Dr. Pepper and CF

I had an interesting observation pointed out to me not too long ago by a fellow co-worker. I'm an RT for those who don't know. Let me set the observation up for you....

Every day at lunch, I drink 2 20oz bottles of the best soda in the universe, Dr. Pepper!!! If I could take it intra-venously I would, except then you would miss out on all 23 of those wonderful, heaven sent flavors! I love it so much, Monica made my grooms cake look like a Dr. Pepper can! Back to my story, everybody at work knows I drink 2 with every lunch. I know it's bad to drink as much soda as I do, but hey it's my vice. Better that than drugs I always say, lol! A new employee one day noticed that I had 2 DP's with my daily usual of a cheeseburger and order of chicken strips with hot sauce and A1 for dipping the strips in. They couldn't believe I would drink 2 with lunch. Everyone around chimed in "Yea, he always does." One of the older RT's who works with us CFers said "Well yea he does, he has CF."

I laughed pretty hard at that, which got her and everybody else laughing hysterically! Let me first say before going on, that everyone I work with is EXTREMELY supportive of me and my CF! They are awesome and never say anything offensive about CF patients. Around me anyway, :)

So I asked her after we finished laughing, what having CF had to do with drinking so much soda? She said had a theory on this matter. Given it's just a theory, but she has been in respiratory for 40+ years and worked with hundreds of CF patients. She said she had noticed that almost every CF patient she'd ever taken care of (hundreds) drank a lot of soda! More specifically Mountain Dew or Dr. Pepper. Her theory is that we do this because of the high Sodium content in soda, especially in Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper, which have a higher content than others. In theory, it makes perfect sense right?! We lose a lot of sodium when we sweat, and our bodies need/crave more sodium. Whether it's scientifically proven or not, I was intrigued. I was reminded about this today when another new employee pointed out my 2 DP's with my lunch in astonishment. Food for thought... or should I say Soda for thought! :)

So for all you CFer's reading this post, do you drink lots of soda? If so, what kind?

Thankful Thursday: Water, Hubby, and Bubby ;)

Hey, it's Thankful Thursday time!! Last week I missed out because I was busy, so it ended up just being the hubby.... AND this week HE's busy so it will be just me!!! :)

I am thankful for water! I love water!!! And I drink ALOT of it!! I mean, really we should all be thankful for water... since we can't live without it and all. :) I stopped drinking soda and tea over a year ago and have replaced it with LOTS of water!! I actually crave cold water and I'm thankful for that! I want to be the most healthy I can possibly be and water helps me achieve that goal! Yay for WATER!

I am thankful for my hubby (huge shocker, huh?)! ;) He truly is the most Wonderful man I have ever known! He takes better care of me than I had ever expected my future husband to someday! I love you so much Pookiebear!! ;) You truly are my better half!

I am thankful for my big brother! My brother, Rick, is home for several weeks and I couldn't be more thrilled! He has been in medical school in Maine and we haven't seen him in 5 months! It is so good to have him home on break! Not only am I close to him, but Jeremy and Rick have been friends since they were little tots, so it's so good to know that Jeremy gets to spend time with one of his best buddies too!

What about you?! We'd love to hear what you are thankful for! Look around you, I know it won't take long for you to start a big list!

My Exercise of Choice... + a bonus funny

As we all know, we all should exercise. Exercise is one of the main ingredients, if not THE main ingredient, in living a healthy life. AND, as we all know, exercise is tough. It involves pushing yourself past comfort to pain. Ever heard the saying no pain, no gain? It's true. Whether lifting weights, running, whatever kind of exercise you participate in, if you're not breathing heavy, feeling your muscles burning, or saying to yourself "I want to stop!" you're probably not gaining much at all. It's hard to hear, but true.

Honestly though, once you get past the point of hating it, and dreading your workouts, you will come to look forward to it. I promise this will happen! It may take awhile, we're all different. When I was doing P90X before our cruise last year, I was doing 5 videos a week. Each video is an hour long and there are NO BREAKS! You get maybe 5 minutes of breaks in the hour video. It's craziness! At first I was loving it, because I like to be pushed physically. I enjoy the extreme aching and soreness you get the 2 days following an intense workout. Then came the dreading it phase, where it was getting tiresome to fit in an hour workout 5 days a week while working 40 hours a week, and doing my treatments and such for an hour each day.  But alas, the days began coming where I had more energy and I was really looking forward to them! I was seeing results, felt incredible, and it was totally worth all the hard work! As Monica or my buddy Matthew. I gained over an inch in each arm, an inch and a half in each leg, and was looking sexy! lol! It will happen that you look forward to your workouts, and you will see results if you stick to it!

