Time Keeps on Slipping ...

away from me, apparently.  Aye!  What a week ~ another crazy busy one, it seems.  Every time I had good intentions on sitting down to post a blog update, something came up.  However, I'm at "lunch" now, so I figured it's as good a time as any to get caught up.

ENT Update:

I had my sinus "surgery" in the office last Tuesday.  Not an experience I care to repeat.  The actual procedure (revising scar tissue and removing polyps from my frontal sinuses) wasn't terrible in and of itself because I was numb from my eyes to my teeth, but the process of a) getting numb from my eyes to my teeth and b) recovering AFTER being numb from my eyes to my teeth was not so thrilling.

(If you don't want to read all the juicy details, skip the next few paragraphs)

After getting settled in the chair of torture exam chair, things got underway by spraying lidocaine up my nose. Next, a squirt of pentacaine in both nares. Step 3 involved taking a piece of cotton drenched in pentacaine and shoving it way, way, way up my left nostril (up to the frontal sinuses).  After marinating for about five minutes, the fun really started.  If you call fun having a 3-inch needle filled with lidocaine poked up your nose and said lidocaine being squirted into your frontal nasal cavities.

Have you ever noticed the similarity between all things ENT and medieval torture devices?  I have.

To give my ENT full credit, my sinuses were completely numb.  There was no "pain" involved while he was digging around in my frontal sinuses.  I could feel pressure and hear the scrape, scrape, scraping sounds of instruments inside my head.  It was definitely a mind game.  As long as I could keep my mental hamster wheel spinning and not focus on the aforementioned, I could keep myself from crawling over the back of the chair.

The total time (from numb to done) was about 45 minutes.  Not that I relish the thought of ever doing it again, but for future reference, it is possible.

And although I could have driven myself home, I was glad that my dad (thanks, Dad!) picked me up and dropped me off.  Once home, especially after the -Caine sisters started wearing off, my head was ready to implode.  Thanks be to Tylenol, my bed, and some kitteh love, I survived the rest of the day.

I did return to work on Wednesday (although I can't honestly say I accomplished much) and was pretty much back to normal on Thursday with only a lingering headache and some sinus pain.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) I go back for my one week post-op exam.  Stay tuned for more.

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On Wednesday night I enjoyed my weekly dinner with the fam.  We changed things up this week by having Mexican and it was fabulous!

Thursday night was our first CFF Young Professionals meeting.  I think (I hope!) this is going to be a very interesting group to be involved in.  Although this week's gathering (dinner and drinks) was more of a "meet and greet" rather than an actual meeting, I think the group has the potential to do some great things.  At our first meeting we had two adult CF patients (myself and a 39 year old fibro), two CF spouses, one CF aunt, and several other people who know or have known somebody with CF and are inspired to help.  I know not everybody could be at our first meeting, so I'm looking forward to seeing who attends the next meeting.

This weekend went by FAR to fast (don't they always?).  My super amazing hair stylist called me and I was able to get my hair done ... no major changes this time, although I did change the light silvery-blue from before to an indigo blue.  I was planning on going next Saturday, but it was nice to be able to get it done early.

I also had an appointment at Best Buy to get my new iPod adapter installed in my car.  This is an after market piece that is hardwired to play your iPod through the radio without using an FM transmitter.  LOVE.  Even if the installation took twice as long as it should have (a very long 3.5 hours).  

But it was worth it ... no more heinous FM transmitter!!!  No lie, I have been through at least five FM transmitters and not a single one would play my iPod without horrible static or interference.  The nice thing about this particular transmitter is that it is completely transferable - if (or rather, when) I sell my car, I can have it removed and installed in my new vehicle.

On Saturday night my family and I celebrated our birthday extravaganza (this celebration was for Alex [22], myself [32], Cheryl [52], and my grandmother [29]) at Bonefish Grill.  Excellent food.  Excellent fun.  As always.

And last, but certainly not least, on Sunday we went to the season finale of the Birmingham Broadway Series to see The Wizard of Oz.

Fantastic performance!  I can't wait to find out what will be here for the 2010 - 2011 season.  In July, you'll find me at the fabulous Fox Theatre in Atlanta enjoying this:

Obsessed?  It's only my eighth (ninth?) show.  I'm far from obsessed.

And in November (hopefully), you will find me under the lights of Broadway:

and

"Tomorrow is another day..."

What can I say, I STILL have Gone With The Wind on the brain.

But before I went to the movie (which was fantabulous), I snapped a few pics of me being silly with my webcam. I had put a new pic on FB but it didn't really show off the new color as much as I wanted. It's a red-brown base (Goldwell 6RB for those of you in the know) with pink (Elumen PK @ all) highlights. And I decided to go bold with the pink this time - it's so much fun!!!


