2:30 a.m, thats the time that I woke up from a night of feeling short of breath. And to think that this pass weekend, I was starting to feel better. For about a week or two now, I have not been that well. From shortness of breath to chest pains and tiredness. Psychologically, I was sure I had pneumonia. I went as far as going to WebMD.com and Ecureme.com to check the symptoms. And from what I understand, I had most of the symptoms listed. I debated for days on end, should I go in to the hospital to get checked up? This went on and on, trying to somehow justify that I should just go. But I never did.
I’m not sure why I haven’t gone yet. There’s a part of me that knows that I should go in, regardless of what the test results may come back, that I have pneumonia or not. Because of the way that my body has been feeling, especially my respiratory functions, I NEED to be checked in. I don’t know how much longer I can do this anymore. One day feeling fine, only to be feeling tired and short of breath the next day. And to be honest, when I feel crappy like this, I often wonder how people with CF die. I mean, I read about a story of an individual who had CF, and it said that when he died, he was on his death bed and was put to sleep. Do we get so tired to a point where we just literally put to sleep so that our passing can be peaceful? This is almost a question that I ask not hoping to find the answer for (I’m sure there’s a word for this too). Because if I do know the answer, the next time I feel like this, my mind would get some really crazy ideas. Not that it already hasn’t, but knowing the answer would be like putting the nail to the coffin. And in this situation, it’s almost a literal meaning. Which is why it’s a struggle for me. Do I really want to find out? Is it smart to know? How would it benefit me from knowing? Should I just go with the flow and see what happens? My mind is bombarded with questions after questions, somehow, trying to justify the main question, do i really want to find out?
Tomorrow (or actually today, because its already 2:38 am) is Monday, November 30, 2009. It’s a new week, a fresh start, should I call up my clinic and see if I can go in? Or am I going to default back to the same old routine of wasting time and suffering in the mean while. I do really hope that I will not do the latter, because it only leaves me feeling like shit every time. I know that it sounds like a very easy and obvious decision to make, but somehow, someway, I’m making it more difficult than it needs to be. Maybe I shouldn’t think too much about it and just do it, because sometimes when you think too much, it muddies up the obvious.

It’s about 3:19am on a early Thursday morning, September 10, 2009. I just woke up from a dream that was very intense. But before I go into detail, I should note that before going to sleep I felt fatigued as if my body was tired from a long day. Something that may be attributed to lack of oxygen type of feeling. That was around about 12am.

In my dream, I was at a good friends house. Now this friend, DR, has had me house sit several times before in the past (in real life). Back to the dream; I walked into the house and noticed that it wasn’t right. Someone was in there, so I went to the basement. Down there were some people that I knew, cousin and friends. Or actually, before that, these friends and not the cousin, were trying to get to the other side of a flat land by swinging accross. Everyone else went and then it was my turn, when I got to the other side, I saw someone that my brothers use to hang out with. He hasn’t been around for many years now and their relationships hasn’t been the same for a long time. Anyhow, I was confused as to why he was there. And then somehow we were in the basement of my friends house. I was uneasy that they would be in DRs house since they don’t even know him. So I figured I should go lock the doors and windows. I went to the windows first, got into the bath tub, (the bathroom scene was from a different place, a place where I use to live with some other friends). I noticed that the windows were opened, so I tried to close them. But then out of no where I see someone coming up to check the window as if they wanted to see why it’s taking so long. So I decided to lay as if I was giong to take a bath. This by the way was all in the day time. Then out of no where, the friends from the basement were all outside the window and talking, they weren’t aware of my presence until one of them saw me through the blinds and was asking who I was. Looking in and realizing that it was me, they greeted me and asked how things were going for me. As we started to talk, some people maybe about 5 or so, came through the back. One of the guys had his hand by his waist like he was going to pull out a gun. One of the two friends who was by the window chatting with me, told the guy closest to the strangers approaching and said for him to be ready incase they start shooting. So the closest guy to them grabs his gun from his waist and was ready. The group of guys asked to speak to someone from the basement. So I took him downstairs, and turned out it was one of my brother that he wanted to speak with. As we were coming back up, something didn’t feel right so I started to panic and was trying to lock all the doors, for some reason there were 3 doors. I locked 2 of them, which felt like it took forever. Then I realized that I needed to find my cell phone, found the house phone first and then saw my cell phone lying on the table and grabbed it. I followed the other guy and my brother through the front door (now the house is the house that I use to live in but for some reason it was supposedly my friends home). By the time I got outside, everyone seem to just be chilling and talking amongst themselves. I asked my brother what was going on and he told me that there were some verbal confrontation in the hood but cool now. All they wanted was to get a cousin of mine over so they can talk. My brother asked if I had my cousins number, by the time he was done asking me, somehow my cousin was already there. He comes up to me and greeted me, asked if I needed any help carrying laundry loads. But it seems that he only asked that cause he was uneasy of the people that was there. I told him no I don’t have any and patted him on the shoulder. Next thing I knew, some child hood friends and his brothers were there and I was just joking with them like, “you guys have been every where I been lately, whats up with that?”

