To Maine

Wednesday morning we got up early, finished packing the car, and got on the road around 930. We had to stop to do a small adjustment to the roof rack, but otherwise it was pretty clear. The drive was smooth though DC, when we hit traffic. We continued on and hit traffic again by NYC. With our few stops to grab food and gas, we got the the Airbnb around 930. It was supposed to be a 9 hour drive, so this was later than expected, but ok. Went through 6 states today, but were in 8 total.

While driving through NYC, there were signs about snow for today and to avoid travel. When we checked, it liked like it would hit new haven around 7am, and Boston around noon, but north of NH we would be ok. We successfully got on the road by 7am, and we were off! Had an easy drive and got to Patty and Jays Maine house around 2. We love it! Had some time to settle in and a good night. We were in 4 states today, so went through 11 total in the trip (NC, VA, DC, MD, DE, NJ, NY, CT, MA, NH, and ME)

Friday we spent time with Stella in the morning, then picked up Bosun! 

Stella was not quite sure, but interested. Bosun just wanted to play with his new big sister. We kept a close eye all night, and Bosun did ok in his crate but there was some crying. We got up at 330 Saturday when we decided 5 hours for the first night wasn’t bad. Stella was more open to Bosun in the morning, and they have had some sweet moments, like this 

Bosun played in the snow for the first time and learned to walk on a leash. we have a ton of cute photos and some videos too! We are lucky that he is eating fine and even knows how to use a puppy pad already!

This morning Stella and Bosun figured out his to play with each other, and it was adorable. We are in love with this little guy. He did better in his crate last night too!

Happy heart day

Forgot to post this the other day - we are heading out in the morning to pick up to get puppy!

 I’ve started to be contemplative. A year ago we started the blog as a way to keep everyone informed about what was going on with the transplant process. It has become a place to reflect, advocate, and share.

I’m definitely feeling thoughtful about this, and expect I will going forward. I was talking to a cardiac nurse and the dcd study is over. If I was needing my heart now, I would most likely have to wait a whole lot longer.

Yesterday I woke up with pain in my ear and a sore throat. I assumed it was related to swimming, and we called the on call nurse who said to go to urgent care. It wasn’t strep, and my ears looked ok, but they gave me antibiotic ear drops and said to use Flonase. The ear is a little better today, but throat was really raw this morning. They aren’t worried for COVID, but hoping this feels better tomorrow since we leave wed morning. 

Today my goal is to be productive so we can finish puppy proofing the house, put away laundry, and start packing. Snowy Maine, we can’t wait to be there and meet our puppy!

Revelations

 It has been a busy week.  We got our first SunBasket, and so far are really liking it.  We had a morrocan chicken dish the first night that had great flavor, a fire roasted tomato shrimp with polenta dish the second, and a belizian chicken stew over coconut rice the third.  We had planned to make our fourth dish on Thursday, but didn't have an oven to cook it with. 

I think I mentioned that after Thanksgiving our dishwasher broke.  We needed to replace it quick, and had already been thinking about replacing our fridge.  It ended up being much more economical to switch from white to stainless steel for everything.  Peter installed the dishwasher after buying it in store, and we had the fridge and microwave delivered last week.  The oven was dented, so they instead delivered it Thursday . . . but had installation for Saturday.  This derailed our plans a little, but we made it work.  The new oven is great, and we enjoyed our vegetarian dish of quinoa with chickpeas, carrots, and onions.  Price wise 4 meals for the two of us is about comparable to two meals of take out, so although it is a little more than what we usually spend in groceries, we are finding it much easier to cook when there is a set plan and recipe already.  Plus, the meal plan we chose has meals that all come out to 600 calories, so it is helping with our portions. 

I've gotten to the pool 3 times this week, which is exciting.  I've done a mix of walking with exercises at the end and swimming.  Back stroke seems to be the best stroke for me thus far.  I had a revelation today.  I had finished the length of the lane, and was catching my breathe at the end.  My breathing was heavy and my heart was pumping, so my immediate thought was I better not push it.  I realized that this thought was born out of 12 years of living in heart failure.  It used to be unsafe for me to push myself, and in some ways I think I've developed an aversion to actual exercise that pushes my limits.  Thinking on it, the few times I have had to keep pushing since transplant, on two hikes that were longer and/or more elevation than expected, I did just fine.  And I was not wiped out the next day.  I made myself keep swimming, and I was a little tired.  But I don't really remember that this is an ok feeling.  It has been over a decade since I could work to feeling out of breathe and tired and not have some negative consequence later.  I think part of my problem with not having lost weight is that I've been going way too easy on myself.  I was using that I was healing as a reason, but its been over 10 months.  I keep falling back on old thought patterns that aren't true anymore.  So I'm going to have to start pushing.  Which is terrifying in a lot of ways.  But also, I still weigh 30lbs more than I should, my labs are starting to reflect that I'm overweight, I'm getting stretch marks, and I'm uncomfortable.  If I don't do something now, when will I?  Yes, my knees hurt and sometimes its hard to move.  But the less I move, the worse it gets.  I am going to have to work through the discomfort. 