That actually was not at all what my post today is about though. That was a freebie! :) My post today is about my exercise of choice. Swimming! Or rather playing in the pool, and swimming! Jumping on a trampoline at a place like Skyzone (a warehouse with elevated trampolines joined together to form a basketball sized trampoline floor)! Our best friends have an outdoor pool, and Monica's grandma has an indoor pool with a slide and diving board. Talk about fun! And a good workout! Every time we "swim" it turns into some sort of jumping, diving, flipping, see who can grab and hang from the rafters by jumping off the diving board, human chicken, breath holding retrieving under water objects contest! haha! Which involves a lot of physical exertion and gets the body MOVING! I cough like a banshee every time.

In fact, my buddy made a very astute observation this year. We were at his house swimming (the one with the outdoor pool), and he says "You seem to cough a lot anytime you're in the pool. You cough, but never as much as when you get in the water." He's right! Monica and my buddy's wife noticed too. For some reason simply being in the water causes me to cough a lot. And not just cough a lot, but produce a lot of sputum. In fact, one night I coughed up 2 mucus plugs while we were swimming! This is now my exercise of choice! It's fun, and it works! Now just have to convince Monica to move somewhere tropical with a pool! :)

P.S. If you want a really good workout, chop down a tree! My brother-in-law, my sister-in-law's fiance and I chopped one down Sunday and I'm sore all over! You don't realize all the various muscle groups you use when swinging an axe! Here's a few videos for you to enjoy! We have kinda made it a tradition on special occasions or just because, to chop down dead trees in my in-laws backyard!

Thankful Thursday: Six Flags and Meal Passes

HEY HEY! It's Thankful Thursday! This week will just be me unfortunately. :( I know you're all sad. Monica is making a cake for a friend's birthday that is tomorrow. She worked today and tomorrow and I'm taking her out for her birthday tomorrow night with some of our friends. Tomorrow is Monica's birthday! So make sure and drop her a comment on facebook, make her feel good and loved! Poor wifey has been busy lately! Anywho, here's my list:

I'm thankful for nearby entertainment! We live 20 minutes away from Six Flags St. Louis. It has been really nice living that close to a theme park! A lot of people say it's nothing special and they don't know why anyone would want to go there, but I for one love theme parks and am grateful we live so close to one! Monica and I get season passes every year. We can go whenever we want and not have to pay for anything. We pack lunches and the day costs us nothing except the gas there and back, and we can spend all day at the water park, and riding rides! It's definitely worth it! Especially since we're trying to save money for IVF and paying off debt. Really it helps us keep from spending as much money on entertainment during the summer. This week we had the fortune of having a day off together. Rarely do we ever have the same days off, and she works every saturday. It was awesome to have the day off together! We went to Six Flags with Monica's mom, sister, and her sister's friend and spent all day at the water park! It was awesome! Fun to ride the slides and other water rides, and we rented tubes and went around and around and around the lazy river being lazy! Definitely a good stress reliever!

This year Six Flags decided to try a new idea for a meal plan calling it a Meal Pass. One of the cities they decided to do a test launch in happens to be St. Louis! In years past, that is the one thing we would spend money on.... food. I get hungry! We would pack lunches, but I'm not big on packed lunches. I'm not much of a sandwich and fruit for lunch kinda guy. I like heavy food! I would gladly eat the sandwich and whatever else we packed, but sometimes my hunger would get the best of me and we'd have to buy a $10-12 chicken strips and fries meal. Which is outrageous for what you get. This year we saw the new Meal Pass and opted to buy it. It's $50 and includes lunch and dinner everyday! We've already used it 6 times! It's more than paid for itself, and has been awesome! I hope they keep it around!

Lastly I'll just add once again how grateful I am for my wife! I truly believe that God makes soulmates for one another and Monica is most definitely mine! I absolutely LOVE being married to her! She's the best thing to ever happen to me! I agree with a common statement Ronnie makes, that I have no idea how I got my wife! I've been asked that by people at work and all over. lol! She's amazing and I love her to death!

If you have an awesome spouse that you love to death, or something you're thankful for, leave me a comment! I'd love to read them!

Thankful Thursday: Music, Generosity, Swimming Pools

It's Thankful Thursday!! Yes, Thursday this time, not Monday. You get a double dose of thankfulness this week! Lucky you! As I say each and every week, there are so many things we can be thankful for! I can look around me everywhere and find different things to be thankful for! Without making you wait in anticipation any further, here's our lists!

