Georgia's 18th!

I forgot to mention Georgia's 18th!

It was Georgia's birthday last Monday (1st October) and she turned 18! Being the lovely sister I am ;) I thought I'd be funny and give her 18 birthday cards each with the nicknames I call her. I also gave her some money towards her savings for Disney Land next year which she is hoping to do with her boyfriend Ben in February. She basically received money from everyone as she has a car she got last year for her 17th. But mum and dad have told her they will pay for her to go abroad with her friends somewhere next year instead of giving her anything now. Abbi got her some amazing red heel-less shoes, which I still am so confused at how they work. But they do I've tried them out!

We went out for a meal on her birthday to the harvester which was really nice :-) but she didn't drink any alcohol that day and came home and was in bed by 11pm! What a boring 18 year old... Just kidding George! 

She then had a party on Saturday which was really good! I have recovered and caught up with my sleep today by having a 2 hour nap after college which explains why I am wide awake now!

Anyway here are some photos...

Me and Molly

Georgia's New Heels!

Molly, Me and Shona.

Me, Ben and Georgia

Ben, Georgia, Lucy, Me, Molly and Shona.

George and Ben

Another Visit To My Second Home

On Friday I had yet another hospital appointment. At the beginning of last week I came up with a nasty rash on my chest and on my tongue (weirdest of places) due to reacting to the new antibiotic that Dr. Ho had originally prescribed me on for 3 months to shift an infection I have caught and to boost my lung function up. However, as I didn't react well to it, mum phoned the CF unit who told me to stop taking the antibiotics and arranged me an appointment for Friday at 11:20am.

So on Friday, me and Abbi did the usual and got up and went to meet mum at the hospital (no time for McDonald's breakfast this time though). As Abbi had to start work at 12, she just dropped me off at Frimley then went to work. 

I had my weight and height taken, which hadn't really changed from my appointment just over two weeks ago. Then did my lung function that had improved a little bit- atleast the antibiotics did something right!

Then I spoke to Dr.Ho who said I have probably reacted again as my body still doesn't like all these toxic drugs and is telling me it needs to be left alone for a while. So he said to not take any more drugs than my usual ones and to see me again in two weeks time and then hopefully my body will be recovered and ready to start something new to shift this infection! He also took my blood, which worked first time woohoo! And even better I didn't feel it as I put Emla cream on before leaving home so I was prepared if bloods were needed.

Judith (Cf ward manager), also sorted me out some Fortisip milkshakes as I finally found a supplement that tastes okay and I can deal with. Only the yogurt style raspberry flavour ones though. You think I'm joking, I have tried every single supplement going and this is the only one I don't mind! So I have just drunk one of those and am now off to get my puffer. 

Night :-) 

A Random Faint

I woke up on Saturday, had some breakfast and got showered and ready for work. Then grabbed a quick snack before leaving; a Pot Noodle (yum yum). As work was so busy, the fourth busiest day in Primark history, I had to work on the ground floor instead. I was on tills for basically my whole 4 hour shift!

Anyway, I better tell you what this 'A Random Faint' is all about...

At about 3o'clock I started to feel quite sick and thought it was probably because I was a bit hungry. But my shift finished at 4 anyway so not long and I could eat! I was serving some customers and then started to feel tired all of a sudden and kept yawning. I thought what is wrong me!? So I stopped and took a minute but my yawning continued and my legs went jelly-like. A customer had come up to my till though so I had to serve them and then I was going to go and speak to my supervisor. I was serving them and my vision blurred and kept blacking out when I realised I was about to faint! So I walked off to see my supervisor (left my customer, woops) but everything was really blurry! I said to him "can I get a drink, I think I'm about to faint" I couldn't exactly say I need some food haha! I didn't even wait for a response I just walked off and heard him say "if you're going to faint take a minute". I walked off to go towards the staff stairs to go and get some food out my bag, but my vision was so blurred I ended up going to the lift lobby as I could just about figure out where that was. When I got there I had to type the code in to open the door but I had to get so close to try and see the numbers. That was when I heard Georgia shouting my name and saying "Noni are you okay?". But I had sort of froze then and couldn't turn my head to see her. Next minute I fell into her arms, completely blacked out and woke up again on the floor in the lift lobby! She was saying "Noni what happened you were bright yellow, Jess go and get a manager and first aid!" So the manager came and advised I go home and eat more before I come to work next time! He said it was also probably because we were so busy in the store. I couldn't figure out why I felt so faint, I usually just have breakfast before work.

