Map Reading 101

Well Wednesday started out with that devil of an alarm clock blaring in my ear again. Up and ready to go by 7:30am. Off to Calgary for another doctor's appointment. This was my monthly routine checkup with the CF team. After arriving we went to our little room and one by one the team started popping by. First the dietitian came by and she went to weigh me and I was reassured the scale in Edmonton wasn't lying when I was weighed there. I am still over 56kg. Its pretty impressive. She was impressed, and I'm only 3kg away from my goal weight. At this rate, I'll be there in the next month or two. Next the doc came in and caught up with us. We chatted about what has been going on and then the usual stuff (blood work numbers, weight, how I'm feeling, etc.). I also learned talking to him that I am a machine when it comes to taking drugs. I can handle everything they throw at me like a champ. I guess that's one thing I got going for me, lol. Then one by one the rest of the team came in (physio, psychiatrist, respiratory, and pharmacist).

One major realization was discovered though. After doing my first blows for my PFTs my numbers weren't great so my lovely respiratory tech decided to bring a new tactic in. Changing the screen from watching a line go across it to trying to extinguish a line of birthday candles. I have to say, I felt like I was 10 all over again doing PFTs with the little kid-like animation, but wow did it work! I was able to blow out all the candles and my numbers for my second and third tries were way better. My lung function was a strong 27%!!! Not getting any worse, but also not getting any better!

I'd like to see you blow all of these bad boys out with my dry, scarred up lungs!

We finished up at clinic at about 12:15pm and had to rush downtown for yet another appointment. This is where the title of this post really comes into play. We knew the address of the place we had to go and we got in the car and started in that direction. We missed the very first turn off but that was okay because we could take the next one with no problems. We got downtown and I swear those one-ways try to mess with you. Between the one-ways and yellow police tape blocking off an entire block we had to take a few detours. But finally we reached our destination (we thought). Mom thought wow, we got the last parking spot in this lot so after we flew in and parked, mom went to pay for parking. It was an unbelievable $7.00 an hour and mom decided to pay for 2 hours. We figured we only had about half a block to walk to reach our destination so we decided that I would just walk. We started walking and realized we were not in the right place at all. We started walking back to the car (and it wasn't warm out either!) and I looked up at the light standard and saw that we were on 1st street SW and we needed 1st street SE. We had a good laugh and got back in the car. So much for my mapping reading, eh? $14.00 for parking, all for nothing. After we realized our mistake we found the right place and the underground parkade. After paying another $4.00 for parking we headed upstairs for my last appointment.

And I must add that it was 2:30pm before we were finished all my appointment and finally headed for lunch!!! I was starving.

We headed straight out of town and went to Cross Iron Mills where we got a bite to eat and looked around the mall for an hour. I managed to buy a new sweater and a fancy dress to wear to an upcoming wedding. All in all it was a good day with a few laughs. But really, there are always a few laughs whenever we go anywhere!