Ketchup

Hello out there! I'm still here, alive and well. I haven't posted in a while because I had been doing a lot of posting on my Colleen's Friends & Family Facebook page for Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Month. Within the last month, I've finished my sixth year of teaching, did a two week round of Cipro, found out I've been approved for the Monarch Vest, and had an amazing turn out for Great Strides.

The last post about my health discussed how I was trying a not-as-strong antibiotic that was breastfeeding friendly. Well, I took it for two weeks and ended on a Saturday. By Monday, I was already feeling crumby again. I don't know if the antibiotic just didn't kick everything, or if I caught something over the weekend, but I just wasn't back to feeling how I wanted. I decided, despite the difficulties with breastfeeding, that I needed to go on Cipro. So, for the last two weeks of the school year, I pumped and dumped while at work, and Calvin got extra frozen milk I had pumped earlier while he was with the babysitter. Aside from the nasty case of sun poisoning I got on my legs, I'm happy to say that I'm finally feeling back to normal lung-wise since having Calvin almost four months ago. We'll see what my numbers look like at the end of this month.

Later this week, a Hill-Rom representative will be coming to my house to bring my new Monarch Vest and will show me how to use it! The Monarch Vest is a portable, battery operated Vest!! Which means anytime we go out of town for the weekend, I don't have to lug my machine, tubes and Vest!! I'll be sure to post pictures once I'm familiar with it and use it for the first time. I've been trying to get a portable Vest for a few years now, so this is really exciting for me. :)

Another really exciting thing to share is the success of Great Strides this year!!! Our team walked in the Champaign, IL walk at the beginning of May. This was a new site for us, but I was a little bummed to see the turn out wasn't as large as I expected. Although, our team was wonderful!!!

We had over 30 walkers and raised over $3,000!! I'm hoping we'll be able to reach our goal of $5,000 before the year is over. I want to sincerely thank everyone for making the trek to Champaign to show your support for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, everyone fighting with CF and for me. It truly means a lot to me that you show up and walk with me & my family. :)

Last week wrapped up the end of my sixth year of teaching. This was my third year teaching third grade and working with my amazing partner. I'm sad to say that she's leaving our building, moving on to bigger and better things (she's going to be a kick-ass union president!), so I'll be getting a new partner this fall.

I'm also about half way done with my Master's program - woo hoo! This summer I'm taking my fourth class (research and statistics, ew!) and will only have three left (2 in the fall, 1 in the spring) until I'm done!!! So far, I've maintained a 4.0 GPA which I'm pretty proud of! I can't thank Lindsey and Alycia enough for doing this program with me; they're definitely helping me get through this!!

So now, here we are, the first week of June. I've already worked 2 days of my summer, with 11 1/2 days of professional development scheduled -- who says teachers don't work over the summer?! But in between PD and Master's assignments will be lots of time with my babies! I can't believe that at the end of this summer Anna will be four years old and Calvin will be six months old!
Today we signed up for the summer reading program at two local libraries, enjoyed a walk downtown, went to a new park and went to Steak n Shake for lunch. This afternoon, Anna and I created a Summer To-Do List, and we are slowly filling up our summer days. I love being able to spend this time with my kids because I feel like I miss out on so much during the school year.

Antibiotic Update

My nurse and I finally got into contact at about 5pm last night. She said that her and my doctor had discussed a couple options for me, keeping in mind that I want to continue breastfeeding. The first option was to begin Cipro, but they were completely against me nursing at all while on it for two weeks. This didn't appeal to me, but I understood where they were coming from. The second option was to try a different, not as strong, but breastfeeding-safe antibiotic called Cefdinir.

I went with option two. I'm a little nervous to try a new antibiotic, but hoping for the best. I'm really glad that I'll be able to continue nursing Calvin while on it. I'll be starting my first dose tonight. I'm hoping it'll be strong enough to kick whatever is hanging out in my lungs. Thankfully I haven't had anymore lung pain since yesterday morning (I think my treatments helped that), but I can definitely tell I'm more junky than usual.

Yep, putting in a Great Strides plug because it's true -- this is why we need a CURE for CF! Although I've been relatively stable over the last four years because of Kalydeco, chest infections still happen and antibiotics are necessary to maintain my lung function. If you'd like to help us find a cure for Cystic Fibrosis (so I never have to do treatments again!!), click here. :)

Great Strides 2018

Our 2017 Bloomington team! :-)

Great Strides season is upon us! This year, the foundation has condensed several of it's walk sites in IL, so it took me a bit to decide which one our team should attend (the two we normally do are now gone). This year we're going to try to help Champaign's walk grow with our large team.

