I am a total slacker!

Wow! I can't believe how much of a slacker I have been! For anyone who has been still trying to keep up on my life and hasn't given up on my blog I am sorry and I hope I can fill you in on what you might have missed.
I guess the most important thing is that my friend Tanya is out of the hospital and doing fantastic! It is almost her 3 month anniversery of her new lungs and she is doing so well. Her PFT's are almost in the 60's! That is great! Mine are in the high 80's so she is almost as good as my lungs ( which most of the time is a good thing) :)
When it comes to the last few months of my life. Not a whole lot has changed. I am just about to finish up my semester and I can't wait to have a break. I have also found out that I will be graduating in the Spring of 2010 and I can't wait! I have had a fairly healthly semester. I am getting over a cold but luckily that is all that it turned into so far. I was worried that it would have turned into something more seeing as the weather has been so bad lately. However I am feeling a lot better than I did at the beginning of the week so I believe I will be able to stay out of the joint (aka the hospital). I just hope that I can stay out the whole winter.
My heart seems to be doing really well too. I have an appointment at the end of January and hopefully I will be able to get another fairly clean bill of health. I am going to go through the works this time. I have an echo, CT, device check, and all the other standard tests scheduled. It will be an all day deal. In case anyone doesn't know an Echo is an ultrasound of the heart. The doctors will be looking at my valves that they replaced and making sure that they aren't leaking too much. The CT is another picture of my blood vessels but it gives a closer picture of some areas in my body that have dilated arteries. And lastly the device check is where they test my ICD to make sure I haven't had to use it and that the battery is still good.
Well besides that not much is new and excited in my life right now. I have all of my finals next week so I guess I should get back to studying but I hope everyone has a great weekend and is enjoying the holiday season!

The vent is OUT!!!!

So I just got an update that Tanya got off the vent today! She is doing great! They also were able to take out all of her chest tubes today too! She is such an amazing girl! I know she will do great but as always she needs prayers to give her strength to keep up the great work. :)

New lungs are in and doing well so far!

Just a quick update. Thank you all so much for the prayers and thoughts today. I just got word a little while ago that Tanya made it out of surgery a few hours ago and everything went well. Now it's just a matter of the drugs wearing off and having her wake up and start the recovery process. But everything has gone really smoothly up to this point which is great. Thanks again to everyone. I just ask for continued prayers for her speedy recovery.
God Bless
Tiff

URGENT!!! PRAYER REQUEST!!!

To anyone that happens to read this today. I am calling in a favor. One of my really good friends that has been on the transplant list for 241 days is in surgery right now getting her new lungs! So far things are going great. They started putting in the new lungs in a few hours ago so they should be almost finished but it's not possible to have too many prayers going around. If you have a second to breathe today I ask that you take that second to also say a prayer for her as she is undergoing this tremendous battle. Also please say a prayer for the donor family. I can not imagine the pain they are going through.I just wish I could thank them for giving her a second chance at a full life. I will keep everyone updated as I learn more.
God Bless
Tiff

WOW I am such a slacker!!!

K so I promise I am still alive and kicking! :) I have been such a slacker lately with posting blogs. Life has been a little chaotic the last month or so. I have been car searching for about 2 months and about a month ago I found one from a private seller and have been working with her up until saturday when we finalized everything and I got to take my baby home! I love it! It's an '05 Mazda3 and it is gorgeous! Also besides that I have been working my crazy amounts of hours up until this week between 2 jobs but now I am offically down to just one. (well I guess two again if you count me going back to school today.) ;) I did have my first day back to classes again and I already can't wait for the semester to be over!..lol JK I think this will be a fun semester.
I guess I should back up a little bit...on my last blog I was really excited about my birthday week coming up. I had an amazing time! I got to spend time with everyone in my family and a lot of my friends. I also had an awesome birthday party at Kristauf's! Thanks to everyone that came out to it! I had a blast! (which I guess if you were there you could tell.) ;-)
Ummm..Oh another thing that has happened sense the last time I updated everyone is that I had my 10 week check up post surgery with cardiology, I got an almost clean bill of health...which for me is awesome! :) My cardiologist that implanted my device said that it is looking fantastic and I have yet to use it! :) And my other cardiologist said that my heart is still stable and my aorta is still at the same size it has been at for years so they aren't worried about it. They are just going to keep checking it in the future to make sure it doesn't change. :) Also, I had another exercise test to check my function now that I'm not on meds and it looks great! This is the first time I've had an exercise test that didn't end in surgery so I was really excited! And I got the go ahead to get back in the gym. :)
Well sorry to talk everyone's ears off but I guess that's what happens when I procrastinate posting. So I'm off to start on homework. I hope everyone has a fantastic night!

