The Pregnancy

August 1, 2009 is the day that I took a digital pregnancy test and found out that I was pregnant. I went into work that day and tried getting an appointment through my GP for them to do a blood test or something to make sure that I really was pregnant and to go from there. They were not much help at all so I called my CF doctor (Dr. Sexton) to see what they wanted me to do. Dr. Sexton was not in yet so I had to wait for the nurse to call him and then for her to get back to me. The nurse sounded a little worried when she called me back a little later and told me that he wanted to see me at 4:30 that evening. I told my boss that I had to leave early and of course she had to ask me why, so I explained to her that I was most likely pregnant and had to see the doctor pretty much right away. So, I left work early and made my way to Syracuse.

Dr. Sexton and I had a long talk and he told me that it would probably be best if I terminate the pregnancy because I was pretty sick and it would delay getting listed for the double lung and liver transplants. He was pretty sure that an OB would feel the same way. He ordered an ultrasound and some blood work to be done and then we would talk some more after that. Since we weren't sure how far along I was in the pregnancy, it was decided that I would have an internal ultrasound. I had no one with me and of course it was a really difficult time, so my social worker, Kim, at the clinic went to the ultrasound with me. I got down there and settled on the table and no sooner did the technician start the ultrasound, we saw a tiny little baby, swimming in my belly. I started bawling because I was so happy to be pregnant but also because I knew what Dr. Sexton wanted me to do. The technician asked if I wanted a picture and I told her of course I do. It was my baby, and depending on the way the pregnancy went, it may be my only picture. It was determined that I was approximately 9 weeks and 1 day pregnant on that day. I took my picture with me up to Dr. Sexton and I think that he was a little surprised that I really was pregnant. Believe me, I absolutely was too!!

I understood the concerns that people had and was well aware of how hard this pregnancy could be, but I didn't see how I could have an abortion when things were fine at that point. I would never know if I didn't try. The baby was a very unexpected part of me and Nate coming together, and if I had terminated the pregnancy, I would have gone through my life wondering if the baby would have been okay. At 9 weeks, the baby had normal growth and had a heart beat of 169 beats per minute. There was no way I could just give up on the baby now.

On August 11 I had my first OB appointment with Dr. Silverman in Syracuse. They also suggested that I do not go through with the pregnancy because of my Cystic Fibrosis and being evaluated for the transplants. Nate and I decided that we still wanted to go ahead with the pregnancy.

On August 25 I had another appointment with the OB and I also saw a genetic counselor to talk about the possibilities of the baby have CF. They wanted to do an amniocentesis to test the baby for CF and I told them that I didn't want it. I knew that there was a possibility that I could have a miscarriage and, on top of everything else that I was dealing with, I didn't want that statistic to deal with too. I knew very well that Nate could be tested for the gene to find out the possibilities of the baby having CF, so that's what we did. Nate was tested for the CF gene (the common mutations) and when we learned that he didn't have any of the common mutations, we were told that there was still a 1/900 chance that the baby would have CF. Either way, the baby would be a carrier of the gene no matter what because he/she would get the gene from me.

On September 2 I was admitted to the hospital because I was having an increased fever, cough, shortness of breath, and I had lost 6 pounds in one week. I didn't want to be admitted but Dr. Sexton thought that it would be best for the baby so I agreed to go in. I learned something that disturbed me during this hospital stay and it made me realize that going through with the pregnancy was the best thing to do. Dr. Sexton had talked to Dr. Budev and Dr. Winans (doctors at the Cleveland Clinic) and they suggested that I get my tubes tied after this pregnancy because having a baby after the transplants would be way too risky. I think what disturbed me the most was if I had terminated this pregnancy, I would likely never have another chance at having a family of my own. I was upset that this was not mentioned to me while I was making my decision to go ahead with the pregnancy or not. I now knew that I was completely justified in my decision to go ahead and have the baby. I started feeling better after a couple of days of being in the hospital and was sent home on the sixth to finish another week of antibiotics through IV at home.

September 12 I had another appointment with the OB and it took the nurse a minute to find the heart beat, but she found it. The heart beat was 169-175 beats per minute and people were telling me that normally a heart beat that fast belonged to a girl. I was hoping to find out on the 26th when I would have another ultrasound. On September 21 I felt the baby move for the first time. It really just felt like butterflies in my stomach but I knew what it was. It's really a feeling like no other. The baby moved from the left of my belly to the right and the feeling was amazing!

On September 26 I had another ultrasound to check on the baby and to make sure that it was growing properly. Everything was looking great and the baby weighed about 7 ounces at that point. The baby cooperated with the ultrasound and the baby showed that it was a BOY! I had a lot of people there with me but the funniest reaction came from my brother, Harlan, who had wanted me to have a girl. He asked the technician if she was sure that it wasn't just the baby's fingers in the way, making it look like a penis. She said that she was sure, and that left my brother disappointed. We had been keeping a list of boy names and girl names that we like and I guess that it was destiny that we were having a boy because we had a name that we agreed on...Brady Michael Prince.