This year is also a special year for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. This is the 30th year of Great Strides! It also happens that I'll be turning 30 years old this summer! When I was born, in 1988, I don't think anyone expected me to live this long, let alone be thriving!

Since this year marks 30 years of living, thriving and beating CF, I'd love for this to be our biggest Great Strides year yet!

*Most number of people registered
*Biggest turn out in Champaign
*Largest amount raised for CF -- our team goal is $5,000 (or more)

To reach these goals this year, I need YOUR help. If you'd like to walk with us in Champaign this year, please make sure that your register online for free: http://fightcf.cff.org/goto/colleen30

If you're unable to attend the walk with us, but would still like to make a donation: http://fightcf.cff.org/goto/colleen30

If you're interested in walking at another location around the state or country: http://fightcf.cff.org/site/PageServer?pagename=strides_searchResults

Whether you can join us or not, to help raise awareness of CF and it's need for donations, feel free to share the link on your social media with friends, family, co-workers, etc. The more we make people AWARE of CF, the more likely we are to collect DONATIONS. And as we know, DONATIONS go to RESEARCH for MEDICATIONS and hopefully one day, A CURE!

Health & Great Strides

I haven't posted about my physical health in a while, so I figure I may as well update you. The good news is that I haven't been on antibiotics since mid-September, which means it's been 6 & 1/2 months!! Bad news (or...not so fun news) is that the streak ends now. Over the last few days, I've had a sore throat and stuffy nose. I was hoping it was possibly just allergies, but today the frequency and consistency of my cough changed which told me it was time to bring in the 'big guns' - aka: Cipro.

I tried being proactive and got in contact with my doctor yesterday in case my allergy symptoms changed and I needed to begin Cipro over the weekend when she's out of the office. Of course, that couldn't go as smoothly as planned....I didn't get to the pharmacy until this afternoon to pick it up (because I wanted to start tonight after having crappy lung day today) and they told me they had no record of it - grrr!! So I called and texted my doctor who was as equally frustrated, but she kindly sent in the script again. Now I'm finishing up my treatments and plan to call Walgreens when I'm done to make sure it has arrived and has been filled before I go to the pharmacy this time.

Weight-wise, I think I'm hanging around the same weight as before I got pregnant with the boys. I know after I had them, I lost a few pounds, but the way clothes are fitting recently, it seems I've gained it back. I do not own a scale because otherwise I'd obsess over my weight, so we'll just see at my next clinic appointment.


Finally, I wanted to share about my Great Strides team this year. Colleen's Friends & Family will be walking at two walk sites this year - DeKalb and Bloomington. Every year our friends and family join us to walk and show their support for all people with CF and the CF Foundation. I'd guess we've raised close to $10,000 over the last five-six years together. The CF Foundation puts 90 cents of every dollar donated towards educating families, new programs and research for new drugs. Just this week, the CF Foundation release information on a Phase 3 Vertex study drug combined with Kalydeco has had very positive results!! This is where your donations go!!! This is why donations (and awareness) are so important! They're actually going somewhere and accomplishing things!

It's so exciting to hear of new drugs coming down the pipeline to hopefully be available soon for more and more CF patients. Unfortunately, all of these wonderful new drugs are still NOT a cure! I still have to do all of my treatments and take the same amount of medications as I did before I began Kalydeco (plus the two K pills daily). But the Kalydeco has helped keep my lung function stable for three and a half years, and helped me get to and maintain a healthy weight.

Anyway, my friends and family and I will be participating in Great Strides this year to help raise money for the CFF and more clinical trials! We'd love for you to join us! If you're unable to walk with us, and would still like to donate, all information can be found using the links below. :)

DeKalb info: http://fightcf.cff.org/goto/dekalb17

Bloomington info: http://fightcf.cff.org/goto/bloomington17

*All donations are 100% tax-deductible and truly, EVERY DOLLAR MAKES A DIFFERENCE!

This One's About CF

Did you know this is a CF blog?! It sure doesn't look like it too much from my recent posts, but I like that. It shows me (and my readers) that CF isn't the only or main part of my life. Either way, here's a quick update on the CF side of things.

