Christmas: The Musical

I was a little frustrated to discover that my pre-emptive strike with IV's had missed its mark slightly, therefore I had to start some oral antibiotics a few days before Christmas. On Christmas eve I was feeling extremely puffed, resulting in a forced suppression of my usual hyperactive childlike behaviour of chatting excitedly, whilst repeating at 10 minute intervals "only one more sleep 'til Christmas!" My calm and contained mood extended into the afternoon, when, as per tradition, my friends came over to visit and we chatted and exchanged gifts in a mature fashion. However following the family tradition of watching a Christmas film before bedtime, I could contain myself no longer. This year we watched "Santa Claus the movie". I don't know how I could seriously be expected to watch a film with Santa, reindeers, and magical moments, without becoming a little excited. The result was a serious case of insomnia, where I was still lying awake at 2am listening for the jingling of Santa's sleigh.

Christmas morning started at 7am (this is the earliest I am allowed to wake anyone else). I opened my stocking first and gave Andrew his, kindly allowing my parents another 10 minutes in bed before I woke them up by playing the First Noel loudly on the piano. (And yes I know at 27 it would appear that I am too old for a stocking but I say bah humbug to that). We then spent the next hour (or two) opening gifts and strewing paper around the living room. In the middle of the mayhem Seb ran about franticly squeaking his new toy and generally looking pleased with himself. Several hours were then spent recovering from this burst of activity and excitement before we all sat down to a lovely Christmas dinner. As usual mum cooked a beautiful meal, and although I had to go and lie down half way through (due to tiny appetite and lack of sleep) I did manage to squeeze in dessert later in the evening, so did not miss out. After lying down, I clearly made a full recovery as was later to be seen clutching the microphone of my new PS2 with sing star game, whilst belting out Patsy Cline's "Crazy". I understand some people are under the illusion I may be able to sing because I played the piano when younger, however, I can assure you the two talents are in no way interchangeable. The fact the sing star game scores your performance was testimony to my lack of musical ability, as is the fact that even my mum tells me to stop. Despite the poor performance, it was great fun and I'm sure it is a wonderful lung workout, if nothing else.


I am now just taking things easy and preparing for the next burst of activity over new year. This will be spent at my mum and dads, but Andrews parents will also be joining us. I suspect the sing star game may make an appearance. As you can see, Seb is also relaxing after all the excitement. He can't quite believe he has to wait another whole year before Santa comes again.

Christmas Traditions: Old and New

Christmas is a time of wonderment and enchantment; the season of glittering Christmas trees, twinkling fairy lights and beautifully wrapped gifts that rouse a sense of excitement and intrigue. Yet, paradoxically it is also a time of reflection and contemplation, where emotions can be at odds with one another; joy and excitement suddenly and unexpectedly giving way to a sense of sadness. It is a time of year when the loss of loved ones becomes painfully clear and old emotional wounds can begin to ache. Traditions slowly evolve to encompass the changes loss can bring upon family dynamics and with time everyone gradually learns to accept and adapt.

These thoughts crept into my consciousness last weekend when I was decorating the Christmas tree. I bring back decorations from all my holidays as a souvenir, so decorating the tree is like flicking through an old photo album. There are glittery baubles from New York, where I got engaged, a bright yellow duck from Boston where I completed a 4 week elective at university, small tartan (!) clad reindeer's I bought when Frances Ann and I went on a shopping weekend for her 18th birthday, a glass angel from Rome, which was the last holiday abroad I went on before being listed for transplant. Memories from over the years flashed through my mind, and filled me with a sense of accomplishment with where my life has taken me. Yet it also reminds me of how much living I still want to do, and how much I have to lose if I do not get a transplant. I then came across the angel decoration in the photograph, which is a little wind chime that Frances Ann bought me the Christmas before she died. I treasure this dearly and it takes pride of place on the tree. After the initial bubbling of emotion settles, I can look at the tree every day and in seeing the angel, I have a reminder of my beautiful sister and each Christmas we shared together.



So, yes traditions will evolve and people will adapt, but memories from over the years will never fade. Christmas may be a time for reflection and reminiscing, however it need not be a time for mourning. Memories should be a source of laughter and, as a family, we should embrace Christmas with the love and joy we have always known, and not feel at all guilty for enjoying the celebration. I know that Frances Ann is with us is in spirit and mind, and she will look on with a smile and a nod of approval. After all, I still have many more Christmas days to celebrate, and many more decorations to collect, so I intend to approach the season as I always do - with the attitude and mentality of a 5 year old.

p.s only 8 more sleeps

The World's Cleanest Fly




This is a story about a pair of latex gloves, a sterile medical procedure and an unfortunate fly. Interested? Then read on.

So there I am, sitting quietly, minding my own business, whilst making up this afternoons dose of intravenous antibiotics. As I have a port (permanent IV line under skin) the whole process has to be extremely sterile in order to avoid any infection being introduced into the line. This involves excessive and repetitive hand washing, careful opening of syringe and needle packets onto sterile drapes, much swabbing of things with alcohol wipes and most importantly, the donning of sterile latex gloves. Each pair of gloves is packed into its own sterile package, which when opened has a further packet to unfold, thereby revealing a pair of neatly presented 100% sterile gloves. The packaging assures me this to be true, unless opened or damaged. The packaging on this afternoons gloves was neither opened or damaged, so you can imagine my surprise when I unfolded the packet to reveal a dead fly firmly squashed onto one of the gloves. I thought my eyes were deceiving me, but I could clearly make out one flattened and distorted wing, and what looked to be some sort of antennae sticking out at a funny angle. I am intrigued to know at what stage in the process a fly managed to find its way into a latex factory and onto my gloves. I assume that the gloves are made sterile by irradiation after initial packaging, which would imply the fly has also been irradiated until sterile. Therefore I am now making claim to owning the worlds cleanest fly (albeit a dead one). In case anybody is concerned, I did not use the gloves but have instead kept them as a souvenir.

From the above ramble, you will have guessed that I have gone ahead with the pre-Christmas IV's. This was largely decided when the CF nurse phoned last week to say " Do you want to start your IV's tomorrow?" My initial response of "uhmmmmm..." quickly prompted a retort of " tomorrow or monday; those are your choices". There did not appear to be a third option of "neither, because I'm not having any". I therefore decided to go for Monday, and was relieved to have seemingly made a sensible choice, because over the few intervening days I was becoming more symptomatic and would have required IV's before Christmas anyway. The only downside is a very itchy head that one of the IV's appears to be giving me, in combination with numbness around my mouth (like I've been to the dentist). As a result I am being forced to put a great deal of effort into the avoidance of excessive head scratching and drooling whilst in public.

Its less than 3 weeks to Christmas, so I am getting a little excited. I am not into my countdown of "..it's x amount of sleeps until Christmas" yet, but this will come soon enough. I think I will put my Christmas tree up this weekend, and simply ignore any bah humbug 'it's far to early' comments. I have already donned my staircase with magical icicle lights, which I may be inclined to leave up well into the new year; my excuse being that LED's are more energy efficient (or something).