Breaking News: Lazy Blogger Found Alive, Shopping in Southern NC Area

So, I've been MIA for about a month. My apologies to anyone who, at worst, was worried about me, or at best, has simply been annoyed at the lack of witty and entertaining reflection on my part, ha. An update:

1) I am mostly out of the afformentioned funk. I still get a little cranky, and have evidently still been a little bitchier than usual - I'm not much of a snuggly-wuggly-sweetness-fairy in the first place, but I'm usually more "headstrong" and "feisty" than "rude" and, as we say down south, "ill". but I think that has far more to do with feeling antsy about not having a constant passive source of intellectual stimulation and/or currently evident purpose in general, rather than my angry, paranoid and agoraphobic post-major-hospitalization tendencies, which I will count as "progress." :o)

2) Both the intellectual stimulation issue (Warning: Nerd Cannot Live on The Daily Show, Slate and NYT alone) and the lack 'o purpose issue have hopefully been somewhat remedied by my decision to attend an accelerated post-bac paralegal program, starting a week from today. I've also been getting out and going out with people off and on over the past few weeks, reconnecting with old friends and eating tasty food (and maybe drinking a few tasty drinks)...

3)Which reminds me - my kidneys are (pretty much) all better! woooo! I went back to UNC for my CF clinic and Nephro follow-ups last week, and got good results all around. First, at my CF appt, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my FEV1 was 67%, the highest it has been since May 2005 (when it was 71%). I didn't feel awful, but I didn't feel great - not surprisingly, since the afformentioned funk also sucked all motivation to do my treatments right out of me. Didn't skip them entirely, but we can safely say it was quite hit or miss. Oddly, this was comforting to me, knowing that I hadn't been giving it 100% on my end and my numbers were still great...in my twisted brain, that simply equates to, "Holy crap! What will they be once I go back after I get back on all my treatments and start exercising again!" Whatever gets you motivated, right?

4) Speaking of motivation, after nearly a year of trying to figure out a better way, I finally changed my whole vest/neb setup earlier this week, and it has changed my life! Part of the reason I kind of resisted doing my treatments (did them anyway, but begrudgingly) was that I had them set up on the other side of my bed. This goes back to my high school days, when my dad would come downstairs, hook me up to my vest, push the button, and I'd roll over and go back to sleep (I find my vest to be oddly relaxing, when I allow it to be). It made sense for my vest to be by my bed, because that's where I used it. Then at night it was close enough to my desk that I'd use it while I sat on AIM (old school! away messages were the first real twitter, imo). Worked fine.

Then, once I started getting sicker more often, it made sense to have it near my bed because I welcomed the chance to spend any more time possible on my big comfy bed, and it was a sickish, cozy thing to do. But if you are not sleeping-while-vesting, sitting up crosslegged and hunched over like that for an hour-hour and a half can border on miserable, and being on my bed seemed like a sickish, weak thing when I didn't feel crappy, and when I felt particularly good, I seriously hated it because I simply didn't want to "waste" the time sitting on my bed that often! Plus, when I had those oooooh-crap-no-stopping-this coughing fits, in my current room it was really awkward and difficult to quickly get to the bathroom, which would just add to my general pissyness at having to stop treatments to run off to the bathroom. I'm rambling, but long story short, we finally moved this one recliner into my room and I set up my little table over there and it's worked wonders!

One minor caveat: this is also likely due to the extraneous variable that is my christmas gift (largely unused, given my physical state from 1/1-mid feb) of wireless TV headphones, so I can watch TV while I do my vest and not annoy and/or wake up the whole house! I've still mostly just been reading, but it's been nice to have options and feel like I'm simply taking time to do my treatments, rather than feeling like an invalid crawling back in to bed.

5) Back to the school part. Given the current state of the world (ie, precarious) and my personal stance toward risk (ie, aversion), I've decided to go the route of maybe-lawyer-by-way-of-paralegal, rather than law-school-do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-200-dollars. I figure this way, I can get my feet wet, so to speak, and make sure that I really do love the law and reading dry things and writing dry things and finding needles in haystack documents as much as I think I do, for about five grand and two nights a week, before throwing myself and 25 grand headfirst into law school only to find that I hate it, can't hack it, can't afford it, or some combination of all three.

That way, if/when I decide to go to law school in a few years, a) I'll know for 110% positive it's what I want to do, b) I'll already be over that storied major hump of "learning to think like a lawyer", and c) in some instances, be able to get out of a few 1L classes. Hopefully by then I'll also be relatively attached or happily and fixedly single (I'm happily and "unfixedly" single right now) and my thereby reduce/eliminate my chances of falling for some other law school guy with whom I'll gleefully enjoy arguing with but ultimately do nothing but argue with.

Plus, I can get a big girl job much sooner and thereby stop feeling like a poster child for arrested development. And maybe have a little spare change to further indulge my J. Crew/RL affections.

6) I'll do the whole "My CF Story" Post later tonight or this weekend, I think it was a great idea (Christy!) and I have learned alot from many of yours, fellow CFers.

7) There is a quote (rumored to be by Coco Chanel, but I'm skeptical) that says something along the lines of, "There are two things a woman should be: classy and fabulous." Then, it occurred to me not long ago that "Classy and Fabulous" have the same initials as my supersexy disease. I think from now on, on any CFF fundraiser stuff I do, instead of that whole "Make CF stand for Cure Found!" thing (which my inner cynic finds a little eyeroll inducing) I might just go with "Make CF stand for Classy and Fabulous!" instead...I'd be just as happy with either outcome, and will happily inhabit both acronyms as long as I'm able :o)

I think that's about enough random thoughts for now, and pretty much sums up what I've been doing/thinking/feeling while MIA. I've still been reading and keeping up with your lives though, so don't feel too slighted! And I promise, pinky-swear, for-reals-this-time, that I'll stay on top of the updates. I go back to UNC Tuesday to see my brain doctor (more fun and socially awkward to say than "neurologist") and then I start paralegal school Thursday, so I'll have lots to update on! Off to finish "American Wife" (surprisingly good!) while vesting, then Grey's! Happy Thursday (and March Madness) to all, and to all a good night!