In other news, I discovered on Friday that my check card had been compromised. Even though I am an employee of the bank, I have to go through the same process as any other customer when filing a dispute. I probably have a better idea than most about what happens behind the scenes so it does make the process a little easier. I (obviously) closed my card the minute I saw an unauthorized transaction on my account, but not before somebody managed to pay their T-Mobile bill to the tune of $105. Out of curiousity, I looked at the authorizations attempted on my check card today and apparently he-(she?)-who-shall-not-be-named tried to pay their $153 Alabama Power bill yesterday. Really? It's a sad state of affairs when you steal somebody's check card to pay your utilities. I don't know where my check card was compromised, but I certainly have my suspicions.

Tonight is another installation of As Carmel Turns (in other words, our HOA meeting). I sent a list of questions to our management company about a week and half ago concerning our finances which I still haven't gotten a response to. THANKS. Way to be prepared.

Tomorrow I'm having dinner with Katey to finalize our SF plans (didn't I already mention this?). The rest of the week is open - I am supposed to be taking a yoga class on Thursday night. I've been doing yoga for years (since shortly after UAB ended the dance program (1998-ish?), and although I haven't practiced super faithfully the last two years or so, I still love it.

I really learned a lot about breath control while taking yoga and -- without a doubt -- I believe that it helped stabilize my functions several years ago. Not discounting the five pneumonias I had and the fact that my functions are now in the 40's (rationalization #11, Cystic Gal?) - I still do my best to keep practicing and breathing! Analaigh.

It was a star-spangled night.

First, thanks to EVERYBODY for making Saturday day and Saturday night such a great time! I can't believe I pulled off having twenty-five people in my condo, but it happened! We had some excellent food, some excellent drinks, and some excellent fun!

My friend Desi took 143 pictures of the night, so I've heisted a few from her Facebook to share with you here.

Miss Mia, Katie and Darlene

Darlene and Rachael




Fireworks galore!

Lots o' shots!

Angela and Daren

Ivan and his lovely, Karissa

Troublemakers. All of us.

The REAL troublemakers.

The start of a very long night...

Devising the perfect toast.

Angela is such a bad influence on me. Or me on her.

He didn't need any outside influence!

Desi - striking a pose!

Bronson's done.

Issy and Beau were still trying to recover on Sunday.

Wordless Wednesday

Weekend Fun & Manic Monday

What I wrote to my boss on Friday morning:

Subject: Sick

I woke up with a terrible sore throat, sinus headache, and fever this morning. I think maybe the antibiotics are kicking in and working but whatever it's fighting is having one last hurrah.

What a difference a day makes! After spending Friday snuggling with the boo's and resting, I felt better on Saturday. In fact, I dragged Alex out of bed shortly after 11 AM and made him go shopping with me. In concession, I did agree to see a movie with him, which makes up only one of the many that I owe him. =)

We saw Obsessed on Saturday afternoon, after enjoying milkshakes and cheese fries from Johnny Rockets. Obsessed is "perhaps the 105th blatant rip-off of 'Fatal Attraction', but not without its own guilty pleasures." That's a pretty accurate review. Not a bad flick, but definitely not on the "must-see" or "must-have" list. It was very suspenseful and the cat fight at the end almost made it worth it.

Saturday night was our "traditional" birthday dinner at Outback. I think the reason we go is for the free desserts. Happy Birthday to my Dad and to Papa! I managed to remember the presents, but as usual, my scatter-brained self walked out without the birthday cards that I spent a GOOD five minutes looking for. Oh well!

I intended for Sunday to be a lazy day and for the most part it was. We went to the Original Pancake House in 5 Points for Dad's birthday lunch and it was so-so-so-so good! I'm not normally a breakfast person but those were some of the best pancakes I've had in awhile. After that we did a Sunday afternoon drive through Highland looking at all of the old houses and gardens. I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing up a new book (The Shadow Queen) that Alex bought me for my birthday (yes, my birthday was a month ago ... but, turn about is fair play. I ordered his birthday present and it was almost a month late, so he returned the favor).

I am on Day 5 of my Levaquin prescription and I can honestly say this is the first time I remember taking an oral antibiotic and actually feeling like it was working. My sinus congestion is much less than it was - although it's not gone by any means - and I am feeling slightly more energetic than I have in the past two weeks. I am now officially six weeks out from my last hospital visit. Here's to six more!!!

This should be a pretty busy week at work. Case wise we are doing great ... caught up and actually working ahead right now, but that never seems to last long. My direct manager, Lynda, will be in town from Arizona this week, which means lots of lunches and dinners with the work folks.

Great Strides is coming up quicker than I realized! We are only a few short weeks away. I haven't gotten as much support from the hospital as I would have liked, but I realize that they have been busy with Joint Commission reviews. My team has done an absolutely amazing job with donations this year. I am really excited about how close we are to our totals from last year. We are still about a thousand dollars away from what we raised last year, but we also had our biggest donations in our last big push as well. We will be selling t-shirts again this year, and I am hoping to get a proof of the design sometime this week.

Enough for now. I need to actually get some work done sometime today!

Introducing...

Because everybody needs to know who their superhero alter ego is. Thanks, Kel.

I'm tired beyond all belief but I am enjoying my weekend. And I'm even enjoying 31. Mostly.