• Tomorrow marks three months of 100% compliance with my treatments!!
• Last time I posted was after my clinic appointment which went very well. Since then, I've received my blood work and chest x-ray results which came back great. All blood work is fine, A1C is 5.6 (woo hoo!!) and my chest x-ray was unchanged from last time. :-)
• About two weeks ago I started coming down with what I thought was going to be another chest infection and another round of Cipro. It started on a Thursday/Friday and I felt like crap by Saturday with a nasty, dry cough. I made sure to do extra treatments Friday, Saturday and Sunday to help kick whatever was developing. Thankfully I was also due to start my Cayston, so that was delivered on Saturday. Between the extra treatments and Cayston, I am so happy to say that I was able to fight back and NOT have to go on oral antibiotics!!!
• I feel this is absolutely attributed to Kalydeco, in my opinion, because it's helping me stay so stable!!
• This made me so excited for two reasons-
• 1) I don't like the way Cipro makes me feel sometimes
• 2) The less oral antibiotics I take, the less resistant my lungs/body become to them, which means they'll be a good option for me longer. Once my body is resistant to oral antibiotics, that's when I have to use IV antibiotics. I am very lucky to not be resistant to any medications, especially at this age!!
• To keep it this way, I have to keep up with my health, but I also need your help! The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's greatest fundraiser is right around the corner: Great Strides!
• The money that is raises goes directly to research for new medications and treatments.
• The more money we raise, the more of a positive impact we can make!
• My team, Colleen's Friends and Family will be walking in at least two walks this spring - DeKalb (April 16) and Bloomington (May 12).
• My DeKalb fundraising page is: fightcf.cff.org/goto/dekalb2016
• I also have an event on Facebook and a link on my Team Facebook page.
• Finally, take a look at downloading the FREE Great Strides app on your phone. It's super easy to use, has all information you need and has easy ways to update and ask for donations via social media! :)

Great Strides, Great Strides and More Great Strides

Did I mention it's Great Strides season?! This spring was filled with three Great Strides events for me and it was so awesome!!

DeKalb

Our first event was in DeKalb in April. This one is very special to me because I helped create this walk when we lived there five years ago. It also takes place at the same park where Tim and I got married, so it has lots of sentimental value to me. I loved having Anna there this year and am excited to continuously attend as the years go by and as our family grows and changes. Its fun visiting the town where it all started.

We typically have a smaller team at this event - a few of our friends, my family and Tim's aunt & uncle who live nearby. Even though our team was small, we still raised $450!

Parsons
My second event was actually held at my school. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to speak to all classrooms about what CF is and how I keep myself healthy on a daily basis.

We did two fundraisers as a school and finished with our own Great Strides Walk on the path around our playground. Each class collected money, but then we also did a school-wide change collection that was much more popular. We had a "Cutest Baby Contest" where I displayed 26 different baby pictures that belonged to different staff members throughout the building. The students put change (some put cash) in the jug of the baby they thought was the cutest. It was so fun and the kids loved it!
The combined total from classroom donations and the Cutest Baby Contest was $597.63! My students brought in the most money to our class so we were able to lead the school in our Great Strides walk. As an entire school, we walked one mile outside. The local newspaper was there to report on our event, and there was also a former student (now in her early 40s) who has CF and has had a double lung transplant who walked with us. (Extra pictures from the paper)

It was an amazing event to bring awareness to the kids about CF and I'm excited to see it hopefully grow into the community over the years.


Bloomington

Our final Great Strides event was in Bloomington which is now our team's biggest location. I even had a few Parsons people come out to support me! Last minute, I was asked to speak before the walk, which I always enjoy doing because I hope to spread some positives about CF and how it is possible to live a 'normal' life despite having a disease. This year, I brought Anna up with me during my speech.

We enjoyed a nice walk with friends and family, then hung out at the park for a little while before leaving to celebrate our nephew's second birthday.

Our team raised a total of $1,695 at this sight!!

Which brings Parsons Owls and Colleen's Friends and Family grand total to:

$2,907.63!!!!

Thank you so much to everyone who shared information about CF, donated and walked with us this year! I am so lucky to have such amazing people in my life. :-)  

26 Weeks

Saturday, May 10 - 26w, 1d
This week you're eyes are almost fully developed and will be opening soon, you now have eyelashes, you're getting a little more baby fat and are about the size of a head of lettuce.

We're Rockin' CF!

Today's the day of the Bloomington Great Strides walk and it looks like we're going to have a gorgeous day for it. The Veitengruber's have been amazing supporters since I met Daddy & I am so thankful that they continue to support me every year! I'm looking forward to the Peoria walk this fall though because it'll be your first (of many!) Great Strides and of course you'll be wearing that adorable onsie from Emily. :)

May 15 - 26w, 6d
I think you had the hiccups last night! As Daddy and I were going to sleep, I put my hands on my belly (like I do every night), and I felt a constant little movement. I asked Daddy to feel and he could feel it, too. It had to be the hiccups because you weren't moving around too much and the timing was very consistent.
This week you've been moving a lot more during the day. I still think you're sitting pretty low because I really don't feel like you're squishing my lungs much at all, thankfully, or kicking up into my ribs (you tend to favor my right side). I'm sure that'll change as you grow more in this last trimester though. They say your starting to wake and sleep at normal intervals...let's hope that continues when you're born...ha, yeah right!