Monica's List:

I am thankful for Christian music. We both love music! Most always there is music being played at our house. I'm mainly a worship music kind of girl but I also like Christian contemporary. God speaks to me through it a lot! When I'm scared, anxious, worried... a song comes on about God's peace and plans for my life. When I'm discouraged or sad, a song comes on about the joy of the Lord.... and so on. So of course it puts me in a better mood and focuses my thoughts on things of Heaven. (Colossians 3:2) Thank you Jesus for stooping down daily to show me that you love ME!!! Nothing in this world could make me feel more special!!

I am thankful for the generosity of others! I am amazed by those who have given us financial gifts for our "baby fund" in hopes of having a baby! It brings me to tears thinking of the generosity of others! Even people who hardly know us! To all of you we say THANK YOU, from the bottom of our hearts! You will never know how much it means to us! We love you all!!

Jeremy's List:

I'm thankful for Netflix and America's Funniest Videos! Monica and I don't have cable or anything, so we do a lot of streaming Netflix through my Xbox. One of our favorite things to watch is America's Funniest Videos! I love to hear my wife laugh! It's one of the best things ever! I torment her often by tickling her to the point of losing her breath laughing so hard. Not so that she can feel like me and lose her breath a lot, but to hear her laugh really really hard! I'm just kidding, I don't ever lose my breath, just trying to make a funny! :) Every time we watch AFV we end up crying laughing at something! It puts you in a great mood to laugh really hard, and we love it!

I'm thankful for swimming pools! Or should I say friends and family with swimming pools! Our friends have a pool with an awesome 3 tier deck attached. We have spent almost every saturday, sometimes friday and saturday, at their house swimming. We tease them about ruining our open invitation to their house by coming over every weekend, but I LOVE to swim! To me there's nothing like swimming on a scorching summer day! I love to feel the warmth of the sun beating against my skin, and then jumping into a cool refreshing pool to cool down! Makes you want to go swimming now doesn't it! Does me! I guess that about does it for now. I'll be heading to our friend's house tomorrow night now to swim! Catch ya on the flip side! Oh, by the way, what are you thankful for?! I know there's something! Post it so we can see what you all are thankful for! Adios!

Fear Factor Live

Monica and I went to Orlando, FL on vacation with my family this year. It was tons of fun! We hit up Daytona Beach, did A LOT of swimming and chilling by the pool, some shopping, and went to Universal Studios. While we were at Universal we noticed they have a Fear Factor Live show where people in the park are the contestants. Of course, right away I said to myself "I gotta do that!" So we showed up for the auditions and I got in! There were 9 of us that auditioned and they picked 5 of us to compete. I honestly didn't think I was gonna make it. Four of the guys that were auditioning obviously worked out, and I figured they'd get on. Two of them did, along with myself, a teacher, and a girl. They took us backstage, to get ready an hour before the show was going to start. We had to record our intro statement. Mine went as follows: "My name is Jeremy. I'm from St. Louis, MO. I'm going to win Fear Factor today because I have my best friend and biggest fan in the audience today, my wife. Gotta take it home for her. Love you babe!" Then they had to fit us for our spandex outfits and have us sign all the "I won't sue you if I die" forms. An interesting note: They informed us that underneath our spandex clothes, we could not wear our own underwear. They told us we would for sure be getting wet. Soooo, they gave us some awesome black paper tighty whitey style underwear to wear! It was hilarious! Those things were so ridiculous! lol!

After we had on our spandex shorts and shirt, and had our elbow pads, knee pads, and shoes (that I only know to describe as wet suit shoes because of the material) they took us to staging to go over the stunts again, for about the 4th time. They're very thorough! Then the show began! Whoo buddy was I nervous! Never been that nervous in my life, and I've been skydiving and all kinds of other crazy stuff! They brought us out and introduced us to the crowd. As they were harnessing us in for the first stunt they played our intro videos. The producers put the clips on a backdrop from the real Fear Factor show with the same music and everything! It was official buddy! The first stunt was an endurance stunt. We had to hang 40 feet in the air from a bent pull up bar with high speed wind blowing in our faces. I won!

The second stunt was a team stunt, 2 vs. 2. My teammate had to grab beanbags out of a tank full of eels and toss them to me while I was suspended 10 feet off the ground with a bucket to catch them in. We won that, but it didn't count. The 3rd stunt had me suspended 40 feet up again with 4 dead octopus. On go, they would release me and I would swing back and forth and my teammate had to catch the octopus in a bucket while he was strapped to the wall. He only had a 5 foot traveling radius. We won that stunt, which meant we would face each other in the final stunt! Yea buddy!!

