Chillin'

My day started off a little rough.  They tried to draw all my labs this morning but for the first time ever, my port decided not to draw blood.  So, we finished my antibiotics for the morning and am hoping that by tonight it will decide to draw.  Otherwise we'll have to change needles again and see if that works.

At 12:30pm I went to do bunch of PFT's.  The one I normally do is called spirometry, but this time I did that and 2 other tests.  All together it took 2 hours to complete.  By the time I got back I was pretty wiped.  I ate a late lunch and then decided to treat myself to a little relaxation.

The hospital has 2 "Massage Oasis" spots, so I went down and had a 30 minute chair massage.  Holy cow.  I've never had one, but I think I'm now addicted!  I always have rock hard muscles in my back, neck, and shoulders and when I come in the hospital they get even worse.  Dr. Hornick was explaining accessory breathing muscles when I was admitted.  When you're breathing hard (usually during aerobic exercise or the like) you use muscles in your neck and shoulders  that you don't usually use during normal breathing.  However, when there is significant lung disease, breathing becomes harder and then those muscles are used much more often and can become tense.  When I came in, those muscles were particularly tight.  He showed me something I can do to take the pressure off of those muscles which does help.  But after sleeping on these hospital beds, everything gets tighter, so hence the massage.  It was great!

After that I decided to further treat myself and got a cup of coffee at one of the kiosks.  It's a Caramel White Chocolate Mocha.  It's Ghiradelli chocolate and caramel, so it's quite tasty :)

While writing this my nurse came in and we tried my port again.  It worked!  Woohoo!

Jake is on his way up along with mom and dad, so I'm pretty psyched for that.  In the meantime I'm just chillin' out and enjoying my coffee and unusually relaxed muscles.  

Should be a good weekend :)