Meet Denise

March 8, 2011 By 4 Comments

Yesterday we had the opportunity to meet Denise Fahr. We’ve been keeping up with their blog ever since her husband, Jim, had his lung transplant. She was vacationing in Florida with her parents, just about an hour drive from our house. It’s so funny to meet people in person after reading about them for so long. The first thing I said to Jesse when we saw her walk out of her hotel room was, “Wow, she looks just like her blog pictures!” Duh, not sure where that thought came from. I think I was just a little bit surprised to recognize someone I had never met before.

Denise was great. She is such a sweet and completely genuine person. It’s amazing how happy and positive she is, especially with all that they have been through this year. We were planning to sit around the pool with her, but the weather was just a little too chilly for that. Instead we chatted for a while and played some mini golf that was at the resort she was staying at.

Denise and Jesse

Us playing mini golfI was surprised at how easy she was talk to. Meeting someone for the first time, I wasn’t too sure what all we would talk about. The best part was the complete understanding of our situation with need for explanations. When we talked about cooking, I mentioned something about needing to be extra creative with recipes that I could eat that would still have enough calories for Jesse. I usually feel the need to explain why the amount of calories we consume at dinner is so important… CFers need tons more calories than most people. She, of course, got that right away. When we left the hotel room to walk around the resort, she checked to make sure walking that much wouldn’t be too hard for Jesse. Jesse does have days when he tires easily while walking, but mostly that’s no problem at all. After walking for a while, Jesse had a cough spasm. Normally that would have been a bit awkward because he is trying to communicate to people that he is okay even though he looks like his head is about to explode. It was nice to see that it didn’t catch her off guard.

Denise and me

I’m very glad we made time to get to meet her. Next year she expects that Jim will be able to travel with her. We will look forward to the chance to get to meet him as well. She said that Jim and Jesse are a lot alike. I hope we have lots more opportunities to meet other CF families also. That is just part of our lives that we don’t share with too many people. We are grateful that our friends make an effort to understand more about CF, but it’s something that they just can’t get.

Meeting Denise

Filed Under: Cystic Fibrosis, General Tagged With: , , ,

Interview

February 8, 2011 By 2 Comments

Blog communicationI’ve said before that one of the best things that has come about from my blog is all of the new CF friends I have been able to meet. It is so great to have others to share stories with and ask questions. We have connected with so many people that we never would have had the chance to get to know without our blogs and facebook.

Andrea is one of those friends we have “met.” She is a college student from Louisiana who has CF. We’ve shared a few of our tips and tricks with her and she’s given us some ideas too. She wanted to get to know us a little better and asked if we would do an interview for her blog. Of course, we said yes! Head on over to Every Life has a Story to Tell to see our interview and to get to know Andrea.

Filed Under: Cystic Fibrosis

CF Wife

February 3, 2011 By 2 Comments

BoostYou know you’re a CF wife when you get this excited about Boost being on sale! Jesse drinks at least a couple of these nutrition drinks each day. They are perfect for getting him the extra calories he needs, especially when he has already eaten enough that he isn’t hungry anymore. The calories per dollar value is excellent, but they sure do add quite a bit on to our grocery bill each week. Since we buy the store brand, I really don’t find coupons for them either.

This week Publix had them on sale! We have been buying these for years, and I’m pretty sure they have never been on sale before. They had them for 25% off regular price. So, I bought a bunch of them. Then we stopped at the store again on the way home from church a couple days later, and one more time at another store on the way home from small group. I think we stocked up on about two months supply. That will save a lot of money.

This year, I am determined to make the most of every dollar we spend. I have been very diligent at watching for sale prices, cutting coupons, and buying extra when I know it will save us money. It’s not because we are that broke, but because we want to spend our money more wisely. Especially since both of us now have special diets that we have to follow. We buy a lot of fresh fruits and veggies because of my allergies, but we still have to buy the extra snacks and things for Jesse to get all of the millions of calories he needs each day. We used to love to have pasta dishes all the time. Cheap and fast meals like that are no longer an option for me. It can be very time consuming to plan out of meals so carefully, but we are saving a lot by taking the extra time.

We watched a show about crazy couponing, again on TLC, and were amazed at how much these people were able to save.  Granted, these people were just a little nut-so, but with all of their careful planning they were able to buy a whole cart full of groceries for under $6!  All by carefully coordinating store sales with the matching manufacturer coupons.  One of the guys on the show had his entire garage full of health and beauty products that he had gotten all for free.  They estimated that he had enough toothpaste and deodorant to last the average person about 150 years.  Obviously, I don’t need to take it to that extreme, but it definitely made me realize that we could be spending a lot less.

Filed Under: Cystic Fibrosis