Great Strides went well on Saturday. I spoke a little bit about my story and how I was motivated to get pregnant so I worked my butt off to stay healthy. When I was done, Cole came up to me, gave me a high-five and said, "that was awesome!"

We spent the rest of the weekend with family and you even showed off some of your moves to Aunt Linda and Grandma! Linda loved talking to you and watching you bounce around.

Yesterday, one of the employees at the dollar store said to another employee, "aww, look! She's got an itty bitty baby bump!" HA! I beg to differ on the itty bitty part! But she might have been thrown off on the size because I was wearing a jacket. Daddy and I agreed that it just looks like I have a soccer ball under my shirt. :)

Life in General

It's been too long since I've posted a non-pregnancy related post, but it's pretty hard when that's constantly on my mind! Last "normal" post was in February, I think...oops!

Anyway, we've been keeping extremely busy over the past few months. I'm pretty sure Tim started

nesting as soon as we found out I was pregnant. He's been a working machine! He completely refinished all of the hardwood floors in the house which look fantastic. He redid the ceiling (scraped the popcorn, sanded, added drywall and painted) in the living room and added a fireplace and mantel to the living room, as well repainting it all. The nursery is finished construction-wise, but still has lots of organizing and decorating to do once we get more baby supplies/furniture from our showers in June. We just had a new roof put on our house last week. Tim's also planning on adding a patio and pond to the backyard, as well as repainting the ugly blue siding on our house. And if he can get all of that done before August, I know that the kitchen is next -- which includes repainting the cabinets, extending our pantry, laying new hardwood floors, installing a new countertop and knocking down a wall...and he says there's not much to do in there... :)

I've tried to help out as much as possible but with being pregnant and not super handy, I've only done some of the painting, helped scrape the ceiling and helped move things when I could. Tim has been excellent at getting everything done even when he works full time doing the exact same stuff for work everyday...I don't know how he has the energy!

This last weekend we had our second Great Strides walk! Our team has raised around $1,200! We had gorgeous weather and had a great time visiting with all of Tim's family for the weekend. I did one of the opening speeches about my life with CF and how I had to kick my butt over the last few years to get my body ready for a pregnancy. The speech was a little scattered (pregnancy brain!), but I always enjoy sharing my story with others. Afterwards, I went to join my family and our almost 4 year old nephew gave me a high-five and said, "that was awesome!"

My biggest fan :-)

In other news, I've been pretty busy wrapping up the end of the school year with my little boogers and preparing for maternity leave in the fall. I recently learned that next year I'll be teaching Kindergarten again, so I'm really looking forward to that. It'll be much easier coming back from maternity leave to a grade that I've taught before instead of third grade like it was before. We're down to ten days of school left! This school year has flown by, thankfully, because my class has a couple (four to be exact) handfuls that I'm am definitely looking forward to getting a break from....lol. This summer I'll be moving rooms, again. Thankfully my principal and custodian are wonderful at accommodating all of the pregnant teachers who have to move this summer and doing our rooms first. I'm hoping to have all of my bulletin board fabric and boarders up the day after the last day of school. Then all I'll have to do when I come back after the room is cleaned is arrange the furniture, hang posters and organize. Anyone willing to come down this summer to help me out with that is more than welcome!

Speaking of summer, ours is full! Between baby showers, friends' weddings, family parties and a weekend trip to St. Louis for a Cardinals game, Tim and I will be super busy! Luckily I'll have still have weekdays to put my feet up and relax, :-), but my poor hubby is going to be going non-stop! Hopefully he'll get a few relaxing weekends this summer before the sleepless nights begin in three months! :-)

Great Strides

Click on the picture above to head to my team's Great Strides page

Colleen's Friends & Family's next Great Strides walk is just around the corner!! We had our first one on April 12th, in DeKalb, and our team raised a total of $1,455! Our next one is in Bloomington on Saturday, May 10th. I'd love for our team to raise a combined total of $5,000 between the two walk sites. So far for the Bloomington one, our team has nine people registered who have raised $645. That puts our team total at $2,100 so far! I'd love for us to reach a grand total of $5,000 this year - only $2,900 left!! Don't forget that donations & fundraising don't close after we've walked in Great Strides, it's open all year. Feel free to share this with your friends & family to help raise awareness & funds for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to help me live a long and healthy life for my husband and daughter!

