Busy Weekend

I've had a busy few days so think I'm just going to relax today and take it easy, I might attempt to go food shopping and walk Alfie, but we'll see!

On Friday night we went for a curry with my dad and his partner and my brother and his girlfriend which was very nice and I also had a few glasses of wine.

Then on Saturday we went to a surrogacy social event, which involved doing a two hour walk. Not the greatest idea for me to agree to take part in, but needs must and all that! As we got closer in the car I kept commenting to Pete how hilly it looked and started to panic! I really don't need to be coughing my guts up for two hours in front if people I hardly know and when I'm trying to make a good impression! At the start of the walk there was an easy route and more difficult one and we were all to meet up about 15 minutes later, I do not think labelling it 'easy' was the correct term. There were two really steep bits so not easy (!) but I managed OK and then once we were on flat and going back downhill it was even better. I think I would have struggled if I wasn't feeling great, but since my chest is feeling good at the moment I managed. I slept well on Saturday night anyway and coughed some very thick sputum up in my physio session that night! I really had to push myself to do my physio, I hate doing it when I feel really tired, it's the last thing you want to be forcing yourself to do!

On Sunday we went to a barbecue at Pete's parents as it was his sisters birthday. The weather was beautiful and we had a good day just sitting in the garden. Here are some pictures

Pete's sister the birthday girl!

Pete's sister, baby due in 11 weeks :o)

I couldn't sleep at all on Sunday night and managed to get about an hours sleep, even though I was so tired. I hate it when I can't sleep but then I'm too tired to try and do anything else! I can't understand how your body can not fall asleep when it's so tired!

On Monday my mum and I went to this barber workshop that was supposed to be on 3D patterns but it was like a basic barbering course, we managed to sneak out before the end. We sat there for two hours and didn't even get a break or offered a drink and the chairs were so uncomfortable! Couldn't wait to get out!

In the afternoon I had a flight test as we are going on holiday in a month, wahoo! I just managed to pass the flight test. When you have a flight test they put some gel on your ear for 10 minutes and it heats up your ear so it bleeds more. They then cut it , and collect some blood from it in a thin tube. They put the blood in this machine and it sucks it out of the tube it then gives some numbers about blood saturation levels and CO2 levels. They then put a monitor on your finger to measure your stats and then attach you to some oxygen and you have to wear the mask for about 20 minutes. During this 20 minutes they deliver you lower %;s of oxygen as what would happen on a flight. My stats were 94% at the beginning and the lowest they dropped to were 88%. After 20 minutes they cut your ear again and take some more blood and take the same measurements in the machine, they then remove the oxygen until your stats have returned to normal.

I am still sitting on borderline, which means on short haul flights I'm OK and don't need oxygen, but anything longer than 5hours+ and I'm going to need oxygen as I could start to feel unwell such as feel very tired, sick and get headaches due to low levels of oxygen and even end up having a collapsed lung.

I then had an outpatients appointment but they had arranged to see me on the ward at St James since I was already there for the flight test. My lung function is 41% and my weight is 55.7kg. So overall I'm stable and although my lung function isn't the highest it can be, it's sitting at about my average so they are happy with me and I don't have to see them again for 6 weeks, fingers crossed! I also had my port flushed which went fine, got my letters to take with me on my holiday (one says I am fit to fly and one says I need to take my medication with me for medical purposes i.e I'm not a drug dealer!), got a prescription for salt tablets for my holiday and off I went very happy! I need extra salt when I sweat as people with CF lose alot of salt and can get ill if it's not replaced, so whenever I am in a warm environment I need to take salt tablets. I took some at the weekend too as it was quite warm then. If I don't take them I tend to feel very tired and my body aches, especially my legs!

Ps- Sorry about the massive gaps between paragraphs, blogger is a pain lately and I can't get it to leave smaller gaps!