Then I started to wake up. Not just wake up suddenly but slowly and I realized that my breathing was different. Inhaling was short and exhaling was long, and the breath taking was like I was holding a whole note. I should also note that lately, for the past 2-3 weeks I have been sleeping with oxygen on at about .75 – 1 liter during the night time. When I realized that my breathing didn’t seem right, I kinda went into panic mode like what’s going on here. It wasn’t full blown panic but the htought ran through my mind and I was more aware of it. So of course I couldn’t go back to sleep and went downstairs to turn up the oxygen to 2 liters. Coming up the stairs I felt fine, not out of breath or breathing heavy or anything. But when I sat down to use to the bathroom, felt like I was going to do #2. I felt like I couldn’t take full deep breaths and then panic kicked up a notch. So I came to the computer, turn it on, got my nebulizers (inhaling medication) ready, albuteral and hypertonic saline (special salt water). Did a few chest stretching, both my arms on the door frame and pushing my body through the door. This is to open up your rib cage and give your lung some room to take in deep breaths. Worked on my colour bone muscle area cause thats where I usually tell if something is off too. So stretched the muscle around that area, top and back. That usually helps to alleviate the stress and tightness around that area. Since then, with the oxygen turned up, the neb treatment, I do feel better. My breathing seems like its back to normal and my anxiety seem to have calm down. My body feels like it’s taking in enough air so that I dont’ feel so fatigue.

During when I first woke up, my sister was up too, she was hot in the room where she was sleeping and coming out to the open room where there was air conditioning. She was aking why I wasn’t sleeping and I just told here that I needed to do a treatment. But in my mind, I was thinking about the dream and thinking that if my breathing gets worse, then I’ll have her take me down to ER. That was at about 3:19am, it is now 3:57am and she’s asleep, I’m feeling better. So I think it’s safe to say that I can go back to sleep in a few minutes from now.

I bring this up here in this blog because I wonder if my lungs and body being low on oxygen had anything to do with this dream. Now the dream was some sort of a recreation from something that happened recently, which most likely did not go the way my dream did. But my mind was recreating it with whatever information it has and just kinda got creative with it. At any rate, I wonder if it had any relevance to one another or was it just a coincidence? I can speculate and try to find connections but the obvious and important thing is I feel okay right now. My left upper muscle by my colour bone isn’t burning, both my lungs feels like it can expand a lot more now, my body doesn’t feel exhausted or fatigued, mentally I feel stable again. So all is good, and with that, a good night to all.

