Skip to main content

Back from Vacation

We spend 5 wonderful days on vacation in Florida and come home to SNOW!

It barely snowed all winter and today it decided to play a little catch up I guess. Well, we enjoyed our few days in the sun! The weather was perfect! (picture: you can see Andrew out swimming in distance)

 I love taking trips & vacations, but having CF always makes it a little difficult. We make sure to pack all my meds in my carry on. I have a small portable nebulizer machine that fits in small spaces. We always call ahead to get permission to carry my vest on at no additional charge. We put all of clothes and my Wabi sterilizer in the big bag, which we check. We just make sure the Wabi is safely packed. They always pull my bags to look at them & check them, we make sure to have a letter from CF clinic too!

As a kid I had feeding tube connectors & feeding to bring on trips. Which adds up weight wise. So flying was tougher. We typically always traveled by car when I was growing up. We even did a driving vacation to Disney for two weeks, stopping at other places on the way home.  My first flight was in 2008 (I think). I have only flown 5 (round trip) times (counting this trip). Two of those have been with my uncles. I LOVE vacationing with my uncles. I feel comfortable around them. I could puke or pee all over and would not be the least bit embarrassed. And with coughing fits, believe me, that can happen :-)

My family is very close, which helps. I honestly think of my uncles as 2 of my best friends. It's nice to vacation with family that just understands everything. When I get tired they notice. Uncle Brian slows down and walks with me or suggests we get snacks. It was a great vacation, and while we packed quite a bit in, I wasn't tired when I woke up the next day.

We did  a murder mystery dinner train ride, spent time on the beach, attended a big Artfest, and took an airboat ride through the Everglades. We saw a dolphin, manitees, pelicans, crocodiles, and more! We even got hold a 2,5 year old gator!


We did a lot, but we always take time to find amazing places to eat! Every single meal was fabulous.  We are all about the food in the house. We plan trips around food sometimes (hence our honeymoon spot). Andrew and I both LOVE seafood, so we made sure to take advantage of that while we were in Florida. We ate A LOT of FRESH seafood. Which is my favorite thing to eat. Calamari, Stone Crab Claws, Paella, Crab, Grouper, and more! YUM! I gained 5 lbs. over vacation. WOW! I mean I'm not really surprised. I ate a ton. The weird part was once we came home I was still always starving. I ate all day the last few days.


I'm starting to wonder if it is side effect from Orkambi. I mean my last appointment showed my lungs slowly climbing back up to my normal function range. I was around 50% and I hope to reach 60%. I know weight & lung function are correlated. I was 105 when we left for vacation. But the scale in the vacation home put me at 110. I don't have a scale in my home currently. I decided not replace my old one. I worry to much over it. So I will find out at clinic on the 28th how I am improving.

Wouldn't it be nice to get a prescription for vacation??? I mean it did bump up my weight big time (and maybe lungs too) :-)



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

CF isn't all tears and saddness. Get a Full Picture.

  CF and Laughing Cystic Fibrosis can bring sad times and times of tears (like losing a close friend with CF, etc) BUT, it can bring so much joy and love. I've noticed most people love to talk about the people they meet while traveling. This is usually, because they have learned something from the person. Or the person is considered unique to them. I can do the same thanks to my Cystic Fibrosis. I may not have traveled much in my life thus far, but I have learned mountains of lessons from my CF. [Picture right:  Me ready for surgery in 2nd grade!] Forgive my shoutouts (but I must recognize a few amazing people) I have met some of the most amazing doctors: Chatrath, Dr. B Nurses: Sara & Marie (from Clinic), Lizzard, Melody (best IV stick ever), Deb, and Kris (you know a nurse is amazing if you love her after putting tubes down your nose!) Respitory Therapists: Jeannette, Lanell, and Don (you da Man) And Cookie Marrow (Musical Therapist- She would sing to me a...

Video Blog: Life in the hospital (as a child)

The daily life in the hospital! Most people cringe at the idea of a hospital. However, when I was little I never minded going into the hospital. I usually would have at least one other friend with Cystic Fibrosis to hang out with there (before we knew about the "CF Bugs"). I didn't love being sick, but I loved my CF friends that I would hang out with. Also the hospital, nurses, and my parent's tried to make it a "normal" environment. I got up and put on cute clothes, "walked to school", flirted with a couple CF boys, did homework, came "home" (back to my room), my friends would ask my parent if I could go play with them. We'd hang out in the play room or go on a walk with one of my parents! My dad loved taking me on walks and I LOVED going on our walks! Here is a video blog of the route we took and bit of information on what is was like growing up (for a chunks at a time) in the hospital! (it is posted via youtube, let is dow...

How Fostering and CF impact my work

I haven't been on my blog much.... I think that is because most of my blogging is currently been done on Health Union's Cystic-Fibrosis.com (here is link to all my posts on their site: https://cystic-fibrosis.com/members/cherizkunkel/ ). I decided last fall to step away from real estate after 3 years in the business. It was tough to say good-bye, especially since I had tripled my volume and business in the last year. However, I didn't have time to add any new clients; I kept saying, maybe next week, next month I can fit more work into my schedule. The truth is fostering takes a lot of time. We have between 5-8 monthly visits at the agency, 1 court ate a month, 2 home visits from the caseworker a month, plus e have 2-3 doctors/specialist appointments for our current kiddo. We have lots of paperwork we fill out, gas mile logs, receipts to add, and more! Our kiddo also participates in gymnastics and dance two nights a week. We go to a fosterparent support group with our kid ...