On Sunday, I had to fill in an incident form in the staff book so what had happened could be recorded and sent off. But, I'm okay now. Luckily! And since Saturday I have eaten lots of food!

Hospital Visit: Crappy Lungs & Crappy Veins

Woops, I'm a bit late on updating my blog but I've been so busy with college this week!

Anyway, I had a hospital appointment on Tuesday which wasn't to great...

Me and Abbi set off to the hospital at 9am, got a mcdonalds breakfast on the way (yum yum), and met mum at Frimley for my appointment at 9:40am. I had my weight and height taken and hooray I had put on weight!! But then I did my lung function and it was still as bad as last time in just the 50/60's and had not improved, not good- CRAPPY LUNGS :(.

I then waited and saw Dr.Ho who prescribed me with some new tablets for 3 months (such a long time!) to get rid of this infection and try and get my lung function back up! My blood results from my last appointment showed my vitamin A+D and E levels were all higher than they should be so he also asked that I had my bloods taken today. So I put Emla cream on my hands and on my port as that needed its monthly flush to stop it blocking up.

I waited around half an hour then my nurse, Sweetie, came to take my bloods and flush my port. Unfortunately, when Sweetie put the needle in, the emla had obviously not been on long enough as I felt the needle go in (ouch). Once the needle goes in I like to watch my blood being taken so I was watching but my veins decided they didn't want to give any blood today. Sweetie tried moving the needle around, which really hurt, but no blood would come out- CRAPPY VEINS :(. The bloods were needed to test my levels but I don't let anyone take blood from my arm as it hurts to much so instead mum took the equipment home and said she will do it another day (shes trained due to being a midwife). So I might think about letting her.



Having my port flushed.

When it came to flushing my port I was quite stressed as the bloods didn't go to plan, but got on with it anyway as flushing my port never hurts it just gives me a sick feeling in my stomach as the needle goes in. But this time putting the needle in really hurt and made me jump, it also didn't hit the back of the port so Sweetie had to push on it which made me feel really sick! Note for next time: Leave the emla cream on longer!!


After my appointment, I went back to college then saw Molly in the evening. We had a KFC for dinner (yum yum). Mcdonalds breakfast and KFC for dinner all in one day, woops!!! The dietician would be proud ;) haha.

Getting back up to date with my blog...

Today I had a Wagamamas, after work, with Mum, Dad & Abbi (Georgia was still at work). I had my usual meal from there- Chicken Ramen. It was lovely :-)! All of these take aways in one week, for any non CFer would be bad. But for us CFers fatty foods are good- again my dietician would be proud!!!

I'm now off to finish watching the Xfactor and eat my Minstrels!

Night :) x

Gaga Oo La La!



Ready for GAGA

I had an amazing evening on Sunday :)... I WENT TO SEE LADY GAGA!!!



Mum originally got the tickets for me, her and dad to go, but dad decided he would rather go on holiday to Turkey for his birthday so me, Abbi & Georgia went instead!



Ready to go in my
Gaga tshirt and black lipstick!

After finishing work at 12pm I came home and got changed and got ready to go off to Twickenham with Abbi and Georgia.











We left at around 3:30pm, in Abbi's car, and arrived in London just after 4 while listening to the 'Born This Way' album for the duration up. It took less than an hour which was good. We then had to walk to the stadium from the car park which took around 15 minutes (it felt like ages)! Once we got to the stadium and through the ticket gates we went and grabbed some food. Me and Abbi both had a foot long hot dog, while Georgia had a cheesy hot dog. We then went and found our seats and got ready for the support act at 6pm... THE DARKNESS! They were good, although a bit too rock for me! I did sing 'I BELIEVE IN A THING CALLED LOVE' very loudly though!