On September 29 it was determined that it would no longer be safe for me to continue working so I left work on a temporary leave, expecting to go back to work after the baby was born.

Nate felt Brady move for the first time on October 21. On October 25 I was admitted back to the hospital for a staff infection in my lungs. I had some cramping in my stomach on the 27th and Dr. Folk checked me to make sure that I was not dilating and going into premature labor. I wasn't and he ordered an ultrasound for the next morning to make sure the baby was okay. The baby was in some weird position when the ultrasound was performed and he was also playing with the umbilical cord and kicking it. I got a picture of the baby sucking his thumb and it was determined that the baby was okay. I was released on Halloween to go home.

Picture of Brady's face in an ultrasound on 11/21/05

On December 5 I had an appointment with Dr. Silverman and he decided to admit me to Crouse Irving Hospital in Syraucse because the baby hadn't been showing much movement, my oxygen was low, and my breathing and cough were getting bad again. I was 27 weeks along and the doctors felt that it would be best to keep me in the hospital from that point until I had the baby. A sonogram showed that the baby was growing fine and he weighed about 2 pounds 3 ounces.

On December 20 there was an ultrasound performed and it showed that the baby was growing fine and that he weighed 2 pounds 9 ounces. The blood flow through the umbilical cord was a little slow and the doctors decided to keep track of that by doing and ultrasound every Tuesday and Friday. The doctors also were talking of doing a c-section in the next two to four weeks. On December 26 I got the news that I will have the c-section to deliver the baby on January 9, 2006. There was much debate back and forth about if I could have a vaginal delivery or if it really had to be c-section. I was a little worried about having a vaginal delivery and I voiced my concerns about it...that I didn't have the lung capacity to push and that it would make me too tired. In the end, it was decided that it would be a c-section and that I would have my tubes tied also.

January 9 came and went without a baby being born...well, not mine anyway. I had my blood drawn early that morning and my platelet counts were really low and they didn't feel that it was safe for me to have the c-section with my counts being that low. I kept telling the nurses and the doctors to call Dr. Sexton because he has dealt with my labs being low and me needing surgery...he would know what to do. They didn't call Dr. Sexton, instead they had a hematologist come see me and in the end, the hematologist said that he wanted to talk to Dr. Sexton because he knew my case more than anyone. I was so happy but also so annoyed that people didn't listen to me sooner. The decided that they would do the c-section the next day.

January 10, 2006 the doctors decided that it was really necessary to get the baby out. Brady had not been showing much movement and with my blood levels being low, it was not a safe environment for the baby. I was taken up to the 8th floor of the hospital shortly after one o'clock to prepare for the c-section. The nurses ran a bag of fresh frozen plasma into me to increase my platelet count and as soon as the platelets were in, I was taken into the operating room to be prepped for surgery. The anesthesiologist gave me a spinal which wasn't as bad as I thought but it was still uncomfortable. I was situated on the table and then Nate came in to be by my side. Dr. Folk performed the c-section while Dr. Nosavich stood by his side in case there were any complications. Dr. Folk started the c-section and when he started making the incision I could feel him cutting into me so he had to stop and put some local anesthetic in to finish numbing the area. Once that settled in, he continued and I couldn't feel it anymore. There was another point after a couple of minutes that I could feel some more pain so they put some medication in my IV and then continued again.

After some tugging and pulling, the baby was out and he came out screaming with some nice and healthy lungs. Brady Michale Prince was born at 2:45 in the afternoon and weighed 3 pounds 5 ounces and was 15 1/4 inches long. I was so happy to hear that I had a screaming baby but also couldn't help that think all of these doctors didn't want me to go through with carrying him. The nurses checked Brady out really quick and then bundled him up. I got to see my tiny little thing for a brief moment before they rushed him off to the NICU. Dr. Folk then continued with the tubaligation and then closed me up. As I was being closed up, Nate went to report to everyone that Brady was finally here. He was 7 weeks early but he was breathing on his own, needed no oxygen, and no other machines other than some heart monitors. He was also a little jaundice so he needed to be under the special lights. As I was in recovery I was informed that there was something wrong with his right eye. The doctors weren't quite sure what was wrong yet, but his right eyelid was sunken in and he was not opening it. But, other than that, he was healthy and I was happy. He had 10 fingers and 10 toes and a head full of blonde hair that looked like it needed to be cut already.

Mid 2005

On June 3, 2005 I turned 24. I couldn't help but thinking how far things had come in the CF community and the new medications that were out that helped people with CF live longer. When I was diagnosed, my Mom was told not to expect me to live past the age of 12. Here I was, 12 years past that, and although I was getting sicker, I was still alive. I had actually thinking about things that I wanted to do before I die and started to make a list of things that I wanted to do before I did or things that I had accomplished that meant a lot to me. Below are some of those things....

