Pseudemonas

Heavy.

Not exactly what I wanted to hear at all. It's a wretched bug to grow before transplant and it's not much more pleasent afterwards when you stir it with a low immune system.

Still, there's no difference between today and yesterday except that I have this knowledge. And I think that's probably the healthiest (pardon the pun) way to look at it as worrying won't change the weather.

I've taken Ciproxin (smarties), Augmentin Duo and Zitromax since Christmas so I think that maybe a different route, approach and tactic may be required. Read through the lines what you will. Apply literal meanings where you see fit. I'll keep y'all updated. Remember, never and dont't worry until I tell you to.


What is Pseudemonas???

Dr Wiki says: P. aeruginosa is an opportunistic human pathogen, most commonly affecting immunocompromised patients (that's me), such as those with Cystic Fibrosis(that's me again!) or AIDS (ahem, definately NOT me!!!)

Infection can affect many different parts of the body, but infections typically target the respiratory tract (e.g. patients with CF or those on mechanical ventillation), causing bacterial pneumonia. Treatment of such infections can be difficult due to multiple antibiotic resistance.

Random

I debated whether to post this video, because I fear some people won't "get" it. I think it's funny. If you don't, then insert witty saying !!!



Also I know that piracy can be a touchy subject for some readers, and perhaps this video might stir some guilty feelings inside some of us. I of course, have a clean conscience, because I think that movie pirating is a terrible crime. And no, my editions of The Butterfly Effect, High School Musical 2, In America, The Departed are NOT pirated. Somebody bought those for me fair and square from a kind gentleman at a stall in Thailand. Well they had to give him a list first and then return half an hour later and pick them up, but they were a GREAT bargain, even though they didn't come with a box. Anyway point is, piracy is theft. You should look out for great deals like I found, they're a steal!!

Go On Ya Good Thing!

Finally, we have someone representing us in the Eurovision who we can be proud of.



I will write more about this once I start talking to my laptop again.

Hearing The Birds Sing When You Come Home

I'm all for taking it easy and partying hard, but 5am is stretching it. Even for me.

Newbies

Since my 'V' key ran away, my spacebar developed arthritus and my whole laptop seemed to put on weight making it rather immobile in terms of bringing it to college, to the library, to parties, I decided to buy another one.

All mine:



Just the black one, not all three, because having more than two laptops would be a little bit ridiculous.

Congratulations to G-raze who now drives a new car. It's silver, imagine how much that would cost!!!

Thank You

To whoever it was that reversed into the side of Delilah, left no note and drove away.

So mean.

You swines!

National Rifle Association

(National Rifle Association website)

And one wonders why North America has such problems with shootings these days..

An Observation

Today someone phoned me on my mobile. I didn't recognise the number so was a bit pancaked as to who it was.

I answered.

It was a lady, not an old lady, but not a young lady, but you'd have an idea if you heard her, aged lady.

I said "hello?"

She said "Hi, only me"

Thinking it was my Mom, I said "Oh hi"

*Silence*

Then she stuttered and said "Sorry I must have the wrong number, I'm looking for Olive..."

( I resisted the temptation to shout "Oh POP-EYEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" )

So we hung up. But my Mom uses that *exact* gentle tone whenever she phones home. It's not a brash, colonol's "Hello. It's. Me." but rather a mothering "only me" - just simple, "you're-not-expecting-my-call-but-here-I-am-anyway".

Do all moms do that? Maybe it's universal. That is all.

Skiing

As some of you may remember, I spent a few months last year during Skiing season finally learning how to ski. On our dry slopes here they have five sets of lessons: A-E. 'A' for people who have never been on skis before and 'E' for which "teaches variations on the parallel turn, practising techniques for confident and efficient mastery of the pistes!"

Last year I got as far as D4.

I got back up tonight and I had forgotten everything. EVERYTHING. It didn't help that they gave me 140 size skis and not 150s which I'm used to. That set me off because it was different and I don't like change.

So I'm off to book lessons.

Still, my friend who I went with is 17 so when they asked her age they presumed I was the same age, so I paid child's fare.

Rosie: 1, System: 108583025872. Take that SYSTEM!!!

Results:

Well if truth be told I had a pretty crummy Sunday and a pretty tiring weekend (except for EILEEN's party obviously). Clinic was scheduled for tomorrow but last night I just felt so 'wan' I decided to ring up and go over this morning. Or get my Mom to ring and then I'd go over.

Interestingly, to my amazment, my lung functions are great! They're at about 3.04Litres which equates to 97-98%! So that means that my lungs are still functioning good (no rejection), despite the yucky symtoms I've been experiencing.

Got blood first go (like turning on a tap in fact) although the only results I heard back this afternoon were my White Blood Count which was "normal".

