wind walking

new NEW favourite thing to do....blow past people on the street while walking...then realize and think 'holy Hattie you are walkin' so fast and just blowin' past all these people'.

It feels good great to walk again, and walk with breath!

I also went to the gym today...darn it feels good to jog and sweat and be normal. Although I am still NOT a fan of the treadmill, I just keep sayin' to myself what my friend Nat says to herself while she runs "10 months ago I could not walk, 10 months ago I could not walk (repeated)"

Also I'm not sure if I have mentioned this, but ever since I came home from DC (which by the way I'm headed back there May 19th! It's just too ugly, rainy and jacket/sweater wearing weather for me to stick around in Toronto haha) my sugars were dipping to like 2.1 (brain screaming for help when they get that low, below one, I heard is like coma city, a definite not cool) but on the plane I could not raise my sugars, no matter how much candy and sugar I ate. TOTAL panic. Finally I got them above 4mmol. Felt awful the rest of the day, like the WORST hang over ever. All week my sugars were dipping SO low, every day! I've had to drop my long acting insulin to half of what I was using two weeks ago!


TRANSLATION : I am getting healthier and therefore my CFRD (cystic fibrosis related diabetes) is getting better! Less insulin means GREAT.

Anyways Happy Friday! (can you tell the exuberant ooze of happiness that is radiating from every pore in my body in this post? Could be the endorphins ramping through my body from the gym, but also maybe it's just because life is beautiful?)


You can check out my Hattitude artistic style blog click here

favourite thing

yesterday was my dad's birthday.

my new favourite thing to do is blow up balloons. These lungs LOVE to blow up birthday balloons for a celebration.

I was just  going to blow up three...but then I just went to town and blew up 12 or so....without even missing a beat of breath.
Pre-Transplant...forget about it. I could not even blow one up.

Thumbs up for birthdays, balloons, and getting older, because it means you made it!

oh also if you want to check out some of my photos from washington. You can check out my Artistic Style Blog, which I update WAY more then the CF one (which is a GOOD thing since it means nothing new and exciting has happened in the health front)

Click here to view some washington DC photos
or
Click here

the novelty of breathing...never gets old

I MADE IT! I'm in washington DC. Right now as I type this waiting for my cuuuuz to get off of work.
the sun is shining and it's beautifullllll here. BEST OF ALL....there are flowers! and not just the earth looking dead like back home...some GREEN grass and trees!

carrying bags off of flight, wearing back pack and carrying duffle type bag, while talking to a guy on flight AND climbing stairs. check. check. check. breathing? not a problem. I usually would have been gasping for air carrying a back pack, and duffle bag, while trying to have a conversation with someone....WHILE climbing stairs...didn't even make a gasp of air. It's surreal.

Going to the bathroom on flights, I normally would take my oxygen off, and not wear it, so I would be sweating and hot and breathing heavily by the time I would get back to my seat. This time round...my breath was as, even as, if I was sleeping.

Wheeling my suit case, carrying my duffle bag, AND a computer backpack on my back (those things are no feather) all down the sidewalk to get to my cousins car. Normally I would have flagged her, called her, sat down and waited until the vehicle came to a stop in front of me. This year...I'm pulling and skippin' and getting myself to her car with BREATH.

Thank you donor, for making my trip to washington, SO freakin' fantastic. It's great to be able to walk up and down the stairs in her old fantastic high ceiling home to the basement to the upstairs, without even skipping a beat of breath.

I wonder if I will ever stop noticing the little things? I wonder if I will ever stop noticing that I can breathe doing stuff now? I notice EVERYTHING...and it's pretty freakin' awesome.

The novelty of breathing...it just never gets old.

kind cards

i woke up today with such a sore throat I could not even swallow... speaking or talking?... forget about it.

sigh.
le sigh.
double sigh.
deep sigh.
sigh.

is there any way a double lung, 9 months, post transplant recipient could wake up tomorrow and feel better?? in time for my flight to washington?

I seriously just booked the flight three days ago. I cannot say i'm going ANYWHERE from now on until I'm actually sitting on the plane and have LEFT the tarmac. le sigh...

anyways here is something really cute that happened last week. My aunt tutors a couple students, and one had exceptionally good behaviour for the week, so as his reward they donated money to the CF foundation.

My Aunt wanted him to understand where his money was going and how his good behaviour helped the CF foundation. They watched the video breathless of me that my friends eric and filipe made (click here to take a gander at it), Then she got him to go up and down the stairs breathing through a straw to know how it feels to live and breathe with CF.

Here is my aunts email to me, and his response to the question...
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Hi Hattie,
Thanks for preparing half my lesson by having that amazing Youtube video. I was helping Riley to prepare for his EQAO testing by looking up reading questions on last year's test. There was a story on Wayne Gretzky with questions to answer after reading the story and a writing piece to do. They kept referring to Wayne as 'The Great One' in the story. I had just received my letter from CF for my next donation that day. When Riley arrived and told me the news that he had been a good boy at school, one thing just led to another.....
1. Let's celebrate your good choices by donating to CF.
2. Let me help you understand what CF is, by watching my niece's video.
3. Let's prepare you (a very active little boy) by experiencing first hand what Hattie is talking about.
4. Let's get a straw and breathe through it while running up and down the stairs 10 times,
5. Let's talk about who REALLY IS the Great One!!!! and why!!!