22 Weeks

22 weeks pregnant - also sporting my green & blue
for Organ Donation awareness day :)

Me at 22w, Aunt Katrina at 24w :)

 

Monday, April 14 - 22w, 3d

This weekend was the DeKalb Great Strides! It was so great to see all of our friends that we hadn't seen in a while. Some of them we haven't seen since they found out I was pregnant, so it was fun for them to see my bump and for us to all catch up. Thankfully the weather cooperated and it turned into a beautiful day with friends in the park!

Then Daddy and I went to Grandma Dorothy's for our family Easter. We spent lots of time playing with your cousins and visiting with everyone. We started working on plans for your shower with Aunt Elise & Aunt Linda, which is going to be so fun.

 

Thursday, April 17 - 22w, 6d

This week has been rather uneventful, which is fine with me. You're still moving a lot and I was able to feel you a ton at work today. You seem to be getting much stronger in there, too....or maybe just more squished. Daddy and I have lots of work to do on the house still, but it's coming along. We are going to do (hopefully) a good amount of work in the living room this weekend. The hardwood floors look amazing and even though I gave Daddy a hard time about moving the furniture, it was completely worth it. Its slowly coming together and I'm going to try to help as much as I can because I cannot wait to see each room as it gets done. :-)

 



A Normal Post?!

Wow, it's been a long time since I've written a normal blog post. Things have been going very well for us this winter since finding out I'm pregnant. It's been a long time coming, and so fun sharing the experience with our friends and family! We've already had three ultrasounds and I'm now 15 weeks along with our little munchkin. I have my first CF clinic coming up since getting pregnant, and I'm so excited to see everyone there.

In other news, we've got two Great Strides events coming up this spring, in April and May. Those will be super fun this year, and next year we'll need a stroller! If you'd like to join my team or donate to either walk site, please go to www.cff.org/greatstrides and follow the very simple directions. They all have a free Great Strides app which is very easy to use.

Work has been going well. Teaching first grade is so different from Kindergarten, but I am really enjoying it. My class is full of personalities and they've been keeping me on my toes this year, but its been so fun watching them grow and progress.

Tim's been keeping busy between working, plowing, and continuing to work on our house. Currently he's working on refinishing the floors in baby's room, we just removed the popcorn from our ceiling in the living room, and we'll be painting in there soon. We've definitely had a busy, eventful, but wonderful winter. Sorry to keep everyone in the dark for so long, but we wanted to make sure everything was going well before we shared the news. Stay tuned for many more updates. :-)

2013

Here's 102 blog posts from this year summed up into one. This year was full of exciting adventures for Tim and I, the most exciting being that we finally purchased our first home!

• At the beginning of this year, I was presented with the possibility of having CFRD. Thankfully after meeting a wonderful endocrinologist in Chicago, he taught me how to adjust my diet to keep my sugars in check without having to have insulin injections, yay!
• In February, unfortunately I had to reset my compliance count due to lovely mail order pharmacy mix ups. I did, however, proudly complete 100% of my treatments for 352 days!! I reset my count on March 1st, which puts me at 312 days today!
• Also in March, we celebrated Tim's great grandma's 99th birthday, learned about the new CFF regulations (which caused a huge uproar and debate among CFers), and we got the ball rolling on the CF Living video phone interviews and plans!!
• April was a busy month! Tim and I shot our CF Living footage which was harder than I thought, but SO rewarding! I attended another Great Strides in DeKalb, the TOBI Podhaler was released, our kitten, Ozzie, was born, and I started taking the best thing ever = PROBIOTICS!.
• May was pretty uneventful, aside from me finishing up my first year of teaching! Tim celebrated his 27th birthday and we were able to spend some quality time with our adorable nephew, Isaac.
•  In June, we finalized our first house mess, and found a house that we both loved and went under contract on it. We traveled to Tennessee to meet our newest nephew, Liam, and spend time with family. Tim also kicked my butt in Brett's Run!
• July was a busy, fun-filled month! I attended my best friend's bachelorette party, spent lots of time with family, brought Ozzie home, went to Country Thunder and became a home-owner!!
• Our first chapter of our Day in the Life series finally came out and I was so surprised and humbled by all of the amazing and supportive feedback. I also started my second year of teaching - this year in first grade. And of course, started taking Kalydeco on August 30.
• In September, Tim and I continued to work on our house, we did our annual camping trip with his family which is always a great time, and we attended the most love-filled wedding I've ever been to - Jessie & Jeremy's wedding. :-)
• October is always special to me because its our anniversary month. We celebrated our third anniversary this year and we're not just married anymore, but we're now married home-owners! Tim and I also went to the Peoria Great Strides which was excellent! I was asked to speak there and we also met my blogger, CF friend, Cheriz. Finally, I had my first post-Kalydeco clinic visit where I gained 6lbs, my FEV1 increased by 5% and my small airway lung function went up by 18%!!!
• In November, Tim and I conquered 58 flights of stairs at our first CF CLIMB! Then I signed us up for the CF Rock Rivers 5K in Michigan in March, put on by the lovely Emily Schaller.
• December was full of ups and downs, and sadly ended on a very low note. We lost our great friend Jeremy on December 31. We celebrated his life in Ohio with Jessie and his family the first weekend in January, and I'm very glad we were able to attend to say our 'see you laters'.