My Birthday Week Begins! :)

Hey everyone,
So I know I have been a slacker on the blog posting aspect. :) Sorry, life has been a little busy. As I mentioned in the title today offically kicks off my birthday week. :) My actual birthday isn't till Tuesday but I have come up to my dad's house for the weekend and tomorrow my sister, brother in law, and neice are coming out to celebrate a little early. It should be a lot of fun, and then I think I will keep the celebration going all week. :) I'm not sure what else to say other than I offically feel back to normal now. I have full range of motion and I'm getting strangth back in my arm. I have a doctor's appointment in about a week and a half and hopefully I will get full clearence to go back to exercising and get life back to normal. I will also find out how my heart is doing overall. Hopefully my aorta has stayed the same size and will continue to do so. Well I hope everyone has a great weekend! Enjoy the sun! :)

Happy Birthday to my Sis!!!

Ok so I know I've been seriously slacking on the blog front. I am really going to try to get better at that. Life has been pretty busy lately. I got back from my family cabin in MT last weekend. It was so amazing up there. I love it. All I did for about 2 weeks is sit in the sun or on the water and visited with my old friends that come up there with us every year. It was so relaxing! Also well I was up there I started to trust my arm a little more and started lifting with it more and more and now I feel completely back to normal with it! YAY!!!! I will try to post pics when I get them from my dad tomorrow.
Of course the bad thing about vacations as everyone knows is that when you get back you are completely un-motivated to go back to work...well that happened to me. :) I love my job don't get me wrong. But it was a very long and hard week and by the time I got home last night all I did was sit on my couch and sleep for awhile and then move to my bed and fall asleep again. But it felt really good to catch up on my sleep. :)
Well like it says in the title today is my sister's birthday!!! later tonight her and her husband are coming down and we'll all go out to celebrate. It should be a lot of fun. :)
Well I better get back to cleaning my apartment. It has gotten really messy this week and it's driving me crazy. :)
I hope everyone has a good weekend!

I'm still here...sorry I haven't updated :)

Hey all,
I hope everyone is enjoying their beautiful Father's Day weekend! I'm sorry I haven't posted in quite awhile. Everyday I've been feeling better and better. It took me about the full week after I was discharged to get my full energy back to normal so that I can work all week. Now I'm feeling basically back to normal. I really don't have any pain and my swelling and bruising is almost gone. The only thing now is waiting for the 6-8weeks to be up so that I can move my arm above my head. I'm really worried that my shoulder might freeze up because I can't move it the full range of motion. But I am doing limited range of motion every day. I've started to use weights to get my strangth back.
I've also started a new med to control my everyday arrhythmias. This will also help my blood pressure because without rhythm meds it seems to want to be boarderline high. So now I'm on a med that is really helping with my BP and rhythm.
Well I hope everyone is doing well. I have to catch trax now cuz I'm going home on frontrunner today to spend the weekend with my dad.
Happy Father's Day to all! Especially my dad! He's awesome!

FREE AT LAST!!!!

So I am finally free! My levels weren't quite high enough yesterday but since my doctors knew I wanted to go home so badly, they made me promise that I would get my blood work checked today and call in the results. Which I did and my levels are finally where they need to be. I am free! lol If you couldn't tell I'm a little happy to be home. My dad came down and brought me back to Ogden yesterday afternoon and then this evening he will take me back to my apartment. Unfortunatly, because of my surgery I am not allowed to drive for about 5 more weeks. I am just so happy to be home and able to get back to life. I hope everyone has a great day off even though it's raining. Thanks for all your prayers this week, they really helped me get through this.

Still Here!

So so much for going home today. My levels are still too low for me to go home. This morning they were at 1.6 and they need to be at 2.5. The docs came in and said we will just keep doing the higher doses of meds and hope it comes up faster but they think I will be here till Sunday at least. So so much for a relaxing weekend at home. I hope everyone enjoys the long weekend. :)

On the road to recovery!

So I did finally get my surgery on Tuesday. I didn't end up going in till amost 3pm though. Everything went really well. I got back to my room about 6ish? I think. I felt really good so I ate a little and decided to go for a walk...big mistake. The meds were still in my system and I walked a little too far so I ended up almost passing out. After I recovered from that I just slept the rest of the night. Yesterday was better. I am able to get up and back in bed by myself now, and nowI just have to wait for my med levels to be back to normal which hopefully will be tomorrow. Well sorry this is short but I'm only typing with one hand so I'm really tired. Hop everyone has a good day.

So much for surgery today..

So just to update you all about my wonderful day. I was told last night that the first case being done today might fall through which meant I might go in in the morning. If not I wouldn't go in till probably 4. Well they did do the first case but they ended up not finishing it till 5pm! So my doctor came in and said it would be really better if we could move mine to tomorrow since it was so late and they were all tired. So after not having anything to eat for 18 hours!..I was able to get a huge dinner! It tasted so good! I was actually getting really weak from not eating. So now the plan is for me to go in at noon tomorrow. I am my doc's first case but there is a simple case before me. So I will probably not be out till 4ish tomorrow afternoon. Also with this being pushed back it means I will be in here probably till Thursday at the earliest. Well I wanted to just give everyone a heads up on what's going on. I will post tomorrow if I'm up to it. Have a good night.

