Got home safely from Minneapolis and found my lungs to be unchanged from January. I think that the pulmonary rehab kept me healthy enough to battle the little virus I had over Memorial Day weekend. Lucky for me, right?

Went back to Wichita over Memorial Day weekend and must have caught a virus or something. The past week has been a little rough: low grade fevers, shortness of breath, extra congestion. Good news about my sinuses, though. The ENT says they're healing beautifully after the surgery, so that's one thing that's looking up! I go back to Minnesota at the end of the week for another 6 month transplant check up. They like to see me every 6 months while I'm waiting for new lungs to track my health and adjust my placement on the list if necessary. I've had a week of small setbacks, not being able to attend rehab last week, and so I'm hoping that my lungs haven't dipped since January, because it's been such a productive spring, I'd hate to lose ground now!

I'm feeling much better today! I got up around 6:30 and kept busy and accomplished a lot all day without a nap! No shortness of breath and less congestion than yesterday. I'm so glad that I wasn't headed towards another round of IV antibiotics. I can't wait for rehab tomorrow!

I went back to the ENT today to have another professional essentially pick my nose. Having quite a bit of pain now but the pain meds should be kicking in shortly, I hope. Pulmonary rehab went pretty good today. I'm feeling better than I did this weekend, but not back to how I felt Thursday. I completed all of my exercise rotations, though and only had to take a couple breaks during the last one. I had to increase my oxygen from 3 liters to 4, but I held at 93% after that. I know I should be wearing my oxygen more often, but I still haven't gotten over the self-consciousness of wearing it in public. I have the feeling that I'm going to have to put on my big girl panties and just deal with it!

This weekend was rough for me. I was constantly short of breath and very congested. I'm so disappointed because I thought I was making such great progress on Thursday. Maybe I over did it.

I had my very BEST pulmonary rehab session ever today! I felt so clear and hardly short of breath. It was fantastic! My oxygen saturation even came up to 98% at one point, when normally it comes up to 94% at most.

I went back to the ENT doctor today and had the sponges/splints removed from my sinuses. I feel SO much clearer and I'm allowed to blow my nose again. Although today having them cleaned out post-op was more painful than the surgery itself. He suctioned out my sinuses today. It was literally like a tiny vacuum on soft (and tender!) tissue. He even was very near the root of one of my teeth and I definitely felt that! I could feel my pulse in my cheeks afterward. A couple pain pills and a nice home cooked dinner took care of that and I'm feeling much better tonight. I go back in a week for another check-up. I tried to go back to pulmonary rehab today but riding the bike gave me such a headache and made my sinuses hurt, so I had to stop. Also, I go back to Minneapolis for an update evaluation June 5th. I'll be excited to see how I'm doing according to their machines. Hopefully I'll be back on track at rehab and feeling even better than I did last week!

So far, so good today. I slept very soundly and Zoe stayed close to my hip all night. I think she knew something was different/wrong with me. No bleeding and no coughing in the night. I've done a vest treatment with coughing and haven't had any troubles yet with more bleeding.

Today I had sinus surgery. This week the doctor's office had called me 3 different times to reschedule the time, so I wasn't shocked when I was there and prepped for surgery at 1030 and the doctor didn't show up for an hour. Way to keep the patient stress-free! The procedure went well and I was home 3 hours later. Mom and Dad came up yesterday and they're taking care of me today. We had an amazing home cooked meal by Mom! I just wish I could have tasted it a little bit more. All I had before dinner today was 2 pieces of toast around 2 after my surgery. They warned me to try not to cough or sneeze (as if I can control it) and NOT to blow my nose. I managed not to cough all day much until after dinner when I had to finally.

***NOT for WIMPS to read***

All of a sudden I felt the gauze under my nose get warm and I made it to the sink just in time to rip it off and have two steady streams of blood gushing (yes, that's the most fitting word) out of my nose. After I got that under control I decided against doing a vest treatment tonight because I just wasn't quite healed enough for coughing. I'm in a little pain tonight, but they gave me some meds for that. I'm hoping tonight I don't have to wake up and cough or have a nose bleed while I'm asleep.

Went to the doctor today for a one-month check-up after I ended IV antibiotics in February and my lung function was at 29% and capacity was 40%. I had been gradually feeling worse over the last few days so I'll be going back on IV antibiotics on Friday.