Riley listened very attentively to your story. This is a difficult task for him. He clearly heard the stats about being the No. 1 children's disease and the scraping out of the lungs to put the new ones in.

Here is his response:
Explain why Hattie Dunstan can be called the "Great One." Use details from the video and your own ideas to support your answer.

Hattie dunstan is a great one becasue she was brave to go to the doctor and tell him she wanted new lungs and get the serjoory.
She knew that children die when they have CF so  she did all the right things to grow up and be older. Then she wouldn't be a child anymore. When your are younger you will die more eyeser.That is why she has her thumbs up. She is proud of being brave.

Describe how Hattie appreciates the lung donations that help CF patients to have a new start on life.

Hattie appreciatated the donation because she was sick and she was the one who needed the lungs. People are lucky. They can breeth so they don't appreciate the donations. The people who sign their sharing cards are great ones too. They want to share. They have kind cards to tell people they are nice and want to share.
She also appreciates the donation by sending a letter to the people that gave her the donation.  The family who gave Hattie the lungs are sad but they are 'Great Ones' too!
Hattie was great to do her homework. She knew how to breeth then. 

------------------------------------

Number 1 how awesome is that kid! friggin wicked. 

Number 2 i LOVE the idea of educating kids when they are young all about organ donation! 

Number 3 how adorable is he? my fav part "they have kind cards to tell people they are nice and want to share" [talking about signing the organ donor cards. really? SO cute.] 

it's hard to go wallow in self pity that I am not headed to washington anymore, after reading that cute little email! 

hey at least the sun is shining today...it could be snowing! 

 

world has it out for me.

yesterday i booked my flight to washington.
i leave on wednesday.

today...
i woke up with a sore throat and one nostril plugged?
seriously universe?
are you that cruel.
OY

results are in from biopsy.

I had a bronch done Tuesday morning and the results are back already! the biopsy (they took a small piece from parts of my lung) was negative!  No rejection.

great news. now I can book my washington trip. cherry blossoms here I come.

I will admit I was a bit scared when my coordiator called me thursday morning SO soon after my biopsy, I was like oh frig I have rejection, I gotta get down to the hospital immediately or something, so my stomach was able to NOT throw up  calm down a bit after she said No acute rejection was found.

Also is it weird that I cried because she said I could go down to 7.5mg of prednisone. I HATE prednisone with such a fierce passion. It has given me THE worst side effects ever. I have been on it for 3 years at high doses, and finally I will be on a dose of the steroid that our body naturally makes anyways.
No more chipmunk face, no more dependency, no more weird side effects (hopefully) with prednisone.

Yay to: thursday, Almost being the weekend, starting a personal trainer today, AND clothing swap party on saturday. woo

On cloud nine!

thumbs up dude.

9 months of breathing easy, having adventures, looking towards a future, and being me again.

9 month assessment was today. Check, Check, Check. Bronch tomorrow.

BEST appointment ever. For the first time since transplant blood work has proven...dare I say it...NORMAL. My creatine is finally where I want it to be, I've been drinking water like CRAZY! so I would hope so...(imagine I had to get a kidney transplant on top of all this other mess! Oy)

My A1C is awesome! .056. Perfect diabetes control. Thank you insulin.
My White blood cell count is 4.6. Another ace in the hole.
My FEV 1 is up to 61% despite just having had the CMV virus.
My 6 minute walking test is up to 575 (?) 40 meters higher then last time!
My CT scan looks spic and span clean as a whistle.

and now for the grand puba of all pubas! (whats a puba?)
I'm allowed to go to.......WASHINGTON here I come. awwwwwwwwooo

man alive it's nice to be on this side of the tracks...things just get better and better. you lucky ducks who have been over here your whole life! haha

Whoooops

It's been awhile, I know I've been a bad icecream blogger, but I've been making up for it on my other blog. I'll give  quick update here. I've been working and marketing really hard on my Hattitude jewellery business. You can check out my other blog Hattitude Artistic Style Blog for what I've been up to. 

I went to LG Fashion week on Friday, a studio show. It got me and Kim SO excited for our fashion show in September. Lots of ideas funnelling around in our notebooks! Our second meeting for our 2nd annual fundraising event is in a week. 

I have my 9 month assessment starting this monday. Holy Moly 9 months. Time flies when you're having fun. 

I am feeling so much better now that they figured out I had the CMV virus. I got to stop IV on wednesday and start orals for the virus. Total 7 week course of treatment. 

Here is a short video that my friend Filipe and Eric interviewed and made of me. They shot this 5 months ago. 

In this video I was 4 months post transplant. November 2010.