic these days!

We can start where I left off.  I got out of the hospital to finish a week of ivs on my own.  To my dismay my lungs did not improve at all.  I can't even say they improved a bit because my breathing test showed the same numbers when I went into the hospital as they did when I came out of the hospital.  A little dissapointing, but not something that was going to ruin my holiday fun!  I am glad to report Christmas went pretty smoothly, and having family around has been fun and challenging.  I meant this in the nicest way possible.  It can be stressful with extra guests around and sometimes my schedule can sometimes be altered, which doesn't seem to go well with my cf.  Unfortunately cf like to have a schedule and a routine and a plan.  Does that mean I can't do things that are not part of my schedule...no.  It just means that I need to plan for those other things.  Spontinaiety does not always fit well with a plan.  Of course with every plan there is a back up plan for the times when things come up suddenly.  What does this have to do with the title you ask?  My life can be a wintery mix.  It does not mean drama, it just means that a lot of things can happen at once.  

I'm sorry, I did not define wintery mix to those of you who live in warm places.  Wintery Mix: A combination of snow, sleet, and rain falling at the same time.

For example, I just got a nasty cold yesterday, and that can knock me on my butt for a couple days to a week before I can really start functioning normally again.  On top of the cold I am going back to my condo in the city, which means packing up a lot of stuff that I have brought to my parents house, and on top of that I start classes next Monday, which means a little preperation with that.  And we can't forget balancing the dating scene.  It sounds like a chore, but everyone knows it can be a little difficult figuring out eachother and how we mesh and fitting a new person into your life.  It sounds depressing, but I do enjoy dating and doing things with a person, and sharing my life with a person.  No drama, just a wintery mix.

I am hoping the wintery mix will stop outside soon, but I know winter has just started here.  I will enjoy the indoors, hopefully with a new boy, and start my new hobby...improv classes.  It will keep me busy one night a week which will be good for the winter blues!

I hope everyone is have a good holiday season and a Happy New Year!  I hope you find Peace, Joy and Love in your life, and most importantly, I hope everyone stays healthy this season and all year long!

Controlling the uncontrollable

I know it has been a long time, but since this blog is for me and I am sure no one reads it, I think it is okay that I have not written in a while.

I am once again in the hospital, but I am okay with it and figured it was a good time to come in during my winter break.

The First day of a hospital stay is always the most nerve racking, busy, and exhausting day of the stay.  I was struggling more than usual with this first day.  It started off okay with people poking into say hi, it quickly went down hill when I had 2 residents and 1 med student come in on 3 seperate occasions to get my history.  They are usually smart and all come in at once, or at least ask me different questions when each comes in.  

As the afternoon rolled on I was hearing of meds being ordered wrong, or not at all.  I fly off the handle when meds don't get ordered correctly.  As my mom walked across the street to grab us dinner, I was on the verge of a break down.  One more little mistake was going to throw me off the deep end.  I kept myself busy while she was gone, and managed to get through the day without a melt down.

It dawned on me this evening why I was so on edge today. The control I have over my disease was taken away from me.  It is like changing of the guard, and maybe next time I should have a cermony and give my inatament control over to the residents.  I should explain to them what it means to give my full control of my disease to them.  What it feels like to talk to 5 different people before you get the right med from pharmacy, or not being able to talk to pharmacy directly.  Yes, I could be a pain and start requesting to talk to pharmacy directly, but that would put more stress on me, and less time to recover from my lung infection.

There is little I can control of my disease, but I can decide on the pills I take, the times I do my treatments, the times I do my ivs, and not be on anybody elses clock.  It is hard to request times for such things when they have a million other patients to take care of.

So now that I have realized my problem, I need to learn how to fix or at least "control" it.  But that brings up a good question.  If I just handed all of my control over to the docs, how do I have control over anything, including my emotions.  Everything that comes with the word control seems to be handed over.  This is where the compassion comes in, and the surrendering to the process, and biting my tongue A LOT!  

I should realize the docs have a lot to do, and they still are in training and do make mistakes.  But that brings up a question in my mind.  How can I trust someone who learned about Cf in a classroom, and just started practicing on us 2 weeks prior to my admission?  How can I let them make decisions when they have not grown up with this disease, but only learned it about it in a text book a few years prior?  How can a doctor know things about my disease when they have only had less than a decade of training?  But then again, it is a job just like anything else.  You become an expert in your field of training.  

Now this seems to be going in circles, and I don't seem to be getting answers.  I guess the only thing I can do until I come up with answers is to surrender to the process (best advice ever given to me) and see where that takes me.

Sorry for the long post.  I had a lot of pondering questions.  Hope all is well!

~Mags