I've decided that at my one year appointment, if I'm not seeing a difference from my swimming, I'm going to ask for another referral to cardiac rehab and try a different facility.  I'm also getting an antibody test within the next few weeks, and if I have them, it means the vaccine works and I'm protected, so I would feel much more comfortable about what I'm doing.  I also figure that I'm going to need to up my exercise days to more than 3, but if having the puppy makes me take Bosun on walks with Stella and Peter, than I'd be increasing my steps and that could be enough. Very much looking forward to meeting our little guy.  He went to the vet this week and the vet mentioned how fearless and friendly he is.  Looks like we picked a great one!

Dose 2 and good food

 I got my dose 2 of the covid vaccine on Friday.  Other than arm pain, I was feeling ok.  I went to bed early, as I was a bit tired (most likely from my swim the night before), and as I laid down I got a headache.  My temperature was elevated at 99.7, but it has been that high before when I'm just normal, so wasn't sure if I should attribute it to the vaccine.  I was trying not to take tylenol, but ended up being up all night.  Between the throbbing headache and having to get up to go to the bathroom due to drinking so much water in a day, it was a long night.  Peter got up at his usual 5:00am and got me tylenol, after which my headache finally calmed down.  I turned off my alarm to sleep in. Peter brought me my 9am pills, but otherwise I slept in until 11am. 

When I got up I felt pretty normal.  My arm still hurt, but otherwise fine.  I was actually a bit disappointed, as I was hoping for more of a known immune response.  That isn't to say that my immune system didn't do anything, but I won't know without an antibody test. 

Saturday I spent sewing.  My old big sewing machine has been having issues for years, and I finally realized that instead of enjoying my hobby and stress reliever, it was causing more stress and making it not fun to sew.  I was able to find a really good mechanical quilting machine that doesn't have any bells and whistles.  It took some getting used to, but I LOVE this machine now.  Once I figured out how to not break the thread, it is making sewing the quilt together a breeze.  This is actually the part of quilting I like the least, as it normally is really hard to wrangle that much fabric through a machine.  This one makes it simple, and was so much more enjoyable. 

I'm 95% done with Liz and Brad's wedding quilt.  As soon as that is done, I'd like to pin Peter and my honeymoon quilt and get it done.  Stephanie and I are taking a mystery quilting class that is 6 weeks long, and I'm already behind 2 weeks, so I'm using finishing these other two quilts as the carrot at the end of my stick to motivate me to finish these projects.  It will be nice to have those done and then get to focus on the lessons, which are great to watch and will be teaching me a bunch of new skills.  I already learned how to sew polygons and do Y seams so they lay flat.  I don't think I've ever used more than a 4 sided polygon in a quilt design because I've thought they would be really annoying they aren't really.  I'll also be learning to do curved seams and some intricate piecing.  I'm excited. 

Sunday I had booked a morning swim.  After my first swim last week, and realizing that my bathing suit barely fit, I bought a new one that is the right size and has shorts at the bottom.  Much more comfortable. I also got some booties to wear as I do my water laps, and an aquatic dumbell to bring with my.  For now, I can only really do one lap swimming, which is ok.  My plan is to use up my full 30 minutes regardless.  So I will do a walking lap, then at the end do some type of water aerobic.  I have 7-8 exercises I can do, so if I do one at the end of each lap, ideally I can get faster to where I can do 15-16 laps.  Of course, a few of the exercises work better in the deeper water (the ones with the dumbell, so maybe less.  I got in 14 walking laps and 1 full swimming lap.  I like to swim under water and then do a pretty involved stroke (not sure that it is an official one, but its basically the same stroke I do underwater).  I may try a simple standard freestyle stroke and see how I do with that next time.  Since I'm allowed to book up to a week in the future, I was able to book 3 times for next week.  I'm enjoying this so far, and the water walking is much easier on my knees. 

I've been making more of an effort to move during the day, and I did a few house laps when my fitbit buzzed.  Peter and I decided to try one of the meal delivery services and decided to try SunBasket.  We got our first box today, and made  a chicken tangine for dinner that was delicious!  We have 3 more meals for this week, so we will see what we think and if we want to continue next week.  We are finding that neither of minds cooking, but its often that we don't have together what we need to cook.  This was fairly easy to do, took about 30 minutes, and we picked meals that are all right around the same amount of calories, so we can better plan our days.