1. I had lived past the age that my Mom was told I would.
2. I had graduated High School with Honors.
3. I had graduated college with an Associate's Degree in Business Administration.
4. I got married and started a new life with Nate.
5. I wanted to be a Mommy although I knew that it was next to impossible with the upcoming transplants.
6. Go on a hot air balloon ride.
7. Go to France...I didn't take 7 years of French in school for nothing.
8. Go swimming with the dolphins.
9. Teach people who don't know about CF at least one thing about it.
10. Live to tell people about my experience with transplant and to urge others to get one too if they needed it.

I felt fortunate at that point that I had lived 24 years with CF but there was no way that I was going to give up that easily. That was not my style.

June 7-9, 2005
We left for my first trip to the Cleveland Clinic on June 7 for my appointments on the 8th and 9th. Nate, my Mom, and Mary (a friend of my and Nate's) went to Cleveland with me. We got into Cleveland and checked into our hotel around 5PM. We got to bed at a decent time that night because we had to be up early the next morning and I had a lot of appointments that day.
June 8
I first had to have x-rays and a CT scan of my lungs. I then met with the social worker who thought that I had a great attitude toward transplants but thought that I should also get some things resolved with Walt (my Dad) who had not been there for me since I was 4 years old. I then had to have PFT's, and do a 6 minute walk test. Overall, the doctors at the Cleveland Clinic said that my lungs were still functioning well enough for now but they had said that my x-rays and CT scans showed that my lungs looked really bad. They had a lot of mucus and scarring. I also saw the liver doctor that day but he didn't have much to say about the liver aspect of the transplant. Those talked were deferred until I had to go back out to Cleveland for the liver tests in July.
June 9
I had some time free of evaluations that morning so we went and met with one of Nate's college buddies and then it was back the the Clinic for more tests. I had an appointment with Dr. Marie Budev that day. She was the transplant doctor for my case. She informed us that there were 4 different surgeons doing lung transplants at the Cleveland Clinic and they had done 35 lung transplants so far in 2005. For my case, they had to decide if they wanted to do the lungs and liver at the same time. Dr. Budev liked the results of my tests and informed me that I still had time before I actually needed the transplants. She didn't want to do the transplants too early because of the risks that we would be taking when I was still fairly healthy. Dr. Budev put it really straight forward and said that if we took the 5 people who were in the room and give them all lung transplants, one person would be dead within the first year because of complications, infections, and/or the body rejecting the organs. So with these statistics, she would rather take the time to do a complete work-up before placing me on the transplant list. It was a very informative visit.

Over the next 8-10 months after those appointments, I had to have my liver evaluations (July 12-13) and had to have other tests to make sure that my body was okay to go through with the transplants. I had to have a mammogram, PAP smear, electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, bone density test, and regular dental work-ups. I also had to go back to Cleveland occasionally to have regular evaluations to assess if my lungs and liver were getting worse. At the end of all of this testing, there would be a decision on if I should be listed. If they didn't list me, I had to go back every three months for more testing. If I was listed at that time, Dr. Budev felt that the tranpslant would happen fairly quickly because I was young and I have Cystic Fibrosis. She had told me that CF patients are normally listed toward the top and that's why it would happen fairly quickly. I would only have 2.5 hours to get there because the lungs have a preservation time of 6 hours. In most cases the patient is in the hospitla for 12-14 days and then have to stay within an hour of the clinic for roughly 30 days for frequent check-ups and labs.

Jornal Entry from around that time....It's nice to know that I still have some time before the transplants really need to happen. After the appointments, everything is definitely more of a reality and it also makes it more scarey. Everyone keeps telling me that things will be fine, but who's to say that it will. I can only hope that the transplants are a success and that it prolongs my life a lot longer than the average age (mid 30's) for a CF patient. There are so many things that I feel that I still have to accomplish and I hope that I get to do so.

More from June/July 2005
On June 20th I had a normal appointment with Dr. Sexton. I told him that I had an increased cough and was getting short of breath more often. Other than that, I had been feeling fine. While I was at his office, I had a coughing fit and it led to me coughing up blood. He felt that there was an infection starting so he put me on Zosyn (IV antibiotic) and sent me home. At that point it was taking longer to get better than the previous times I had been on the IV.

I went to the oral surgeon in the end of June and found out that I had a wisdom tooth that was badly decayed and that it had to be pulled. The oral surgeon, Dr. Flihan, would not do anything with it until he talked to Dr. Sexton. He needed to know if it was okay to pull it in the office with just novicane or if I needed to be put under and have the wisdom tooth pulled in the hospital. It ended up being that it was okay to have it done in the office and it was pulled without a problem.

My co-workers at HGS started putting fundraisers together for me to raise money for the transplants. They did a dress down day where people had to pay to be able to dress down and that money went into my benefit account. My surperviser Lori was also putting together lunches to sell to people and she took the money out that it cost her to buy the supplies and then the profit went into my benefit account. They had atually raised a lot of money for my benefit account and it really helped.

