Lungs for Mandy

August 14th was my six month lung anniversary and things so far are good. Nothing has changed with my lungs since I posted a while back which is good news.

Tomorrow I my have a six month bronchoscopy, xrays, EKG and blood work- up. It is a little nerve-racking…. the thought that I will again be a patient even if for only six to eight hours. I prefer living a somewhat “normal” life without constant scrutiny of physicians. My main concern is the bronchoschopy. A bronchoscopy is a technique of visualizing the inside of the airways.  This allows the doctors to examine the my airways for abnormalities. Biopsies are taken and used to determine whether or not I am experiencing any type of rejection whether it be acute (level 1-4) or chronic. Chronic rejection is what caused me to lose Mike and Ike. In addition to rejection I am worried about a lung colapse - It has happened to other patients on a few occasions.  I just want everything to go according to plan. School begins on Monday and I want to start the semester fresh and new.

Wish me Luck!

There are moments in life when we feel like things are good even only for a short period of time.    

I had one of those moments or should I say evenings last Saturday. My neighbor/friend/landlord and I decided to have a few beers on his back porch. We ended up spending several hours chatting about everything under the sun. or should I say moon? (ha) He also showed me how to play “rain god” with the sprinkler system  which doesn’t sound fun until you actually do it. You are in essence making it rain with a remote control.  I think it would be cool to turn the sprinklers on when people are passing by on Jamieson while taping there wet reaction on video. I know it sounds mean but I wouldn’t soak them, just freak them out a bit. It would be more like Bloopers and Practical Jokes rather than JackAss. In return for playing “rain-god” for a few moments I taught him a few Yoga moves which hopefully will help him.

Okay back to my point…it’s really nice to have a cool neighbor who becomes a friend.

     Well, my oldest nephew and godson turned 12 years old last Friday. Yes 12!! It is hard to believe he has grown so quickly. I’ll never forget when I heard I was going to have a niece or nephew —I was so happy!!! Just the thought of having a little munchkin in my life was exciting. Since I lived with Steve and Chris at that point I enjoyed the thought of it was just being the four of us. My Mom and I gave him a bath when he was  a few days old and upon seeing his umbilical cord I almost puked. I had never seen anything like that before.

      I can remember when Alex would climb way up on top of my brother’s kitchen cabinets where there was very little room and hide from the adults. We would all get nervous looking for him and then all of the sudden you would hear gigling from up high. There he would be stuffed on top of the cabinets just below the ceiling laughing at us. When he was about three or four I babysat him at my apartment - The entire time he was with me he wanted to ride Sosa like a horse. Sosa always obliged.  Funny thing is that Alex still asks about Sosa all these years later.

     It seems like just yesterday that Alex was a baby and now he’s a……yes a dreaded teenager. I thought the teenager attitude came in the later years like 14 or 15, but he is already becoming a teenager. At his party he continued to tell the adults how immature his brother, sister and other kids were. These are the same children he plays with at every gathering, but now all of the sudden he is too grown up for him. Pretty funny!

     We had a really enjoyable celebration! Alex seemed to enjoy everyone and his ice cream cake.

Happy 12th Birthday Alex! Love you Aunt Manda.

8 year old grandson Jacob started fishing lessons this weekend. sponsored by St Louis County Parks it’s a program for kids 8-15 that wants to create more interest in todays kids to go fishing.

Now I’ve taken both grandsons fishing but I have to tell you having an instructor, baiting, untangling, and removing the fish while Gramps sits in the chair and watches is the way to go.

The program is broke into 7 classes. Each class meets at a private lake at Suson Park in South County and for the first half hour it’s instructional and then the kids get to fish for an hour and a half. Let me tell you Jake pulled in 20, yes 20!!!! Of course they were Hy-Bred Sunfish but he really enjoyed it.

The class started out with casting practice. The first cast Jake threw was dead on the target, my chest popped out 8 inches. After the practice throws, it was down to the lake to fish.

It took a little while for Jake to learn how to sit the hook but once he caught on, it was a blast to see his excitement.

Next class is another basic class but the students have to bait the hooks  and remove the fish themselves, which Jake would have no part of this week.