On the Road Again

This last week has been pretty busy for Jason and me.  Last Monday we drove to NYC.  I had an appointment on Tuesday and he had two court dates.  After that we headed to Cleveland and then back home.  He then left again to NYC for another court date while I stayed home.  While he was gone I went to my mom’s house to bake some Christmas cookies.  It really has been non-stop this week.

On Dec 9th Jay and I drove to NYC.  It was not an easy drive.  We had to go through an ice storm.  We had to stop and get that special wind shield wiper fluid for the ice.  The one we had in there was making it worse.  It was getting really hard to see.  Ice kept building up on the car’s grill so every once and awhile we had to pull over so Jay could knock the ice off.  The ice was so thick it was bending the car’s antennae back when we were driving.  You can see the ice in the pictures.  Sorry for the bad quality.  The lights at the gas station really messed them up.  Luckily the roads weren’t too horrible.  

The next morning Jay went to court.  When he got back we went to my appointment together.  My PFTs are at 63%.  We were not happy to see that at all.  I was really hoping for some kind of improvement.  Even though they are still low my doctor does not want to continue the antibiotics anymore. She said that four weeks is long enough.    I am still a little congested and she thinks it is remnants of the infection and that the infection itself is gone.  She also wants me to stop taking the TOBI.  Sometimes that causes more irritation and inflammation resulting in the lower PFTs.  I told her that I actually stopped taking that a couple days ago for that reason.  I would do the TOBI and feel very tight and uncomfortable afterwards.  Hopefully that is contributing to the low PFTs.  I want those PFTs back in the 80's.  

Everything else seems to be going good.  I sound clearer, and she said my x-ray looks great.  She was showing it to Jay and me and explaining what she was looking at.  At one point she mentioned, “This is breast shadowing.”  This surprised me.  I have never heard that term before.  I didn’t know breasts would show up in an x-ray.  Before I got sick I did have breasts. They were on the smaller side, but I was happy with them.  As I got sicker, they became non-existent.   My bras were pretty empty and I would only wear them to make it look like I still had some.  Since the transplant I have been gaining weight and my breasts are growing back.  This is exciting to me.  Haha  Now they seem to be bigger than before.  I am thinking this is proof of that.  I am sure there was some shadowing in past x-rays before I got sick.  I don’t have any copies of those however.  I would have to go and get copies of them to look at them.  Of the ones I have there is nothing until October’s x-ray.  Like I said though, that was a new term for me and I like it! LOL

After my appointment we headed to Cleveland.  It was a much easier drive without the ice storm.  On our way there I listened to A Clash of Kings.  This is book two of the series A Song of Ice and Fire.  The Game of Thrones series on HBO is based on these books.  Not having to worry about the ice made it more relaxing and I was able to enjoy my book a little more. haha

The last time I was in Cleveland was in 2012.  I would have loved to do some more sightseeing while there, but it was too cold this time around.  Sometime in the summer I want to come back here with him and see some more stuff.  Instead we stayed in hotel the whole time.  I did get to finish my book though.  When he was done with court the next morning we decided to go home.  A snow storm was coming and we wanted to beat it.  We did end up going through a white out close to the NY PA border, but other than that it wasn’t too bad.  

Driving all over the place in this weather is not what I call fun.  However I loved being able to do it all.  It was nice to go on a long trip with Jay.  I missed doing these kinds of things with him.  We use to take road trips all the time.  Once the weather is nice I am looking forward to doing this a lot more.

Yesterday I went down and made cookies with mom.  I was overjoyed by this!  Last year I was not able to come down and do cookies with her for obvious reasons.  I brought my new KitchenAid with me so we could have two mixers going.  We ended up making two batches of Peanut butter blossoms,  two batches of no bake chocolate oatmeal cookies, two batches of the Italian chocolate cookies (my favorite), a batch of cut outs and a thing of fudge.  The cut outs did not come out nice at all.  After they were cooked, they looked nothing like the shape we cut them into.  Plus some of them were really dry.  I was bummed because I really wanted to decorate them with my tips.  It doesn’t make sense to decorate them if it doesn’t look like anything though.  The rest of the cookies came out great so can’t complain about one cookie not coming out perfect.  It was a new recipe and one we won’t be using again.

I spent the whole day there.  I wanted to be heading home by 5:00 because of a storm that was coming in, but I didn’t end up leaving until 6:00.  I really wanted to get home so I braved the weather.  I would not have done it if I thought it was too bad.  I had extra medication with me so that wasn’t an issue.  I wanted to get home for my kitty though.  He had been home all day by himself and I didn’t want to leave him all night.  I know he is cat and would be fine, but I still didn’t like the idea of leaving him.  My family didn’t want me to go.  I told my mom I would turn around if it got bad.  I am not going to risk getting into an accident.  I am just starting to live again!  

The drive was not pleasant.  It was of course fine until I was too far to turn back.  It took me double the amount of time to get home.  There were some places I was in white out conditions and the road was getting bad.  The plows could not keep up with the snow.  Luckily about fifteen miles from home I was following a plow.  Even though I had to go a little slower I stayed behind him because the road was obviously much easier to drive on.  However five miles from my exit the plow turned around and I was on my own again.  I went slow and eventually made it to my exit.  The exit was so full of snow I had to increase my acceleration to get through it.  Thank god for my 4 wheel drive.  I had to increase my acceleration to get through all the snow without doing too much and sliding off the road.  I haven’t driven in snowy weather in two or three years so I am out of practice.  This was definitely a refresher though.  Now that I did this once I will be more comfortable when I have to do it again.  

When I got home the snow in front of my house was to my knees.  I carried what I needed to in the house and that was it.  I left the cookies in the car.  They will be OK in the freezing weather.  I was not going back out there.   Today I really do want those cookies.  It is too cold and there is way too much snow out there for me to get the cookies in the house.  I am going to wait for Jay to come home.  I hate the cold.  I can’t wait to get out of NY and move to Florida where it is warm most of the year.  I was not made for the cold.