I feel like things can only go up from here and I need to keep that positive attitude. Here's to a happy, healthy, productive and positive 2014!!!

Positive Thoughts Thursday: Health & Fall Fun

I've been totally slacking on blog posts lately, but honestly there hasn't been much going on. I'm glad that several of my other blogger friends do their "Thankful Thursday" posts each week because it reminds be to get back on here and appreciate the little (and big) things in life. :)

• Today I'm thankful for good health. I've been on Kalydeco now for six weeks. And just now, over the past couple days, I feel like I'm finally slowing down with my mucus movement. Over the last six weeks, I experienced some serious mucus movement in my lungs, especially deep down in there. Things started moving around the first few weeks I was on Kalydeco, then I got a cold which tightened my lungs for about a week. And then after that cold, I felt like I was constantly coughing my brains out! I'm pretty sure I've coughed up every color of the rainbow mucus (except maybe blue/purple...) and I've gotten a LOT of stuff out. Over the past couple days, I feel like I've finally been able to take a good, nice deep breath without coughing up a chunk of my lung. 
• Related to the above post - I'm really looking forward to my CF appointment coming up soon. I'm very anxious to know what my FEV1 is, especially now since I feel like my mucus production is slowing down. I'm also curious to see if my weight has gone up. Since starting Kalydeco, I've been having at least one, usually two, Ensure Plus's each day which is an extra 350 calories each. I hope K really helps me in the weight-gain department.
• Fall weather! I am not a fan of the heat. I enjoy sunny & 75 (Joe Nichols, anyone?). It's so much more comfortable to teach in the cooler weather. I love having the windows open all day and getting fresh air in the house. And of course, all the fall fun & fall food (aka: apple donuts!)! This weekend we're hanging out with Tim's aunt & uncle, and his sister, her husband and their two little guys! We're going to the pumpkin patch/apple orchard on Saturday -- always a good time! :)  
• Last weekend, Tim and I walked in (my third) our second Great Strides of the year. I was asked to speak at this one which I enjoy doing. I like to share my story with others, especially parents of little ones with CF to give them hope about their child's future. I was also able to meet one of my blogging cysters, Cheriz - who's now in the hospital for a tune-up- hope you start feeling better soon!! Here are some pictures from the event.

• Oh, and how could I forget?! Yesterday, Tim and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary! :-) Today marks our 7th anniversary of being together, total - seven years ago today, Tim asked me to be his girlfriend while eating lunch in the "Dog-Pound Deli". This year, not only were we husband and wife, but we also became "homeowners"! I'm looking forward to what this next year (and MANY more) has in store for us! I love you, Tim!!!! 

I'm Still Here!

I'm sorry for the lack of posts lately. The day I was planning on typing up something, I turned my laptop on to a very dark screen and a high pitch squealing noise. Of course, I texted our friend Chris, who's an HP rep and asked him what I could do, and he just suggested turning it off and that there could be several things going on...great. Thank goodness I recently backed everything up onto an external hard drive! I'm now using a desktop computer that we bought several years ago and then never ended up using for whatever reason. (I used to always give Tim crap about still having it, telling him we should have sold it....good thing we didn't!)

Right now I'm finishing up with my first cold of the season...already! It started last Monday as this awful stuffy nose and sneezing all day, so I thought at first it could just be allergies...of course not. It slowly moved into my chest, but it was different this time. I had a tight chest for a couple days and I was only coughing up yellow or clear mucus (when I was able to get anything up). I was so excited because I thought I was going to have a normal, "non-CFer" cold. Well then Sunday morning I woke up and my chest was much more open than the previous days. Thanks to good ol' hypertonic saline (the best, right, John?!), that morning I was stirring things up deep down in my lungs. So for the past couple days I've been working really hard to get all of this really deep, thick stuff that had been stuck down in my lungs when they were too tight to get up anything. Other than a rattly cough, I've been feeling fine. I still have my appetite and energy, so I think in a couple more days I'll be back to normal.