July 12-13, 2005
I went back to the Cleveland Clinic for my liver transplant evaluations during this time and things went well. I flew out there by myself because Nate couldn't really take anymore time off of work and since there was no one to drive me out there, I had decided to fly. I met with the liver doctors on the 12th and it was mentioned that if I did not need the double lung transplant, I would not be getting the liver anytime soon. But, it had been decided that everything would happen all together because it was felt that with my liver being sick and failing, that it would not handle the new medications that I would be on for the lung transplant. Cleveland Clinic doctors had never done double lung and liver all together so none of us were sure as to how the transplant would work and how long my stay in the hospital would be. I knew that I was taking a risk with them and they were taking a risk with me, but apparently it was a risk that we were all willing to take.

End of July
A couple of weeks after I got back from my liver evaluations at the Clinic, I ended up back in the hospital from 7/25-7/29. That meant that I was in the hospital for my and Nate's 3rd Wedding Anniversary. I was in for breathing difficulties and after a few days, I got better and was sent home on IV antibiotics. I had since realized that I had not had my period since the end of May. My cycle was very irregular so I hadn't really thought much about it. Just to be on the safe side and to get the pregnancy test out of the way before I went to my doctor's office, I decided to buy a pregnancy test and take it at home. I thought that it would just get it out of the way so that I could tell the doctor that I had already done that test and that was not what was wrong with my cycle. Well......surprise! There were two lines (although one was faint) and that meant that I was pregnant! I was still not sure about this so I called my sister and asked her about false positives and she told me that it's normally only false negatives. She also told me to get one of the pregnancy tests that are digital read out and will say either "pregnant" or "not pregnant." I went out with Nate that night and bought one of those and I took the test the next morning before I went to work. Again, surprise!!! This test said pregnant. Now what was I to do???

Beginning of 2005

The beginning of 2005 was a little rough. I went to see Dr. Sexton a week after the cruise because I had not been feeling well. I had started running a fever and coughing up blood again. So, on February 7th I was admitted to the hospital. My fever kept spiking to 104 degrees and my oxygen level had fallen into the eighties. While admitted this time I had more CT scans, x-rays, blood work, and plasma transfusions (Fresh Frozen Plasma-FFP). Sputum tests revealed that I had pneumonia and staff infection. I was on a few antibiotics, breathing treatments, and had another embolization to stop the bleeding in my right lung. The CT scan and the blood work showed that my lungs and liver were worse than they were in November 2004. With the medications and embolization, I started feeling better except for the extreme bruising that I had from the embolization. I was released on Valentine's Day. I had to stay out of work for another week and stay on IV antibiotics through my port during that time.

During this time, we moved on with plans for the double lung and liver transplants. I was set up to have appointments done at Massachusetts General (although they were not sure about doing double lung and liver) only to find that the insurance (MVP) that I had through work was not contracted with MGH and they wouldn't pay for the transplants if I went there. We changed the clinic that I was going to go to to the Cleveland Clinic and waited to have the initial appointments set up there. In the process of this my insurance at worked changed to Blue Cross Blue Shield and I learned that BCBs would have paid for MGH but I decided to stay with the Cleveland Clinic. I received a phone call from Alan Stewart at the Cleveland Clinic and I received my appointment list in the mail for my initial appointments with them. I was to go to the Cleveland Clinic for the first time on June 8-9, 2005, just days after my 24th birthday.

April-May
I was busy for a little while in these months organizing a team for the Great Strides walk for Cystic Fibrosis. There was a total of 36 members on my team and our name was "Team Patti." I alone raised $968 and my whole team raised $1,643. Everyone who walked that day raised a total of over $35,000 which probably helped immensly with CF research. I met a few people that day but the people that I will remember forever are the people from "Team Tammy." I learned that Tammy had a double lung transplant at the age of 24 and died at the age of 35. She was a leader in a lot of things that she did and she had even carried the Olympic Torch. The last name of the family sounded familiar and I tried to figure out where I knew the name from and then finally it hit me that I had a French teacher at Groton High School by that last name. I mentioned that and they all looked at me and one of them said that she was part of their family. Mrs. Twitchell wasn't there but her husband was and I talked to him for a little while . He remembered that she had mentioned a long time ago that she had a girl in her French class who had CF and that must have been me. Sure enough it was!!

On the down side of all of this, I started getting sick again and went back to Dr. Sexton. I started back up on TOBI, kept taking Zythromax, and also had to take Cipro and Bactrim on top of that. Below is a journal entry from that time.

May 24, 2005
I'm so irritated with being sick constantly. I can only hope that the transplants happen soon and that things are better afterwards. I'm just looking forward to simple things such as being able to have a good laugh without coughing, playing my flute without getting out of breath, and just overall being able to breathe easier. It's the simple things that I really look forward to.

Caribbean Cruise 2005

As I mentioned in my last blog, I was to go on a cruise in early 2005. I went with Nate, his parents (Dale and Gina), Nate's brother (Shane), and his brother's girlfriend. We left from Syracuse, NY on January 21 to fly down to Ft. Lauderdale, FL and we took off on our cruise from there the next day. This was the first time that I had ever been on a plane that I could remember. It really was not that bad other than the coughing fit that I had when we were taking off. I am going to take what I wrote in my journal and put it in here because if I didn't, I wouldn't remember the details of the cruise.