The Darkness staging.
(I wasn't this close, I copied this photo off
 somebody else so you can see the staging)



In our seats

Lady Gaga then came on at around 8pm and she was so amazing! Although, we could hardly see her due to being far away, a large pole in the way, and having to watch the screen, it was still so good! And I noticed jumping up and down and singing very loudly is such good physio! I would of loved to have been at the very front though, in the monster pit, as lots of people got to go on stage and sing 
with her then go backstage! She even sang Happy Birthday to one girl!

Overall it was an amazing night and if you ever get the chance to go and see her... do so!

Here are some photos, better close ups, so you can see what Gaga looked like and the staging...



Tight Lungs & Chesty Cough

Today my chest kindly woke me up from coughing so much. However, my chest felt tight so I couldn't cough up the sticky mucus and I was struggling to breathe! So I got up and did my DNase and some physio.

For you non CFers... When you have infection in your lungs your own white blood cells eat up the bugs to kill off infection. A non CFer would then cough up the dead white blood cells and dead bugs, (this is why when you have a cough you cough up that horrible mucus). But for a CF person, we struggle to cough up the dead bugs because our lungs are already filled with sticky mucus which is why our lungs end up full of lots of dead bugs, blocking our lungs up, making it hard to breathe. 

Which is why DNase comes in handy for a CF sufferer. DNase is a nebulised drug that is an enzyme which eats up all the white blood cells full of dead bugs. When it eats up all the cells, it creates a runny liquid which still needs to be coughed up but is a lot easier to cough up than the sticky mucus. It takes about an hour to react with your body so you should do the DNase and then do some hardcore physiotherapy on your lungs an hour afterwards. There are lots of different types of physiotherapy such as percussion, breathing exercises, special machines, normal exercise etc. The idea of physio is to help cough up all that rubbish sitting in your lungs and make you feel alot clearer. 

For my physio I did 20 minutes bouncing on my trampoline then some huffs, which is a deep breath in then pushing your breath out to force you to cough up the mucus. 

My chest now feels a lot clearer as I cleared out some mucus and I've stopped coughing as much! I'll do some more physio later, to keep myself feeling clear, on my Isleep machine. An Isleep is a CPAP (Constant Positive Airway Pressure) machine that pushes extra air into my lungs when I breathe in and has a pressure on it for when I breathe out, making my lungs work harder so the mucus is easier to cough up and clear. It is called an Isleep as you can use it when you are sleeping aswell to stop your lungs feeling tight when you are trying to sleep. 

Me doing my DNase.

As well as physio us CFers also do our normal nebulisers (I call mine my 'puffer') which is used to breath in antibiotics to help your chest stay healthy.

I'm now going to go and spend the day in the sunshine as its my last day off before starting college tomorrow! 

Have a good day :-)

Domino's Date & Party :)

On Thursday I woke up with a really bad pain in the lower base of my right lung. However, despite that, yesterday I did one of my favourite things... You've got it, PARTY!!

It's my friend Corran's birthday on Tuesday so he threw a little party to celebrate.

Before we went to the party, Shona came over and we had a good gossip and Domino's pizza date :-).  We had pizza (ofcourse) & potatoe wedges. Then Domino's chocolate cookies for pudding- my favourite! The dietician would be so proud of me as I haven't eaten well in the past two weeks where I've been feeling ill. But you can never turn down a Domino's date!

We then headed down to Corran's and had a really good night of singing, dancing, bingo and partying! A little to much singing I think, as I woke up today to find I had lost my voice :(! This was not great when I had to work for 7 hours! Luckily, I wasn't on tills though so I didn't have to speak to any customers!

My voice has come back a bit throughout the day, although I have to speak really low pitch for any sound to come out! On the plus side, my lung has stopped hurting though! So I guess it's just one thing after another for me to be dealing with!

I forgot to take any photos so this post is pretty boring, woops.

Have a good evening :)