It helps having something to look forward to

In approximately three weeks, Todd and I are scheduled to leave for our excellent northern/western adventure driving to Cleveland, Michigan and Montana to visit family and vacation. We are planning to be gone for a total of three weeks, which makes it the longest vacation we will have ever had together!

Leading up to that, it has not been the easiest last couple of months with my back surgery and then getting a pretty severe lung exacerbation a couple of weeks after that. I have been on IV antibiotics for over two weeks now and while I have improved, I haven't improved tremendously.

I usually keep a fairly positive attitude about my health. But I have definitely struggled some the last couple of weeks. See, it is one thing to get sick, need time off work, have to go on IVs and have life disrupted for a couple of weeks. It is quite another to get sick, have your sats go so low and get short of breath just doing normal things, feel good enough to be working some but not be able to work enough to get everything done that you want to, feel like you are doing everything to get better only to see teeny tiny steps in the right direction. I guess what I'm describing is getting "CF sick" versus getting "super CF sick."

In my experience, getting super CF sick often involves oxygen, lots of antibiotics and a lot of time...as in months. Unfortunately, with this trip coming up, it's not the best time for my oxygen saturations to be running low (they are better than they were but still not really getting above the mid-90s consistently) since 1) being on vacation we like to do things like go out and hike, which requires exertion and 2) my sats run lower out west anyway because of the higher elevation.

I can make arrangements for oxygen, and we can probably figure out the antibiotic thing - if I still need to be on something, a combination of orals and inhaled would probably tie me over - but time is the tricky thing. I guess it wouldn't be the first time going on vacation when I wasn't feeling optimal. But I wish it was different.

All this is really to say that when I am sick - especially super CF sick - it helps having things like cool trips to look forward to. I feel fortunate that I have been able to do so much traveling because I know there will come a day when that is not possible. Sometimes I feel like Todd and I are foolish to plan so much. But what the hell. When you stop making plans, then what are you really waiting for?