Sunday, January 23, 2005
We started off on our cruise yesterday! It's so unbelievable that we are out in the middle of the ocean. Getting here wasn't as easy as we had hoped though. Our flight was scheduled to take off at 11:11AM on Friday and we didn't end up flying out until 1:55PM. When the plane that were supposed to fly on landed in Syracuse from Atlanta, they had a hard time opening the door. They later found out that the door was bent and the flight was indefinitely delayed. The airline employees suggested that we get booked on another flight and that's what we did. We were booked on the next flight out to Atlanta at 1:55 and then from there to Ft. Lauderdale. We were also bumped up to first class from Atlanta to Ft. Lauderdale. We coudln't complain! We ended up in Ft. Lauderdale at 9PM instead of 4PM like we were supposed to be.

Saturday morning I woke up at about 6AM and got dressed. After we were all ready and most of the way packed, we went to breakfast and then for a walk around the area of the hotel. It was a nice sunny morning and the walk was fun. We saw a lot of buildings that were just built with stores that will be opening soon. I was also taking notice of all of the palm trees because that was my first time ever seeing one other than on TV.

After the walk, we gathered our things and waited for the hotel transportation to take us to the pier to board the Carnival Legend. We saw a bunch of different ships, seven of them to be taking off that day, including Celebrity Cruises, Princess Cruises, and the Queen Mary 2. That ship is HUGE! Boarding the ship wasn't as much of a hassle as we thought it would be. The line was long but it moved fairly quickly. They took our luggage first, then we went by a place and had our "welcome aboard" picture taken, showed our tickets and got our cards, went through security, had our pictures taken to be put on our cards, and finally boarded the ship.

Once inside the ship, I was amazed! It was so fancy. There are so many different restaurants, bars, and a bunch of other things, inclusing a pizzeria that is open 24 hours a day. I love it!

Monday, January 24, 2005
There's still even more that amazes me about the ship. Last night was our first formal night on the cruise. I went to the salon and got my hair highlighted, cut, and styled. Nate and I had formal pictures taken and most of them turned out really nice. We bought a few of them and had one pose copied into wallets. These are the first portraits that we have had done in the 6.5 years that we have been together.

The Captain's dinner was fun last night. The waiters and waitresses all formed a line and went running through the dining hall flinging their towels all around. They all sang a song to us too. For this dinner, I had Victorian Perch with some sort of fancy shredded potatoes and sauce. It was good.


Thursday, February 24, 2005
So, here we are, a month from when I last wrote. There has been so much going on and some of it is kind of frustrating. I don't know whether to cry, laugh, or just shrug things off. Anyway, the rest of the cruise was excellent. We stopped in St. Marrten on January 25, which was Dale and Gina's 30th Wedding Anniversary. On that island we went to a butterfly farm. There were these blue butterflies that were amazingly beautiful! It was awesome just to have butterflies flying all around me. The tour of the rest of the island was okay. To me, it kind of looked like a 3rd World country with all of the houses looking like run-down shacks and goats and sheep on the loose everywhere. It was interesting to see it but I don't think that I would want to go back there. That night, we all went to the Dinner Club on the ship for dinner and the food was excellent!

The next day (1/26), Nate and I went on a tour of Harrison's Cave and on a Tiami Sunset Cruise in Barbados. Barbados is such a beautiful place and I wouldn't mind living there. The cave was interesting to me but Nate says that Howe Caverns in the US is better. The catamaran that we were on for the sunset cruise in Barbados was nice and the views were awesome. We went by the hotel that Tiger Woods bought out for a whole week for his wedding/honey moon. The tour guide told us that one night in a room there costs $3,000. That's a little bit too rich for my blood! Overall, our day in Barbados went well and I want to go back there for vacation sometime.

Our stop in Martinique on January 27 was interesting. I was amazed with the sites on this island. The water was breathtakingly blue and the scenery was the greenest and most beautiful that I had ever seen. I saw a valcano for the first time other than seeing it on TV. This valcano last erupted in 1902, killing everyone on the island except for one man who was in prison at the time. So, on this island, we went on a Calypso party boat tour. Within 10 minutes of starting out on the tour, a guy had spilled his rum punch all over me and I had to put up with the smell for the rest of the trip. We went out to a beach and spent two hours there. I found some interesting shells, saw a sea cucumber for the first time ever, and also found some live starfish. Gina packed up some of the starfish and brought them home. On the way back to the ship, we stopped near a bat cave. There were a lot of bats in there and there were also some very pretty tropical fish in the water near the party boat. I would love to go back to Martinique sometime and see more of the island and not just the beach that we were on.

The last two days of the cruise were spent at sea, making our way back to Florida. Our last day in the dining room was very memorable. We had a very good dinner and a special dessert. It is called Baked Alaska and it was delicious. All of the waiters, waitresses, and hostesses sang a goodbye song to us and I almost cried. Our last day on the ship was very rocky as the waves in the ocean were 10-14 feet high. They closed the outside decks to keep us all safe. Many people were sick, including me. I stayed in bed practically all day because I was too sick to be up and moving about.