Lately I haven’t been so good, as far as my health is concern. Probably not sick enough to be hospitalized, but not well enough to not feel crappy. Here’s what’s been going on with my respitory system, let me know what you think. For one, every now and then my lungs will feel tight and soar. It’s like they feel weak, not enough strength to take deep breaths. And then the next day, they will feel just fine. Funny thing is, if I keep on moving around, walking and keeping productive, then they feel fine. But as soon as I sit down and stay idle for a while, I start to feel all kind of symptoms with my lungs. Anything from soarness to short sharp pains, and even sometimes I have to take deep breaths to make sure that my lungs are still capable of doing so.

I was suppose to go to the clinic back in June, but I think it was too close to the last week of school so I opted out. Figured that if I wasn’t ’sick’ then I didn’t need to go. But through out the month of June and July, there were several occasions where I felt like going to urgent care just to make sure that all is well. As I said earlier, these symptoms that kept on popping up was frustrating. I kinda came to the conclusion that maybe my lungs are just irritated right now, whats the term, exasperating, I think. What it means is that they are irritated, so they are acting up, which means I mainly need to step up my treatments. I do know that I have been slacking on that earlier back in June to almost mid July. Then just when things seem to just get better, the other day I caught a case of the allergy deal. My throat was itching, which caused me to cough up a storm. That lead to major headaches and super soar ribs. That lasted for about 2-3 days. Let me tell you, thats the last thing that I need. Is for something to trigger my situation into something more intense.

In all honesty though, I have considered going into the hospital for a week stay, at the very least. It’s summer, I don’t have a job commitment, I still have health insurance, I’m not feeling at my base, and plus it’ll give me a change of scenery.  But somehow, I haven’t made the decision to go yet.  Feels like I’m caught in some sort steal mate where I can’t seem to make up my mind. Hospital, or not hospital. I start to weigh the pros and cons and then never follow through with it. And with the summer break coming to an end here with only about a month left to go, I do need to come to a decision though. If not, I’ll have to chance it during work and use up my vacation/sick times. Which would suck if I could’ve just go in now. Perhaps the reason why I haven’t gone in yet is because I don’t feel that sick. Although I do know that a tune up right now would be a good prevention step for me. Or, maybe there’s just so much going on in my mind right now that because I don’t feel sick, my subconcious is preventing me from following through. Yeah, I think that’s it. Well, thats about what I can think of about my health at the moment. I’m sure if there are other highlights, I will post them up at a later time.

Okay, so here’s another thought. A few years ago, I was told about some ‘natural’ ways to treat or cure CF, I forget which one. But in this case, I don’t suppose it matters. Let me know what you think.

I was at an appointment with one of my doctors and brought it up. The doctor pretty much just blew it off and said that it would cost too much and that my insurance would not cover it. Whether or not it was a possibility to look into wasn’t even discussed. To me, it seems like it was more of a ‘financial’ deal than a way to help treat me. And then when I brought up about the Australia deal, I was given a sidestep type of answer. Along the line of, ‘well, here we have this and that (the good things about this clinic)’. But my question was never really answered in a way that made me feel like my best interest was at hand. When I think about incidents like this, it frustrates me. So my question is, has anyone heard of any ‘natural’ ways to either treat or cure CF?

My regular meds are Albuterol, Mucomyst, and Tobi. Now Azythromyacin has recently in the last few months been added to my list of drugs. I make a mention of that because there is this particular doctor who from what I can recall, most, if not all of my visit with her, seems to be writing up some new prescription drug for me. It almost seems like she looks for every opportunity available to write up some drugs for me, whether it is for something that I actually have, like low vitamin D. Which makes sense. But for other things like ‘preventative’ meds – to me, that’s stretching it a little too much. I understand preventative steps are necessary, but isn’t that what Azythromyacin and my regular vest treatments are for? In addition to that, I’m rotating with the Tobi meds from month to month. I should also note that this clinic has a team of CF doctors, which I do see different one from time to time, depending on who’s available. And that’s why I bring it up because after having seen a few of them, this is the one that I can recall writing up prescriptions for me. Perhaps it’s me and my paranoia. But can someone shed some light for me. I would really like to get an unbias answer.

Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for their service and treatments to help me with my CF. It’s just that sometimes, I feel like I’m being drugged up for the sake of being drugged up. Again, if you have some insightful advice, please do share.

Just a thought, anyone with good resources on what kind of effect weather has on CF? The thought has been on my mind for a while now. But today was more apparent just because I was having to struggle to be ‘calm’ and not go into panic mode. Breathing was somewhat more effort than usual, yesterday was sluggish, and overall I’ve been more fatigued. Then it dawned on me, the weather here in Minnesota is changing. I know that in general, the transition from Winter to Spring can bring seasonal allergies for anyone. But what about people with CF? Aside from the seasonal allergies, are there other symptoms that are more specific to us?

Being in MN, where the winter times can be a perfect time for pneumonia, I try to limit my time outside. So that much I know about winter and the cold seasons (late fall to early spring). But when the warm weather is coming in, I’m still unsure about that.

On another note, I have heard that the coast line of Australlia is suppose to be a good place for people with CF. Has anyone heard of this or read it? If you have, can you provide me with some links or resources? What I’ve heard is that along the coast line, where the breeze from the sea (which has salt, obviousily) seems to help with the respiratory system. Again, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!

I have some exciting news, earlier this week I decided to sign up for the Great Stride benefit walk for CF. It will be on May 17th, 2009 (Sunday) at 11:30 A.M, Downtown St. Paul, Minnesota. If you are in the area and are looking for a team to walk with, you can visit my site, http://www.cff.org/Great_Strides/YangVang

As part of a new found motivation to embrace my CF, this event will serve as a launching tool. Because this is my first time doing something like this, I really have no idea what to expect. I looked at the map of the walking distance and said to myself, “this isn’t too bad.” What I’m hoping for is that we’ll have good weather. Not only that, but that Team Hope & Courage will have a good team of walkers and financial donors to make this a success!! However, the most important part of this is that this occasion will serve it’s purpose to bring awareness and benefit to CF as an illness and to it’s patients.

That’s it for now, the weather looks bright and sunny, it’s a friday, and the weekend is suppose to be good too. I’m going to wrap up my treatment, go eat, help a friend move and enjoy the nice weather weekend. Who knows, fishing might be in the schedule too. If not, will definitely get to do that next weekend in Duluth for my sistes college graduation. Until next time, take a breath of fresh air and enjoy life!!

As I mentioned in my latest blog that a lot has happened over the past year or so. I will try to touch base on some of the highlights, as they come to mind. The stories will most likely not be in chronicle order so I do apologize for that. I will try my best to put a date or time frame with the story as an attempt mark them for later compilation.

To start off, let me say that I have a fascination, perhaps even a passion for art. I do a little of many things; drawing, writing (poetry, hip-hop, and recently getting into spoken word), and computer graphics. By professional trade, I am a Graphics Designer. I’ve been doing that for the past 8 years until January 08, when the company that I was working for got bought up and everything pretty much went south from there.

For the past 2 years, I have been fortunate to have landed a few freelance projects here and there. Some of the works that I have done ranges from non-profit pamphlets, church brochures, business cards, logo, company ad, to musical artists. I enjoy what I do, and it allows me to meet new people doing it. Like every Graphics Designer out there, we would like to have a client base so that projects would be more consistent. But I guess that’s the nature of being a ’starving artist’. Whether you’re a musician, visual, or any other type of artist, I think that’s true for all of us.

Having said that, I want to address something that has been sitting on my heart for a few weeks now. Ever since I met this friend of mine, her name will be Rogue in this story. She is a lesbian, a Hmong lesbian to be more specific. The reason why this is important is because over the course of knowing her, I have to come to admire her realness of who she is, and the challenges that she is willing to take from people, and especially the Hmong community. Being a person of the GLBT community is heavily shunned on in our tight knit community. To see her be this open, shows courage and strength – being honest with herself and to the rest of the world. And as I have watched her spoken word performances these last few times, I have come to admire her for her bravery.