My glands are swollen at the moment though and so this morning it seemed combined with my symptoms that glanduler fever (tiredness and 8 hour naps!) was the culprit. But then the doctor this afternoon disagreed. So "mystery illness" it is then!

They are examining my blood for all sorts of sorts so hopefully that will show something and nothing. In the meantime I'm on a course of Zitromax (we are "treating this blindly" for the moment).

Now aren't you glad I poured my inner most health thoughts out. So we can now go back to not worrying again ;)

Same Old & Parties

Some of you who have been wasting your lives reading this dribble for a while will remember EILEEN. She used to be the one I always had to mention but then I stopped. Anyway you oldies will be interested to know that EILEEN is also growing old. She's now (nearly) 21! It was her party tonight in fact. We went to a restauant and had nice food and then went off out to McGowan's.

I went off to a lecture in Trinity today where I learned all about careers available for psychologists. Then I went shopping and searched high and low for the present I wanted to get the girl and couldn't find it anywhere!

Anyway along my travels I received a text fromher. Having read this blog she was concerned I was rather unwell and perhaps I shouldn't come out after all. Now, I don't remember but I'm sure I said 'I'm not worried so you (all) don't need to be either" and that still stands. Yes I am sick but most importantly, I STILL HAVE MY APPETITE. And as I mentioned, EILEEN'S party was at a restaurant - paid for!!

...In all seriousness though, please don't be getting worried about me! I'm fine. And I'll have a much clearer picture of things on Tuesday where I promise to blog right from the clinic walls*.

Things I enjoyed tonight: Being able to sit down with friends and have a three course BIG meal. If you did not know me 19months ago, you may not realise just how significant that is. (Anyone from school remember me trying to eat a banana for lunch?!)

Anyway, happy birthday, birthday girl! She doesn't have any friends so please wish her a happy birthday if you read this; it will make her feel like a human.

*So not happening but you get me!

Aimless Naps etc Continued...

Well I rang my team this afternoon. Just because I felt I should. My wrist was a bit puffy yesterday morning (kinda like old ladies' ankles are only it was in my wrist) which is a sign of fishy buisiness. They said it was probably related to this infection.

They looked up my lab results which show I'm growing Pseudemonas in my lungs (pre-transplant bug - nothing TOO much to worry about there!) and that Smarties Ciproxin should work for that. But alas it doesn't.

On Tuesday they'll do a full review of me and may do a "few extra tests" and "have a look at a few things". I'm itching to see how my lung functions are. Most crucially (I feel like being dramatic so shush) what my nurse said was that perhaps I may be someone who needs IVs for infections if oral tablets don't work.

To be honest I'm a bit hesitant considering my past experience in September, not forgetting my absolute shiver-down-my-spine-turn-blue phobia I have for drips in my hands and arms - And I'm really not being dramatic about that one, remind me to post about that another time, it's interesting studying psychology and seeing what long term effects one can suffer from a bad experience! So if it was the case of needing IVs, perhaps an alternative to sputty lines would be looked at.

That being said, however, it might be good to wipe the slate clean with a good dose of IVs, I just hope they wouldn't be very often!

As well, I may well be jumping the gun a whole lot here, analysing where I shouldn't be analysing, so shoot me. Or go away!

Aimless Naps and Rambles

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before but I have a chest infection at the moment. It started about a month ago circa (!) New Years. Back then I took Ciproxin tablets which did nothing. I then took some Augmentin Duo tablets which did something but overall nothing. I'm about 10days off antibiotics now and unfortunately I am not much better. It's probably not an issue I should put on the back burner considering an infection after transplant is never good, let alone when it's the transplanted organ that is infected.

Apparently I missed my clinic on Tuesday but I think there were wires crossed somewhere as I had it written that it's this coming Tuesday. Nevermind. Anyway, I've been up to my eyes with assignments and assesments in college and I don't want to sound flippant about my health and blah blah(!), but I couldn't find a day to get over to see them. However it's come to the point that friends have begun to notice my productive cough and chestiness, and where I need to leave class to "cough".

So today I finished college at 3pm and went to pick up my Dad from the airport bus at about 4. I was soooooo zonked all I wanted to do was sleep. So when we got back to the house at 4.15 I went straight to bed for a nap.

I woke again at 12.30am!!! Talk about messed up clock now! I had my dinner an hour ago at 1am. I will go back to bed soon or else I fear I'll have jet lag only without the luxury of having been away anywhere.

I don't write this to get everyone worried or anything like that as if there's ever a need to worry I'll let y'all know. But this blog is about transplant too and I don't know if this excessive napping (I fell asleep at Sweeney Todd last week...) is to do with infection or just tiredness. I'll go to clinic on Monday or Tuesday and have my lung functions done and hopefully that will shed a bit of light on something!

