Living the dream

Considering it's been a year since my last post I suppose it's time to catch you up on what's up with me. Lately a lot has been up. But first let me digress to last year. As many of you may or may not know the beginning of 2011 was filled with several hospitalizations including another abdominal surgery. After all that I declared the rest of 2011 to be a year of recovery for both Randy & I. It was a time to stay close to home and rest. It also gave us time to finish projects on the house and get our lives back to some sense of normalcy.

Feeling rejuvenated I began making plans for 2012 or what is know known as "the year of the Rath's". My goal for this year is to see many of our friends far and wide. I do this also as a way of doing, seeing, going, as much as possible before my health gets worse. At that time we will most likely return to a staying close to home mindset. So far we've done our annual music cruise, attended Mardi Gras, taken a road trip (including dog beaches) with our pups Rocky & Rosie, camped at a music festival, and recently spent time at lakes in the southeast with family and friends.

All of this travel is not physically easy but it is good for the soul. In my retirement I try to keep busy while at home. However, getting away helps to break up the weekly routine and creates memories that last a hopefully long lifetime. During our most recent trip our friend Ed said "we're making memories here". So right he is.

The downside of travel is that it interferes with my exercise routine. In a perfect world I would get up early and get in workouts even when on the road. In reality that's much harder. I've been holding my own lately but don't feel at the top of my game physically. Today I saw my pulmonologist. The good news is my lung functions are the same as my last visit in April. My lungs sound reasonably good as well. This is all great news considering how rough last year was.

When I see someone they almost always ask how I'm doing. If being truthful, I would say "Well I'm more short of breath than I used to be, get tired easier, and am using oxygen more." But my new response is "I'm doing great. I'm living the dream."  "Living the dream" is how I feel we are living right now. Randy & I are lucky to have the friends to visit and the flexibility to do so. He can do his job from anywhere that has internet access. Since he's his own boss now he can work when he wants to. Of course I'm still not working which has been great for stabilizing my health.

Our next adventures include a transplant workup in November at Duke in North Carolina. Until then we will visit more friends and continue living the dream. I'm lucky to be alive and even luckier to have a life I love.

With gratitude,
Steph