In other news, Tim and I will be walking in another Great Strides this Saturday. I don't have a big team signed up because I haven't promoted it too much, just because it's not super close and I just wanted to check it out. I think its fun to go to other Great Strides walks to get ideas and see what they do. This one on Saturday should be fun because I might be able to actually meet one of my blogger friends, Cheriz!

Oh, I started my second bottle of Kalydeco this week! I've now been on it for a month and one day. I can't say that I have been noticing any major changes to my body, but I can tell you that I feel like I've been eating more. I have to take the Kalydeco with fat, so typically I take it with my breakfast and dinner, but sometimes that just doesn't happen, so I have to take it with a fatty snack. I've also been having two Ensure Plus's a day, one with breakfast (and my morning K dose) and one with lunch everyday at work - that's an extra 700 calories per day. I'm really hoping that's been helping with weight-gain. I can't tell right now if I've gained anything, and we don't own a scale because I'd weigh myself all the time, so I'll just have to wait and see at my next clinic appointment which is this month. I'm really hoping to see an increase in lung function, of course, but I'm actually looking forward to seeing my weight, too.

CF Awareness Month Blog #31 - THANK YOU!

Thank you for reading all 31 posts (or the ones you did read!) this month on my mission to help raise awareness of Cystic Fibrosis.

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement from commenting on some of my posts. I love to know that my readers are enjoying what they're reading.

Thank you to anyone and everyone who's ever donated to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation!! Every dollar makes a difference and you're helping to keep me healthy! For that, I cannot thank you enough.

Thank you to everyone who has participated in a Great Strides event! Along with raising money for research, they are wonderful for getting people involved and gaining public awareness for CF.

Thank you to those who have shared my blog with others to help spread awareness of my personal story with Cystic Fibrosis. I hope to be reaching CFers and parents of CFers, and I want them to know that it is possible to live happily & fully with CF.

CF Awareness Month Blog #30 - Raising Awareness

At the bottom it says:
THEY KEEP YOU ALIVE

• I hope to be spreading awareness by sharing my story with you through this blog, and I hope that you'll share it with the people you know. It's been fun to share some more about my CF story through this month's blog posts.
• I'll be able to share something with you in July that should help spread more awareness... :-)
• I've created a Facebook page for my Great Strides team (Colleen's Friends & Family) where I update year-round. 
• Participating in Great Strides is a wonderful way to raise money and awareness of Cystic Fibrosis for anyone!
• Even just wearing my Great Strides, Out Run CF and/or Rock CF shirts out in public and to my 5Ks help raise awareness...especially when they're as cool as my new Rock CF shirt (get yours here!) ----->
• How do you help raise awareness of CF??

Positive Thoughts Thursday

First of all, I want to apologize for neglecting to post any positive thoughts over the last month. Tim and I have been through some stressful, crappy stuff over the past few weeks - which is when I should have probably been trying to really focus more on the positives - and I've been feeling pretty crabby lately. Thankfully, I feel like I'm coming around out of that slump a little at a time, and I felt it was necessary to get back into my positive thinking ways...

• A few weeks ago I started taking a probiotic and man, do I feel great! I am less bloated and gassy in general and my bathroom trips have been less frequent. I'm also still trying to monitor my calorie intake and blood sugars to try and stay as regular as possible. I'm hoping the combination of all of these things will help me start gaining the weight back I need.
• Although I have learned quickly that the end of the year is almost (if not more) stressful than the beginning of the year as a teacher, my class and I have had a lot of fun days in the past couple weeks. We went bowling (supposed to go to the zoo, but it was rainy and cold); we went to the YMCA where the kids were able to swim and play in the gym; and just yesterday we had Play Day where we travel from station to station outside all afternoon. There was a bounce house, inflatable slide, inflatable obstacle course, a water station, snow cones, tug of war, dodgeball, and sack/relay races. I am so happy that I'm healthy enough to run around with my kids and be able to participate in all of this fun stuff with them! :-)
• Tim and I are house hunting! Since I have found a job that I love and Tim's now in a stable job, and we're closer to Tim's family, we're looking to buy a house! This is a huge goal of mine (to be a homeowner) and is one of the things that I wasn't sharing about a month ago when I mentioned I was working towards one of my goals. We are currently under contract on a house and are waiting to close (this has been the stress of my life for the past few weeks because it is NOT going according to plan, but I'm keeping this post positive!). I'm hoping soon that I'll be able to post that we're officially homeowners. 
• Last Saturday was my second Great Strides of the season and it was so much fun. We had family on both sides show up to walk on the chilly, windy but sunny day. After the walk, Tim's sister Katrina,
  Tim and I played on the playground with our nephew, Isaac for a while -it was so fun!! I can't believe how big he's getting! See the adorable pictures below. :)
• Kitten update: The kittens are 4 weeks old today! We were able to see them while we were in town for Great Strides last weekend. They are hilarious. Their eyes are open and they're learning to walk, but they stumble all over the place. They are also learning how to play together which is hysterical! I think we sat there for about 2 hours just watching them. 
• Oh, how could I forget?? I'm an aunt to a third nephew!! Tim's other sister, Elise, had her second son, Liam, on Monday, May 6th! He's soooo cute and I cannot wait to go see him in June to celebrate his big brother's third birthday! :-)
• I've started running again and boy did I miss it! A couple days ago I ran 2.4 of my 3.5 mile route! :) Tim and I signed up for a 5K in June (the same one I did for my first 5K last year) so I'm prepping for that. I'm so happy that my body hasn't lost a lot of the endurance I had in the fall since I took the winter off. 