The cruise came to an end when we got off the Carnival Legend and were back on dry land in Florida. We spent the day in Ft. Lauderdale doing some touring on a water taxi. The estates that we were seeing cost millions of dollars and so do the yachts. I could only imagine what I would do with that kind of money!! We went to the Cheesecake factory for dinner that night and I didn't like anything that I got for dinner. There seemed to be no true flavor in any of the food.

January 31, 2005 was our day to travel back home. When we were boarding the plane for our flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Atlanta, my seat was changed due to my inability to feel comfortable opening an exit door and directing people to it if anything were to go wrong. I ended up sitting next to a girl named Laura Czarny. When we took off, I started coughing really bad and she asked what was wrong. I told her about my medical history and she tole me about her sister Cheryl. They had also had a rough time throughout their lives. Before we got off of the plane in Atlanta, we exchanged e-mail addresses and promised to keep in touch. She also said that she wanted to give me something because I needed it more than she did. I was thinking, what on earth could anyone give me that I needed mor then them when they just met me?? And then she handed me a Rosary. It is very beautiful and she told me that it used to be her mother's. I told her that I couldn't take it and she told me that I must, so I did. I truly believe that someone was watching over me and she was my Guardian Angel that was sent to prove that everything will be okay.

Coming back to NY that day was the realization that our vacation was over and that it may be my last one for quite a while. The weather was completely different from where we were. We had been in 70-90 degree weather and we came back to freezing temperatures. That made me wish that we lived in temperatures like that year round. Maybe I wouldn't get sick so often.

Now back to present day 2008.....the cruise was an experience of a lifetime! I believe that we are going to be going again in the next couple of years. I would recommend that everyone go on a cruise if the opportunity arises. Healthwise, that week was the best that I had felt in a really long time. I still have the Rosary that Laura gave me and the last time that I talked to her was earlier this year. Her sister has since published a children's book about being in the hospital and that book sits on my bookcase in my room.

2003-2004

I don't remember much of 2003 other than moving into our new home and starting some of the work that needed to be done to it. I think that we had the windows replaced in October that year and we also replaced almost all of the light fixtures. I know that as the year went on, I was getting sicker than I had been in a while.

I worked a couple of different jobs that year. When we first moved up to the Utica area I was working at a photo lab in Target. That was an interesting job. I had never done anything with developing photos or mixing chemicals before and that was what I had to do in this job. I loved it but when a better opportunity came along, I took it and left.

I went on to work for Sports Physical Therapy of NY in Rome, NY as a secretary. I also loved that job but the 30 minute travel to work and then home was one of the things that I could have done without. After not too long of being at that job, I got another offer at another physical therapy place. This job was also as a secretary but it was a lot closer to home and it was for more pay. I liked the job and it definitely kept me busy but I continued to get sicker while working there. Not that the job was making me sick, but my health because of the Cystic Fibrosis was deteriorating. I would even go into work when I was on IV medications because that was the way of life for me and the only way to keep a somewhat normal one and not be in the hospital for weeks on end. That's what most people do when they have CF.

Everything was getting worse and got much worse for me. I had been working at this place for about 5 months and had not had my 3 month review yet. I was so pissed the day that I came into work, on a Friday in March of 2004, and was told to come into a back room and was handed my last check and they told me that they were letting me go. I looked at them and was like 'what.' I had been sick a day or two prior with a lot of coughing and running fevers and came back to getting fired. Tell me that that doesn't look suspicious! I was told that they did my 3 month review and they thought that I was not up to where they wanted me to be. Okay, there were a few things that I found wrong here....#1) I was supposed to be there for my review and #2) Why did they do it on a day that I was out sick? They proceeded to tell me that I was not doing what I was hired for, that the billing office wasn't getting codes for billing on time, and that they needed to be able to pull me in 10 different directions at once and they felt that they couldn't do that with me. Here are my problems with that.....I was doing way more than what I was hired for. The longer that I worked for this immoral lady, the more work that she gave me every day to do. She even wanted me to go in a put ice packs or hot packs on her patients which you are not supposed to do without a license in physical or occupational therapy, which I did not have. The reason that things were not getting to billing on time was also the owner's fault. I would look over her codes that she was billing and if there was something wrong, I would have to send the paper back to her and tell her to bill under a different code. Well, this would take forever for her to do. I would have to tell her that I needed it and she would keep ignoring it. When I brought this up in my abrupt exit interview, I was told that I should have just kept hounding her until it was done. Was it my job to run the office and make sure that she did her job? No! I was not the office manager and I was not the owner. The lady pulling all of this crap was the owner and that day, I lost absolutely all respect for her. I think that she is a cold hearted woman and would never work for her again. And last, who in the world, sick or not, could be pulled in 10 different directions at once??? This lady was not right and if I was faced with the opportunity to tell her how I feel about her, I would.

