Recovering

May 31, 2008 at 4:46 pm | In Cystic Fibrosis, Life in General | 3 Comments
Tags: recovering, sinus surgery

Hi everyone! It has been a while since I last posted and so much has gone on. I warn you I am quite out of it, doped up on pain pills right now. Thursday afternoon I had my first ever sinus surgery to fix my severe chronic sinusitis. I think the surgery went well. Doc cleaned out my sinuses and I think he did some things to help them drain better. Doc also fixed my severely deviated septum, which was causing me to get chronic sinus infections (which would end up causing lung infections) in my right side. I went into this surgery quite ignorant because I didn’t want to worry about the details about what was going to happen to me. So I can’t really tell you what happened.

Continue reading Recovering…

Big oops!

May 21, 2008 at 7:10 am | In Challenges, Nutrition, diabetes | 1 Comment
Tags: fructose, HFCS, High Fructose Corn Syrup

So I thought I had been doing really well with my new high-fructose free diet. (cue the music… bum bum bummmm)…. until this morning. I never thought to read the lable of my yogurt container, it’s yogurt, it should be good for you! But turns out I was waaay wrong! My favorite brand (rhymes with Bannon, with the fruit at the bottom) is pure evil!

Here are the ingredients listed in order on the container:
milk
strawberries
sugar
FRUCTOSE SYRUP
FRUCTOSE
HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP
contains less than 1% of the following…..

HOLY!!!! I never thought that yogurt could be soooooo bad! Not just one, but THREE items in the top 6. I bet if you added all the fructose up it would be more than the amount of milk in the thing! OOPS!!!

ICK ICK ICK!!!

Now what am I going to do with those six fresh containers sitting in the fridge…

Friday cookies!

May 16, 2008 at 5:55 pm | In Cystic Fibrosis, Nutrition, Recipe | Leave a Comment
Tags: no bake cookies

Hehehe! I can’t wait to try these cookies! They sound heavenly! For the most part they stick to my high fructose corn syrup free diet (is there a better word than diet?). I will be replacing the brand name m&m’s with maybe something organic and fructose free if I can find them in the grocery store. I am guessing chocolate chips (even Toll House is HFCS free!) may melt, but I am going to try that if I can’t find HFCS-free m&m look alikes. But everything else checks out ok! My tummy is grumbling already in anticipation!

M&M’s No Bake Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup evaporated milk
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped salted peanuts
1/2 pound M&M’s candies
1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:

Stir the sugar, butter and milk in a saucepan over medium-high heat
Bring to a boil, stirring continuously; boil for 1 minute
Remove from the heat and stir in the remaining ingredients
Drop onto wax paper or tray using tablespoon
Set in the refrigerator for 1 hour to cool

Positive vibes needed for mom

May 15, 2008 at 7:43 pm | In Cystic Fibrosis, Life in General, Support | Leave a Comment
Tags: mom

Mom had surgery on Tuesday. She was supposed to be released from the hospital today, but she spiked a fever and her oxygen levels dropped. Turns out she has a lung infection.

I am a bit worried since my lung bugs are acting up again and I just saw her on Mother’s day. I hope I am not giving my infections to her. Mom had a really bad lung infection last year resulting in a partially collapsed lung, and cultured the same evil bacteria that I always do. I am really worried that I may have to stay away from mom because I am bad for her health.

Please send positive healthy vibes for momma. Last thing she needed was an infection on top of recovering from surgery.

One good thing is that she hasn’t lost her spunk. When she was told she had a lung infection she told the doc that she has a daughter with cystic fibrosis. The doc said immediately that “oh that’s a childhood disease”… ummm… excuse me doc! How could a doc be so insensitive as to say something like that to a parent! Mom threw a fit about the doc’s rude comment, almost throwing the doc the bird. (wish I could have been a fly on that wall!)

I hope tomorrow will bring a better, more knowledgeable doctor.

(anyone know if carriers of the DF508 mutation have a lot of symptoms of CF?)

It’s smoothy time

May 15, 2008 at 6:29 pm | In Cystic Fibrosis Related Diabetes, Life in General, Nutrition, Recipe, diabetes | Leave a Comment
Tags: raw foods, smoothie, vegetarian

I received a recipe from one of my favorite readers for Smoothies! YUM!

As I may have mentioned before, I did a test (accidental as usual) when I was sick several months ago. I found out I felt awesome (a huge difference) the next morning if I ate a vegetarian dinner the night before. Realizing how much of an effect my food intake has on how I physically feel, I think this sparked something in me, wanting to eat healthier.
For those who are interested in eating healthier too, I thought I would share this recipe with you. If I have a chance to make it to the grocery store this weekend (why does the good grocer have to be 45 min away?!!) I am going to try it out.

Here you are!

basic breakfast…

2 cups water
2 or 3 bananas
6 or large dates
2 tblspn raw almond butter (expensive, start with roasted almond butter)
2 tblspn raw tahini (sesame seed butter, good fats and protein content)
salt to taste (I use 1/4 t-spn)
1/4 lb or more leafy organic greens
1 tblspn Vitamineral Green Here is a list of ingredients: http://www.veganessentials.com/catalog/vitamineral-green-organic-whole-food-supplement.htm

Variations, sometimes I’ll and any of these:
mango, strawberries, any berry, nut milk, nut ice cream, carrob, cacao, nuts ( for crunch & protein, I do this often), hemp seeds (high protein), apple, well you get the idea…

*** Here are some suggestions he had regarding my new High Fructose Corn Syrup -Free diet… ***

Replacement for soda:

btw – I would use COLA to unclog the shop sink drain at my old job! That stuff is also great paint peeler!

1. Lemon aide is great year round
Water, lemons, honey, pinch of salt….sometimes I add a little cayenne pepper for a zing

2. Fresh juicy fruit always works!

3. Water is great stuff, add a bit of fruit for flavor.

Various gunky topics

May 12, 2008 at 7:45 am | In Challenges, Cystic Fibrosis, Tune-up, airway clearance, insurance | 10 Comments
Tags: bronchiectasis, Frequencer, IPV, lung infection, lungs, pneumothorax, Smart Vest, The Vest

One of my difficulties in staying healthy while living with Cystic Fibrosis is airway clearance. I have to spend time every morning and evening focusing on getting the thick and sticky mucus out of my lungs. Something that may take a simple clearing of the throat in someone who is “normal” may take me five minutes of super hard coughing to clear out. I just don’t have the “umph” that normal lungs have, plus if you include the fact my mucus is somewhere between the consistency of a milkshake and cement, and it is obvious why it is so hard for me to clear my airways.

Stuck mucus is the perfect breeding ground for bacteria. When bacteria takes over it causes an infection, similar to pneumonia, we call it a CF exacerbation (exacerbation means “to increase the severity, bitterness, or violence of (disease, ill feeling, etc.); aggravate”). For me it means 3 weeks of IV antibiotics to tame the evil bacteria. Continuously I have an infection since I can never clear out enough of the mucus that hangs out in my lungs despite taking hours a day doing breathing treatments which include inhaling medications, inhaling super-salty-saline, and doing physical therapy with my Vest, or having a family member or friend literally beat on my body. So my treatments vary to the degree my infection is on any given day. Infections cause permanent damage to the lungs, bronchiectasis, pneumothorax (collapsed lung), and some other really horrible things.

Continue reading Various gunky topics…