Bored in the Joint! (hospital)

So a few of my friends started calling the hospital the joint and it's kind of caught on. :) Today sounds like it should be pretty quite. Yesterday they started me on heprin to control my blood and they have been having a hard time getting it with in range. Normal is 60-80 and mine was >150 so they have been changing my dose all last night and poking me a lot so I'm kind of tired today. So today the plan is to just keep poking me and getting my levels to where they need to be. But I better get back to my room but I will post later tonight or tomorrow before I go in. I hope everyone enjoys the sun. :)

Off to the hospital once again. :(

So I'm going to be heading to the hospital in probably about twenty minutes and I'm kind of nervous. It's been almost four years since I've been in at PCMC. I have a feeling I'm going to get very little sleep and be kind of bored. :) I also found out that I'm not till second case on Monday so I probably won't even go in till noon or later! That's the part I'm not looking forward to. So if I could get some prayers thrown my way I would greatly appreciate it. :) I will post later when I am settled in my room. I hope everyone enjoys their sunny weekend! :)

I'm not homeless anymore!!! :)

I'm finally connected to internet in my own home again! These last two weeks have been crazy. I've been bouncing from spare bed to spare bed finally being able to sleep in my own bed and own room on Thursday. :) I have just been trying to get everything unpacked all week, and as you probably figured out I just got my computer set up. :) It's nice to have my own space again.
Unfortunatly with being finally moved in I really only have my surgery to focus on now. If you didn't know, I am having a ICD placed on Monday. It basically is just a defibrillator that is implanted into my heart in case I kick into a fatal rhythm, which it will shock me out of. It is a fairly simple procedure but I will be in the hospital for almost a week. I am being admitted on Saturday which sucks because this weekend is going to be gorgeous! Well I better get to bed but I hope everyone has a great rest of the week. I will post again probably before I am admitted. :)

Happy Birthday Maliea!

This day last year one of the most amazing and fun babies came into my life. My neice was born and has been the joy of my life ever since. Today is her first birthday! I can't believe how fast it has gone by and how quickly she has grown! I wanted to dedicate this blog to her today. She has so much potential in life and I know she will do great things. I love you baby girl.
I will try to post some pictures tomorrow.
I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Moving!

So as you can see from all the pics I'm moving out today! I'm going to miss this place...kind of. :) My dad, sis, bro-in-law, and friend are all coming to help move all this stuff tonight. I really appreciate it because I don't know if I could do it by myself. My mom came yesterday and helped me clean and pack everything. She is the packing queen I think.

The problem with me moving today, however, is that I can't move into my new place for about 2 weeks! But I have to be out of here by the 30th so I will be living out of my suitcase for a few weeks. I can't wait till I can move into my new place and not be living in limbo.

Also since I have everything in boxes I won't have as much access to the internet as normal so I probably won't post for a few weeks. But I hope everyone has a great weekend! Yay for sun...and soon summer! (if we're lucky)

I'M DONE!!!!

I finished my paper!!! YEE HA :) I am so relieved to have it done. I've been working on it all weekend. Now the only thing I have to finish is my hand out for my presentation and I'm done with the semester! I'm so relieved. Except now I get to focus on getting my whole apartment packed up by this weekend so I can move. Now I can't wait till I'm finished moving into my new place so I don't have everything in boxes.
This weekend was a lot of fun however, (besides the hours I spent typing at a computer) I got to spend time with my family and see some of my best friends. I got to see my favorite neice. She is such a little diva already and she's not quite a year! I will have to put some pictures up one of these days.
I hope everyone had a great weekend and good luck with another work week. :)

Inspired!!!

So I'm so excited! I have been thinking about an idea for my final paper. (I have to come up with my own developmental theory on child/human dev.) Anyway, I spoke with my professor because I thought I was way off base on my theory and she says it's great and I should go forward with it. So I have had a few brain storming sessions and I'm way excited to put everything down on paper once I'm finished with all my research. Now it's just a matter of beating the clock because I have exactly one week to finish it. But there's a light at the end of the tunnel! :) Hope everyone is having a great week so far!

1 more week and I'm done!

So I officially only have one more paper to write for the semester! The problem is I only have a week to do it and I'm not exactly motivated to start it. So if anyone has any motivating words please send them my way. I just can't wait till April 23rd! I will be done with the semester and I won't have to think about it again for about 4 months! Well I guess one thing I can look forward to that's a little closer is I get to work transplant clinic tomorrow and see all my favorite heart kiddos. I love those kids they are so inspiring to me. Well I hope everyone has a good night. :)

Way Too Late To Be Awake

So I got home about an hour ago from a girl's night with my awesome old co-workers. We had a blast playing Texas Hold'em even though I finished third. ; ) Anyway I got home and decided that instead of doing the sensible thing and going to bed, I would stay up and set up my blog. Sense it definitely couldn't wait till tomorrow right? :) Well now I guess I really better get to bed sense I have to get up at a decent hour to go to church and write a final paper for one of my classes.