Well, that same day that I was fired, I went down to a hiring agency (that I had used before) and I had a job somewhere else that same day. I started training at my new job that Monday and then a couple of days later I ended up in the hospital with Pneumonia. Well, I lost that job opportunity too. I think that I was in the hospital for about a week and then was released on IV antibiotics. Not too long after, I had another temporary job that went great. It lasted for about a month or two and then the job was finished. I then went on to babysit for a family with 4 kids and did that for a while. When I wasn't really needed there anymore, I babysat for another family who had a set of twin boys who were not a year old yet. It was nice babysitting them but my hands were full. One of the boys had cerebal paulsy and needed more help than the other. They were both so adorable and I absolutely loved them! It wasn't too long before I had to move on from babysitting them and get a job where I was making more money. I got another temporary job offer from the job agency and I started working at Centrex.

Centrex is a lab that does blood work, urine tests, drug tests, and sets up home draws for people who can't make it to the lab. I worked in the part setting up home visits. It really didn't take me long to get used to that job and get good at it too. It was only a temporary job though so I was still looking for a permanent job. I had applied for jobs at a bank and for a place called The House of the Good Shepherd. Not too long after I had applied at both, I had interviews for both. Both of the interviews went well and I had 2nd interviews for both. The day that I had the 2nd interview at the House of the Good Shepherd, I was offered the job. I thought about it and I accepted the job!! That same day that I accepted the job, I had had a rough time with a customer on the phone at Centrex. I was called back to Human Resources at Centrex and I thought that I was in trouble because of the phone call that I had taken where the guy was irate. I thought that I had handled the phone call well and stayed calm. Well, I had been called back to the office for a completely different reason. The person who was supposed to be moving into the position that I was filling in for decided not to take the position and I was offered the job. They wanted to hire me straight on instead of being temp. I told them that I couldn't take the job because I just took a job somewhere else and that if they had told me like the day before or earlier that day that they wanted me to stay, I probably would have.

If those two job offers were not enough, I got home and there was a message on my phone that the bank that I interviewed at also wanted to hire me. I went through most of the summer trying to find a job and got turned down left and right, and then all in one day I had three job offers!! It was crazy! But I had accepted the job at the House of the Good Shepherd and I started that job in August 2004. I was hired there as the Administrative Secretary and has many jobs to do under that title. I was a little nervous at first because I shared an office with my supervisor but she was cool and I got really used to it. I had not told anyone in the interviews that I had, that I had Cystic Fibrosis. I didn't want to be turned down for a job because I had CF because I knew that I was a hard worker no matter what. But, not too long after I was hired, I started to get really sick and needed to go on IV antibiotics and had to tell them that I had CF. They all took it really well! I did have to explain to some people what CF was but I don't mind doing that.

In November of that year, I ended up in the hospital for a really bad infection that would not go away. I think that it was Thanksgiving day that I was admitted for coughing up blood (hemoptysis) and the infection. I was taken out of the ER and put into isolation because the doctors thought that I had TB. At that time, I did not know that CF symptoms could immitate having TB. My CF doctor (Dr. Sexton) was so livid that I was put in isolation. When a CT scan was done of my lungs, Dr. Sexton told me that I had holes in my lungs and the upper right lobe as non-functional. My liver disease was also progressing. Dr. Sexton brought up the conversation of lung and liver transplants not being too far off and that we needed to find a transplant (Tx) clinic and get the evaluations started. That was the hardest news to hear but I knew what I had to do to keep myself here.

We were going to go with Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) but when we were getting things set up to go there we found out that the insurance that I had through my work would not cover that hospital so we had to find a different one. And that's when the search started and we found Cleveland Clinic. The evaluations didn't start until much later though.

In the end of 2004, I had a follow-up appointment with Dr. Sexton and I talked to him about a cruise that I was going on in January 2005 and he told me that it was probably not the best idea to go since I was getting so sick. I think that it was an intern that told him that if I was going to be going through all this Tx stuff and continue to get sick, why not let me have one last vacation. Dr. Sexton made me promise that if anything were to go wrong on the cruise, I would be life flighted off of the cruise and taken to the nearest hospital (which would be in Florida) and once I was stabilized there, I would go to my clinic in Syracuse. I promised and then it was decided that I would go on probably my last vacation before things deteriorated even more. That was great news and that was the end of a rough year.

The Big Move

After the wedding and all the excitement of the honey moon, it was time to sell our trailer so that we could buy a house in the Utica area. Nate was already staying up there with his parents and I wanted to get up there so bad to be with him. We were a married couple living 90 minutes apart. It wasn't fun. I was staying at the trailer packing and keeping an eye out for anyone who might want to buy it. We finally got someone interested in buying it but they didn't have enough money to put down a down payment and without a down payment, they couldn't buy it. We wanted to get rid of it so bad that we helped them with the down payment and the trailer was theirs! I was finally able to be with Nate again.

