new blog

I know I have been a terrible blogger over the past year, but I have started up a new blog following my journey to become a mommy and the struggles I am going through dealing with infertility. I hope that you will check it out and pass it on to any one who may be interested in reading it!

Thanks :)

Nicole

Happy New Year!!

Rob and I are in New York for the holidays and a few weeks of leave, so inevitably I have barely enough time for sleep and medicine, let alone blogging! We will be here for another week or so and then I will be back. Something to look forward to in 2010 will also be the debut of my cooking blog, which I am VERY excited about!! I've been working on it already and as soon as it is up, I will post the link.

Now, before my 5 minutes of calm quietness is up -

I would like to wish all of you a healthy and happy new year .. and I hope that many good things come to all of us. Let's hear it for 2010!!!!

He's Home!!

I am sooo happy!! After 12 months deployed, Rob finally came home last Friday. It feels so good to have him safe at home with me. The first night he was home we went out to Chris' Steakhouse for dinner..it is our favorite place for date night here in NC.

On the 18th, Rob and I were in the audience for a taping of the Oprah show, along with 700 other soldiers who just returned and their families. The show was about headline making heroes and Oprah used Skype to welcome them all home. We were surprised by Winona Judd coming out on stage and singing "America, the Beautiful". It was a pretty cool experience. The best part though was before the taping, one of the Oprah staff members was getting the audience ready for the show. She was making us clap and get loud, and then she asked people to go up on stage and tell stories about deploying or Fort Bragg or the Oprah show. Rob got up in front of all of those people and told the story of how we met. It embarrassed me a little because I don't like the spotlight, but it was really sweet. Anyway, the show should air on Tuesday, November 24th, so you should watch!

The last few days we have spend cleaning out our garage and *hopefully* getting ready to move. No news on that just yet..

Last night we had some friends over and I cooked dinner and we watched UFC 106. I don't like UFC, but Rob is into it. I ended up going to bed before it ended :)

Anyway, here's some pics from homecoming day and the Oprah taping. Hope you enjoy them! xo

the fridge full of beer :)

..love..
i missed him!!
sign in front of our house

Brooklyn missed Daddy soo much

oprah show

I didn't forget about my blog, I swear!!

The last few weeks have been busy, busy, busy for me, and it is only getting worse! Just about 3 weeks ago I moved back to NC to get ready for Rob's homecoming. Needless to say, I had a TON of unpacking to do, but before I could get to that my house needed to be cleaned TOP TO BOTTOM! Also, there was NO food here, so I had to go shopping. I am still in the process of unpacking LOL I hate it soooo much! In between all of that, I have been volunteering on post to help set up the barracks for the single soldiers who are returning and putting together care packages for them. Being this busy has been great for my sanity, actually.

That being said, Rob will be home SOON!!!!! Even sooner than I thought!!!! For security reasons, I can't say any more about that but I need to get a lot of stuff done, and fast. The house is a mess, Brooklyn really needs a bath, there is piles of mail all over the place..all things I know don't matter to him, but sure matter to me!

I'm really not going to stress over it though. I went to the liquor store today and stocked him up (3 different types of beer, bloody mary mix, red and white wines & kahlua..depending on his mood!) As long as the fridge is full and the welcome home signs are hung, I think we'll be good ;) Ahhh I can't believe it is finally here..almost. I have waited 12 loooong months for this, what a great feeling it is to be at the end!! =)

Are you vaccinated??

Over the past few weeks, I've talked to a bunch of fellow CFers about..you guessed it..SWINE FLU!
So many people seem hesitant to receive the H1N1 vaccine. I did some research, read this article, and talked to my CF team (they are recommending all of their patients get both). Of course, I trust my CF doc and after reading more about Swine Flu, it seems a lot more likely to actually get the flu than to have side affects from the vaccine - it is made the same as the seasonal vaccine, just a different strain. It is especially important for those of us with respiratory illnesses to take proactive steps when we can. That being said, I just want to let you all know, that I got both the seasonal AND H1N1 shots today. Bring on flu season!

Run Sickboy Run

Hey guys!

My CF friend Ronnie asked me to write a guest post for his incredibly inspirational blog, Run Sickboy Run. If you haven't checked it out before, you definitely should..and if you have, well then go check out my post and leave me some love!!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend =)

CF Update

So when I saw Dr. Behar a month ago, my FVC was 48% and my FEV1 was 35%. She wanted to see me back in a month and had expected me to be on IV's by then. Well, my CF nurse Madelint was trying to get in touch with the insurance company to get approval for a PICC line and home meds, and they didn't get back to her until today. When I heard she was having problems getting it set up, I decided to start Tobi and Augmentin. I also added Singulair for these damn allergies and started doing 7% hypertonic saline twice a day like they asked me to..which burns the hell out of my throat by the way!! How do you guys do this stuff? Anyway, I went back today, and get this - right after I finish my PFT's, the power goes out! The whole building lost power and it was still off when I left my appointment. I was glad that I was able to get my PFT's done though..my numbers were 73% (FVC) and 51% (FEV1)!!! I was soo happy to hear that. I told Dr. Behar that I think the Singulair made the biggest difference in my shortness of breath and she agreed that it seems like my biggest problems are allergies/asthma related. She told me to stay on the Singulair and to add Zyrtec to see if that helps even more.

As for the IV, the idea is to get me in the best shape possible before pregnancy, so I decided to wait until December/January since my lungs are in good shape now and we won't be trying for a baby again until Februaryis,h after we move.

My mom came to the appointment with me today and had a lot to say on the baby front. She always seems against me having a child. I understand that she worries about my health, but I am doing everything I can to take the necessary steps to being healthy enough. She acts very unsupportive and brought me to tears in the office. I think her biggest fear is me living so far away and her not being there to help. We talked about it on the drive home and she said she would try to support me more, so we'll see.

They ran out of flu shots, so I was pretty bummed about that. Dr. Behar sees patients upstairs as a regular internist and told me I could get my shot up there, but with the lights out, there was no way I was going to attempt 3 flights of stairs in pitch black. It was bad enough I had to pee so bad I used my cell phone as a light, which let me tell you , didn't do much!

I know this post is long already, but the best part of my appointment today was when I was leaving. I ran into a CF friend who I met on MySpace. We never met before but joked about running into each other someday. Well today was the day, and it was PERFECT timing! She had twins in December. We talked for a few minutes and I think it was good for my mom to see how well she was doing and that CF women can have babies and be okay. It was right after my tear-fest and she felt like an angel to me. She told me she went through testing and had to have an IUI and she said it worked the first time around.

On the way in to my appointment I ran into my pediatric CF doc, who no longer treats me, but had for over 20 years. He told me that Rob and I should sit down with him and have a talk about all the baby stuff and what the best way is to do it. I am going to schedule that for December while we are home for the holidays. I can't wait for that appointment!