The final stunt was the real deal legit fear factor stuff! We had to start by hopping onto crates and climbing the face of a building pulling 4 flags off of windows. Then at the top there was a flag with a key attached to it at the top of a fireman's pole. We had to grab the flag, slide down the fireman's pole and run to a yellow Fear Factor car. We had to jump in the back, climb to the front seat and put the key in the ignition and turn it. The car then would raise up 40 feet in the air and we had to climb out onto the hood to retrieve 3 flags on the cars bumper. Mind you, the car was hanging on roughly a 30 degree angle towards the front! After we pulled the flags we had to climb back in grab a fake rocket launcher from the backseat and shoot a target in the middle triggering a huge explosion! Oh and while we were climbing the side of the building, they were dumping ice cold water on us!

I know you're probably wondering by now, what place I came in. Well................I finished First Runner Up!!! Haha! Yea the other guy beat me. He was quick and had an FEV1 of way over 100%! It made me feel good to make it to the finals secretly knowing that my FEV1 was at 59% and I have CF. Of course I didn't tell anyone that, A) for fear the producers would freak out and not let me compete, and B) because I don't want or need a crutch to lean on, or special treatment. Living proof CF doesn't have to affect things you do, even when your PFT's aren't the best! If you're a CFer or even someone who tells themselves "I can't do that" a lot, get out of your own head and get out there and DO IT! Live life and enjoy it!

I put together a video of some pics and video clips Monica was able to get! My iPhone was all she had to use and the memory filled up right away, so she was trying to delete other stuff and video. Poor Monica! She didn't get my intro video, but got quite a bit! Enjoy!

Thankful..... Monday: 1000 pageviews, Wifey & Awesome Summer

Hey guys! First off it's not Thursday so don't get excited thinking you only have one more day of work til the weekend. It's Monday, so you have 4 more. You're welcome for the reminder! Sadly, as some of you may have noticed and others not, Monica and I have missed the past 2 Thankful Thursday posts. :( BOOOO! There I did it for you. We were on vacation for a couple weeks and then getting back into the swing of things following a holiday. I know they're excuses and nothing more, but there's my sob story on my delinquency of not posting. I would like to get to posting several times a week.

So, I figured I would do a Thankful Monday while I'm sitting here doing my vest! Give you guys an extra dose of thankfulness this week!

First, I'm thankful for YOU! Anyone taking the time to read this post and check out our blog. There's a million other things you could be doing besides listening to me ramble on here. So, really, thank you for reading! We passed up the 1000 pageview mark!!! I'm really excited about that! I never thought people would read what I have to say that much, so thanks for your interest and support!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Man I love being a turtle! Wait, that was wrong, I'm thankful for my wife! Awww...... yea I'm a sap! In sunday school yesterday, the teacher was asking what our most prized possession was. All I could think of was my wife. She is truly a Godsend for me. She is my bestfriend. I feel like I could handle almost anything as long as she's by my side. I'd be lost without her.

I'm thankful for summer! I absolutely LOVE summertime! My buddy opens his pool, my grandma-in-law opens her pool, we go on vacation, it's hot out! What's not to love! It's proven that sunshine puts people in better moods. Lately here in St. Louis it's been upwards of 100 degrees for the past 2 weeks. Which if you live in New Mexico or Arizona, you may be thinking yeah so what. Here in the midwest we're running 100+ temps with 70-90% humidity baby! That's how we roll! haha! I for one don't mind it a bit! I hate being cold, so you will never once hear me complain about being in the heat, sweating or sitting in the sun. My buddy and his wife, Monica and I went to a St. Louis Cardinals game on Saturday. It was a 3:10 game, and the temp was 106. My buddy and I had separate seat from our wives. The tickets were all free so that's how it worked out. Our seats were bleacher seat right behind the bullpen, which meant direct sunlight! Within 5-10 minutes our shirts had visible signs of perspiration and our arms and heads looked like we had dunked them in water, lol! I know it's weird, but I was perfectly content! I told my buddy he would have to tell me when he wanted to move (our wives had seats open by them in the shade) because I don't mind the heat. We waited about 2 innings and then moved.

I'm thankful for Cardinal games! They are so much fun! St. Louis is a HUGE baseball town. Everybody really gets into the games, and they're a blast! If you ever want to go to a game where the fans have fun even when we're losing horribly, come watch the St. Louis Cardinals! Hopefully we'll make it 12 in '12 this year! That is winning 12 World Series Championships through 2012! Go CARDS!

So what are you thankful for?!!?!?!