Initially, we lived with Nate's parents. I moved to the Utica area in September 2002 and all of our household belongings went into a storage shed because it would not all fit in Dale and Gina's house. We began looking for a house in November (or so) and had a couple in mind. The one that we really wanted to look at was sale pending so we couldn't look at it. We saw a few others from the outside and called on a few but the prices were outrageous. Then we found a little ranch style house that we decided to call on and look at even though the outside of that was not very appealing. We set up a meeting to look at the inside. We finally went to look at it and this is what we saw.....

When you walk in the front door, you walk into the dining room with a bar area that is attached to the kitchen. Straight ahead is the kitchen. The floor, fridge, stove, light fixtures, and counters all needed replacing. If you walk to the left when you come in the front door, there is a huge living room with a beautiful fire place. The carpet in the living room is really worn out and is really ugly. There are two huge windows in the living room that face out to the street and they are just one huge pane of glass, they do not open at all. There is a door over to the right when you walk in to the living room and that leads to the bathroom, kitchen, and basement door. The bathroom is very small. You have to squeeze past the linen closet and sink to get to the bathtub and toilet. You can literally shave, shower, and sh*t at the same time. I loved the linen closet though because it is huge and the tub is huge. The shower head is also pretty high up which is good because I'm 5'9". If you're back in the living room, and look opposite of the dining room, there is a small bedroom off to the right and then another one that is bigger just one door down. There is another bedroom across from that one. The basement is really big with the ceiling being a lot higher than most homes. The laundry is down there and there is a bar room. It is not a finished basement though and is pretty damp. The outside of the house has a tree blocking the dining room window and then bushes all along the front of the house. The house is painted pink with maroon trim (not the greatest selling point). There is a one car garage that is attached to the house. The front and back yards are HUGE compared to what some people have on our street.

The house was built by the original owner in 1949 and believe me, it looks like it hadn't been remodeled since then either. The owner passed some time ago and left it to his niece. It really looks like she destroyed the house. She wanted to sell it for $80,000. We are not very keen on this price with how much work the house needs and the real estate agent tells us that she probably will go lower. We go a lot lower and offer $65,000 and she accepts! The house is ours with all the work that needs to be done to it! We had the closing and we moved into the house on Valentine's Day 2003. We got all of your things out of storage and started making this house our new home.

The Honey Moon

After the wedding, Nate and I left for Cape Cod, Massachusetts. We got on the road at about 6PM and had to stop somewhere along the way to stay the night. Most of the places that we were stopping at we fully booked. We finally found a place that had vacancy. It was not the greatest place in the world but it was somewhere to close our eyes and get some rest. We started back out in the morning and arrived in Cape Cod later that afternoon. We stayed at a bed and breakfast (which we had reserved ahead of time) instead of a hotel because we knew that it would be a lot cleaner. We basically had a whole apartment to ourselves. There was a kitchen, a bathroom, a huge closet, and a bedroom/living room. We also had a second story deck all to ourselves. It was really nice. The lady who owns the place made breakfast (fresh friut, muffins, yogurt, juice) the night before and would bring it up while we were out to dinner or something. It was all very good. They also had movies that we could borrow from them if we wanted to watch movies (which we didn't).

We were about 10 minutes away from many different beaches. That was the first time that I had ever been to the ocean!! The first beach that we went to was nice. It was a cloudy day and a little windy so we didn't stay long but we did walk on the beach, I at least put my feet in the ocean, and we got something to eat. When we sat down to eat, Nate had to get up and get ketchup for his fries and when he did, a bunch of seagles dive bombed his fries right in front of me!! It was hilarious. Most of his fries were gone! Throughout the week, we visited many different places. There were a lot of different beach houses along the roads with tons of stuff for sale. We stopped at a few of them. We went to Provincetown a few times. One of the times, we went on a whale watch (which I had also never done before) and we did see a few whales. Not many of them came very far out of the water though. It was still a great experience! On another day there, we went downtown and did a lot of sight seeing and visiting the little shops and restaurants. We also went to the Pilgrim Tower and museum where we had to walk hundreds of steps to get to the top. That was really a work out for me and my lungs! The view from the top was awesome though!! We also went on a little venture to find a light house and to take a tour of it. Nate is a big fan of light houses. We found one and that is the first time that either of us had been to a light house. We even got to go to the top where the light is. That was very cool. The view from up there was really a sight to see. You could see the ocean for miles and miles!! I reall hope to get to do this again some day.

In the time that we were there, we visited a lot of different restaurants and I don't think we really found any in particular that really impressed us. Nate was not impressed with the way that any of them cook steaks. He said that they were tough and had very little or no flavor. The little shops all around were very amazing. I don't think I have ever seen so many things for sale!! We went to a mall somewhere near there. It was pretty big and we found a few things for family and whoever, to bring home as gifts for them.

The one place that we wanted to go and never did was Martha's Vineyard. We did not find a schedule for the ferry to go there until like almost the last day that we were there. If we ever go again, I think I will book it online so that we can go. All in all, it was a great week! I definitely would go back and it would be a great place to take Brady some day.