Day 3

I had another bad night.  The coughing wasn't quite as frequent as the other night, but it kept me up longer.  I would just start to nod off and I'd start coughing again.  Frustrating is the only word that comes to mind.  Exhausted is what I am now.

I did take a nap this morning for about 2 hours, but then people kept coming in the room, so it didn't last nearly as long as I wanted it to.  Hopefully, tonight will be better.

I still haven't exercised yet.  The exhaustion leaves me with no energy and the thought of exerting that much more just makes me want another nap, so I skipped it again today.  I really want to get going with that, because it does speed up recovery.  If I get a good night of sleep tonight I'll finally get back into the normal routine, I expect.

Overall, I do think I'm starting to get better.  Jake said my voice sounded better when he called me over lunch.  I haven't coughed as much today so I think that's a good sign.  Although, I have gone through yet another box of tissues, for a total of 3 in 3 days.  That's probably at least a little tree I've killed by now :-P

We have new IV pumps this time.  None of the nurses or CFers like them.  They're like Fort Knox...impossible to get in to.  Normally, we all mess with our pumps, changing the speed the drug is infused at, or correcting the volume of the med.  Not to mention adding more time to it when it starts to beep and annoys us.  But not on these babies.  Nope.  You have to have an ID badge in order to get in them and pharmacy decided what speed the med goes in.  Most CFers are in quite often, so we know the routine, and know what our bodies can and can't handle.  We all change stuff, and the nurses know we know what we're doing, so they're okay with it.  Usually I run my Tob over half an hour, but the new machines think that because I'm little my body can't possibly handle the drug going in over a half hour, so I get to sit for twice as long.  It's pretty annoying.  The nurses hate them because they don't have the freedom to use their brains...pharmacy did that for them.  They set how much time the nurses have to start the med after they scan the med or enter it by hand before it starts to beep.  Apparently, they think nurses are also tazmanian devils, so they gave them about 10 seconds to get it done.

Here's the genius of someone who has been in the hospital a lot though.  Te he he.  Apparently, one of the CFers who is in right now, discovered a little button on the back of the machine that allows you to change things without the ID badge.  Our favorite physical therapy aid, Amanda, is passing the word around :-D  I haven't tried it yet, but I'm sure I will the next time the pump decides to mess with me.

I found out some more about the move.  Several of the nurses from this floor and even some of the housekeeping people are requesting to move with us.  I'm very excited about this.  Moving to a new floor is always hard, because you get really attached to the people you see every time.  (Not to mention that breaking in new people is always a process :-P)  So, some of our favorites want to go with us.  That should make the move even better, if their transfers are approved.  We've had favorite nurses, who got frustrated with the way this floor is run, go to different positions in the hospital.  I'm hoping they'll come back to us when we move.

We are a very interesting breed of people, as I've mentioned before.  I mean, if you think about it, we really are freaks of nature to begin with.  CF is not a common disease.  Jake and I did the math on what percentage of the American population actually have CF and it came out to be less then 1/100 of a percent.  Is that crazy or what?  Throw on top of that, only 10% of the CF population develop diabetes from the disease...how much of a freak of nature am I now?!  (By the way, I take "freak of nature" as a good thing...who wants to be like everybody else? :-) )

I suddenly drew a blank on what else to talk about so I guess I'll stop for now.  I'm sure I'm forgetting important information of some kind, but if I get some sleep I'll probably remember it tomorrow :)

Thanks for reading my ramblings!