3 1/2 week old kittens

This is our little guy - still haven't agreed on a name yet for him

My favorite picture from Great Strides! Aunt Colleen & Isaac! :)

Running around the park with Isaac

Tim and I just hanging out on the dinosaur!

Weeeee!

He loved peeking through that thing

Haha...that slide was painful on our hips...I think we were a little too big!

3rd Annual DeKalb Great Strides

As I have been posting for several weeks now, this past Saturday was my first Great Strides walk of the season. I was really looking forward to this one because for the past two years I've been very involved with the planning and organization, and this year I was able to just be a guest. I'm not going to lie, I was a little sad that someone else planned "my" walk this year, but there would have been no way for me to do it living three hours away. Overall, I felt we had a pretty good turn out...considering the wind chill was about 30 degrees and there were a little bit of flurries the night before and the morning of the event. Here are some pictures from the walk:

Everyone bundled up

And we're off!

NIU Drumline pumping everyone up as they walked
through the balloon arch to start :)

Part of Colleen's Cortland Crew! Smiling despite being freezing! :-)

The coldest part of the route! Nothing to block the wind.
If you enlarge the picture, you can see how many people are
walking ahead on the sidewalk!

Raffle prizes - $1 for 1 ticket, $5 for 6, or $10 for a wingspan
I chose a wingspan of my giant friend and got 41 tickets....still didn't win anything though!
Oh well, it's for a good cause, right?!

Most of Colleen's Cortland Crew! :-)

As of Friday, the day before the walk, the walk site had raised almost $15,000. The goal this year was $37,000....I really hope the weather didn't impact the donations that may have been turned in that day! As soon as I know the grand total I'll be sure to update.

A huge THANK YOU to all of my friends who braved the cold & wind to show your support for me and all others with Cystic Fibrosis! Your dedication means SO much to me!!!

Positive Thoughts Thursday

Sometimes I feel like I use this blog to vent/complain about things going on in my life, and I don't want to continue with all of that negativity. So each week I'm compiling a list of positive, happy, lucky, fortunate things that are going on in my life or anywhere around the world.

• I can't believe I didn't post this when I first heard about it! Another wonderful advancement in CF treatment! It's a powder inhaled form of the antibiotic TOBI (which I nebulize every other month) -- I might have to bring this up with my CF doctor at my next clinic visit.
• Tim and I took part in something this weekend that's very meaningful to me and I cannot wait to share it with you. It'll be shared this summer.
• One of my students called me "the funniest teacher" today! It made me smile. :-)
• I know I've been sharing this one a lot, but I'm very excited. My first Great Strides event of the year is on Saturday! 

Positive Thoughts Thursday

Sometimes I feel like I use this blog to vent/complain about things going on in my life, and I don't want to continue with all of that negativity. So each week I'm compiling a list of positive, happy, lucky, fortunate things that are going on in my life or anywhere around the world.

• This week the weather has been progressively getting warmer! I am not a fan of the cold or the hot, but warm is right up my alley! I'm loving the warm sunshine and that it's staying light much later. 
• There are only 37 school days left this year! I cannot believe it!! This school year has FLOWN by so quickly and it's been so much fun. This is the first year I don't really have any concrete summer plans, and I'm actually looking forward to being able to pretty much do whatever I want all summer.
• Next weekend is my first Great Strides event of the year and I'm really looking forward to it! So far my team has raised $195!
• I'm happy to have such great communication with my husband. I love how open and honest we are with each other. I feel like we are very good at compromising and working together at everything. I cannot imagine it being any other way. He makes me so happy. :-)

Kind of off topic, but please read my previous blog post and comment, comment, comment. I saw a great question from CysticLife and I think it'll spark some great blogging ideas for me (especially this summer!).