Rant About Ranters and NonFact Readers

So in Ireland there are three children's hospitals: Tallaght Hospital, Temple Street Hospital and Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin (commonly called Crumlin Hospital).

I can't remember exactly when, I'm guessing about two years ago, it was decided that ONE hospital with everything in it should be built for the children, and ideally it should be located on the grounds of an adult hospital site. Bascially so that the country's expertised was housed in one building etc. To me it makes sense.

A report was undertaken and it looked at several hospitals around the world in order to make a list of what the new hospital should have and what it should be like if that makes sense. Then the report do-ers looked at a few different sites to relocate the new hospital: A greenfield site was one, Tallaght I think was another. So skip the light fandango and The Mater Hospital (incidentally where I attend now) site was chosen. This is located in the north inner city - loads of traffic, hard to get to from the country etc, etc.

There was hoo-haww because it happens to be in Bertie Ahearn's (Taiseach/Primeminsiter)constituency and he "coulda rigged it!".

My opinion: It should be built where RTE is located - a mere minutes away from Vincent's Hospital. It's a PERFECT site, just beside the dual carraige way (easy access) and yet it's its own site. Of course trying to get journalists to move out of RTE just wouldn't happen so it wasn't evenm considered.

ANYWAYS, browsing bebo today I come across a page entitled "SAVE OUR LADY'S CHILDRENS HOSPITAL IN CRUMLIN" which is run by a mother of five who feels "The loss of this Hospital to the local people and patients far and wide would be a great blow". I think from the gist of the site that "the loss of this Hospital to the local people" is probably the main concern. There is a great deal of bias on the site and when people come in who don't read facts and are so easily swayed by hype it gets annoying. For example some of the support comments read:

"Cant believe they want to shut down a childrens hospital -You have all the support from us mums" and "hope our stupid Government dont close de hospital down." - They're not shutting down a hospital full stop, they are relocating it. Big difference.

Most of the other comments speak of their own experiences with Crumlin but nearly ALL of them want to save Crumlin for emotinal reasons. "They saved my life" etc.

What people don't realise is that it is paramount that they rebuild the hospital. A simple 'lick of paint' or 'get it done up' won't do. Like Vincent's there are no ensuite rooms. Even in the Oncology ward which includes the Bone Marrow Transplant unit (where people are SERIOUSLY unwell - we're talking no immune systems at all) they don't have the facilities. Chemotherapy for Irish children is housed in a porta-cabin!!

The point of this ramble is one I privately...or who are kidding, PUBLICLY rant about all the time. People and moaners who sit back in their chairs, read absolutely nothing of FACT and then shout their opinion from the highest building. Everybody blames Mary Harney our health minister for what's wrong with the health service. Was she the one who mucked it up years ago? No she has been health minister for four years. Where do you begin untangelling a spider web? Are people so naive that they believe things can be fixed overnight? I'm not getting into a politics rant as goodness knows I could be here all evening.

Cruicially and this backs up my last point is that nearly ALL the comments on that page say "think of the children". Yes, we should. And that is why a new hospital is needed.

Fundraising for CF

Yesterday people shook buckets for Cystic Fibrosis in Dundrum Town Centre. My parents, my sister and I took the Tesco enterance in shifts. This was probably the most 'hands on' fundraising I've ever done (apart from collecting a euro from everyone for 'Non Uniform Day' in school). It was a really great experience as you get to witness pure generosity and kindness from strangers; it restores faith that people are good!!

Some people came up and put in money quietly and didn't want the pin or keyring in return. Others came up and had a personal connection to CF so it was nice to talk to them. Amazingly two people came up to me and said they had been in St Vincent's hospital and had witnessed what people with Cystic Fibrosis have to endure (with the lack of facilities among other things) and felt compelled to offer a contribution. And quite a number of people mentioned the 'Joe Duffy' radio show which catapullted CF into the limelight a couple of weeks ago.

On a personal note I enjoyed being able to volunteer on behalf of the CF association as it celebrates the fact that I have the health to be able volunteer! As well as this, it is a great tool for awareness and fundraising at the same time. I really feel it is so, so important to give back where and when you can.

On a related note, registration opens for the Women's Mini Marathon (10k) at the end of this month and I would strongly encourage anyone who has legs (or wheels of course) to take part. It's on the 2nd of June. Trust me, if *I* am still here typing this this year having completed it last year, anyone can do it. I was more concerned about the rain's devestating effects on my fake tan let's not forget!! If anyone is interested in walking/running/wheeling (in chairs only) around with us please contact me!

The Broken Laptop Again

I lost the letter V altogether. It might be at the bottom of my school bag, who knows. I'm getting used to writing things so that I can avoid work around the fact that I have no 'v' key.

This means limited use of words like:

Have

Love

Viola