It's been awhile! 10/23/2010

Hi All,


Wow, it's been a long time! October has really flown by...mostly with me in a plane literally flying by. I've been in Oklahoma visiting my folks, and then a week after that Nick and I hopped on a cruise to the Caribbean. Whew! I'm exhausted, but so happy to get a chance to do those fun things.



In short, Oklahoma was a blast. My family and I did lots of hanging out, watching movies, and poking around their new town (Ada, which they have declared America's best place to live. I guess we need to inform Time magazine or whoever keeps up with that list).



I felt pretty good most of the time. We did figure out that all the talking and laughing wears me out pretty quickly, so I'd make sure to have a nap in the afternoon. Not a bad gig. : ) One bit of excitement- we found a big snapping turtle in the driveway, so naturally, we poked at it with a stick until he bit the stick. Very exciting. Sad news though- a few hours later, we found 'ol Buck the turtle run over on the highway. Dang it.

But no weird heart episodes during the trip- it was just a matter of taking it slow.

Then Nick and I were off to the Caribbean! We flew into Puerto Rico and cruised from there with our dear friends Chuck and Errin. Before the trip, we got a wheelchair for me. Her name is Hot Wheels McGee. She's fantastic. Unfortunately, she does look like the wheelchairs every hospital, hotel, airport, and cruiseship owns, so we had to gussy her up. So we bought stickers from every port we visited and put them on the chair, like passport stamps. Brilliant? Yep, we thought so too.


The cruise was fantastic. There were only two days where we didn't get off the boat because it was too hot/I was too wimpy. But I did get to snorkel 3 (!!!) times. The best was in Dominica at a place called Champage beach. Dominica was (is?) a volcano, and when you snorkel, you see all these little tiny bubbles coming up from the sea floor, from air vents. It's AWESOME. There were tons of fish, and I have to say it beat Hawaii's snorkeling. SO cool.

So we've had a great month, but I'm glad to be home. I am pretty tired from all the fun and was ready to get back into a schedule this week. Cardiac rehab went pretty well this week, but I did have to stop early a few times because of some chest pain I've been having. I'd been kind of ignoring it while on the trips (oops) but they don't believe in ignoring anything at rehab. I go see my doc in about a week and we'll discuss it then. Unless it gets worse, then it's off to the ER I go. There's no risk of a heart attack because I don't have any artery blockage, but chest pain is never something they sneeze at.

Other than that, I've just been trying to adjust to life without working. It hasn't been hard with all the traveling, but now that that's done, I'm trying to find things to keep me busy. I've got a few things in the hopper...I'll keep you posted on how those go.

Well, that's all for now...I promise to do better at updating you on the shenanigans.

I love you all!

Jana