Several months ago, I submitted the site to the “online magazine rack,” Alltop. I’d actually forgotten about it, though I often wonder about getting Beautiful’s site on BlogHer.
Today I got an e-mail that they approved the site and created a new topic for Cystic Fibrosis, possibly after the Boomer Esiason Foundation submitted theirs, because we are the only two sites for the topic.
A couple of my clients (big names in their fields) are listed, so I got the idea to submit the site… so long ago, I couldn’t really tell you when I did. All I know is that it’s a hugely popular site started by the great Guy Kawasaki of Apple lore. Shoot, the dude even has his own tab on the site called “Holw Kaw!” Cystic Fibrosis is now listed under the Health topic at the top, but that’s good enough for me!
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As quite a few of you on Twitter and Facebook are aware, I had another intestinal scare on Thursday. You see, Beautiful wrote about enzymes on Wednesday and every time she or I write about anything to do with blockages, something happens. Without fail. It’s really quite creepy and must stop this time. I’ll get to my lungs and weight soon, but first, it’s story time.
Thursday morning
I woke up feeling out of sorts and shrugged her off and indicated that I wasn’t feeling well when she came to wake me up on Thursday. I got up around 8:30 and started my treatments, but was feeling sore and crampy, only it wasn’t in the usual blockage area indicated from my long history of blockages. Like a seasoned veteran, I weighed the pros and cons of having an omelet for breakfast and just went for it with plenty of enzymes.
I got upstairs to start work around 10:00 and was more or less completely unable to concentrate. The cramps were coming in waves and in harder and harder force, but I can tell the difference between a resistance cramp and an uncomfortable cramp. These were the latter, no nasty, tight ball of crap anywhere to be found by exploratory pushing of my squishies. Sore, yes, but I didn’t have the tell-tale knot of disaster. Beautiful went back downstairs seeing my clear distress and got me a 20oz Gatorade and an extra Dulcolax to hydrate and flush anything that was in there.
Thursday afternoon
I was feeling better by dinnertime and insisted on eating despite Beautiful’s firm reminder that I “felt fine” before our Outback dinner for my birthday 2 years ago. Click to continue reading this article…
I was sitting at my desk on the Interwebs minding my own business when Jessica Link (@chronicuriosity) asked me a relevant question and made me go and think about my life some more. 
Good job, Jessica. She was in grad school until she got a job, is well-motivated, has no debt, and no long-term relationship prospects for married insurance, and, of course, CF. I think that’ about covers her situation, with the question of how to budget for unexpected medical expenses, plan for retirement, and generally how I got by single. I hope this answers a lot of questions about finances while dealing with CF. If I missed something or glossed over something too much, please let me know.
Let’s dive in
Well, we can get that last one out of the way rather quickly. I was a miserable financial failure as a single. I didn’t get my act together until a few months before we got married, and even then, it took a lot of adjustment to kick my old habits and submit to the realization that the situation needed my full attention. We still owed some credit card money from my past stupidity and I still owed on my used car, but we knocked out that car within 5 months and freed up a couple of hundred a month for some breathing room.
We have learned quite a few principles along the way and, while we aren’t rolling in money, we aren’t lacking anything. The rules for finances are the same, only modified to prepare us for bigger hits. We’ve both been through a finance class that helped us budget some, but not completely. I’ve been listening to Dave Ramsey podcasts (his books are excellent for all) for over a year now and have heard the principles played out enough with both the trauma of being risky or foolish and the cheers of successfully managing money. I’ve been saddened and immensely motivated by the callers and now even more motivated by watching the show “The Secret Millionaire.” I wrote about that effect on me here.
Another world first is occurring everywhere CFers are getting older: baldness. What parent who was told their child wouldn’t graduate from high school would have thought the day would come when CFers are living long enough to go bald? Furthermore, what normal person thinks so highly of the “privilege” of baldness?
I’m not sure of how long ago it was, but several years ago I was shocked to feel a little stray hair growing out away from my hairline – out in the middle of my forehead! I went to the mirror and verified that was what was going on. Soon, I had quite a few of them, growing down a line along the edge of my hair. Unless I had somehow started growing more hair down past my hairline, I was losing hair behind these lonely little guys.
They say you get your hairline from your mom’s dad. Well, my grandpa is known to say that he’s not bald but has more face to wash. He’s not bald in the traditional sense but his “face” is quite large now, although he has 48 years on me. I used to have a full, curly, head of hair when I grew it out – as recently as 2008 when we bought our house. That was the last time it looked good to have hair of any real length in the area shown. I’ve tried to grow it out, but I just can’t get past that ridiculous stage to see if having long hair is enough to fix that. Besides, I don’t really want long hair with all of the heat and humidity we have here 10 months out of the year… and a buzz is so low-maintenance!
Of course, there are other ways we are visibly showing our age that aren’t directly related to being either men or women, such as arthritis, age-related eyeglasses, skin disease, and probably some dentures by now. I don’t know about you, but I’ll be darn proud to be bald and sporting new knees.
What non-CF-related things are starting to show your age?
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CF Fatboy is a small business owner flourishing in Tampa, FL. He and Beautiful have been married for 5 years and are doing everything they can to ensure they have a long life together.