With this new appreciation, comes a sad and heavy realization for me. All these years, I have always knew that I needed to accept and embrace my CF. And I thought that I did. But there was always this feeling that I wasn’t being 100% truthful to myself. I did not want people to know I have CF, especially if they were not close friends or family. My mentally was, I don’t want them to know I have CF because I don’t want them to treat me differently; for instance, letting me off easily for ‘health’ reasons. Or how about this, “oh, don’t carry this, it’s too heavy for you.” I mean, come on, I know my limits, if it’s too heavy, I’ll get someone to carry it. Otherwise, I CAN carry stuff to you know. Another reason is because in the back of my mind, I’ve always thought that when my time comes and I leave this place, I wanted people to be like, “what?!?, he had CF and we never knew? And he did all that (accomplishments, adventures, ups, downs, etc…) without any of us having to assist him? I just wanted to be treated normal, just like a healthy person. And especially to a romantic prospect, that was probably the hardest obstacle for me. Not only that, but a part of me still holds on to that mentality as well. But ever since this friendship with Rogue and seeing her having the courage to come out of her closet, made me realize what I have been lacking all along. All these years, I thought I had embraced my CF. Yes, I have accepted the fact that I have CF, but never have I truly embraced it and come out of my own ‘closet’.

This revelation was an eye opener; psychologically and emotionally. Psychologically because whenever I’m alone and there’s time to reflect, there seems to be a war within me about how to deal with my condition. I would be emotionally drained from the whole ordeal. There are many times where I just feel exhausted and fatigued. Not to mention the moments where my spirit just feels down and my heart is just aching to be comforted. How I have longed for an answer, for someone to come along and accept me for who I am. I’ve always accepted that my CF will be with me, but that if only I had a companion in life, it would make this burden much lighter. Sadly enough, that has been an obstacle for me til this day. It seems that I’m sabotaging myself every time, by not embracing my situation, my confidence was lacking. And my honest opinion, which may sound like a cliche, is that confidence can be a very attractive quality in a person. They may not be the model type, but if they walk with their head held high, speak with passion, and carry themselves with confidence, it would be difficult not to be attracted to that person.

Okay. That’s one of the many things that is on my heart as of late. I felt it was important for me to put that out there because of the weight of the matter. Being that it’s a fundamental element of what makes me ME, and how I will carry myself from this point on out. Any how, thanks for reading and I hope it makes sense. More to come later.

For what it’s worth, my relationship with G-d at the moment is somewhat at a stand still. To a certain degree, I have to be honest and say that we’re not seeing eye to eye on some issues. There’s this part of me where I feel like until we come to an agreement, where He comes half way, then we can start mending this relationship.

I know that some reading this will be thinking, “you just don’t have enough faith?” And then there are those who will say to themselves, “dude, you’re weird, what the heck is he talking about?” Regardless of what your opinion is, I feel strongly about my current conviction. And let me be clear, I know where my short comings are, but that’s besides the point.

I can rant on for pages or blogs but I think there’s more productive blogging I can do that will actually have more impact on practical issues. Issues that people can actually put to use and relate to.

This blog may not make too much sense but I just wanted to let everyone know where I’m at spiritually, incase you were wondering.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written here. But there’s been a lot that has been going on. Hopefully when everything starts to settle down, I’ll have more time to write.

Today is April 14, 2009. It has been over a year at least since I’ve written in this blog. Alot has happened since then. Some for the better, while others haven’t been as good as I would hope it to be. Everything is really a story in itself but I will only make short notices of them. Since it’s history, I don’t want to spend too much time dwelling on the past.

In January of 2008, I left my job of over 8 years as a Graphics Designer because we got bought out. I am currently a Teachers Assistant at a creative elementary school working with I.E.P students, (Special Ed). Although this isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I made the change, it’s provided me with new challenges for growth. In the mean time, I am getting a few freelance jobs here and there.

On another note, I have been generally fortunate with my health. It’s a surprise, given the fact that I work at a school, where there is a lot of sick kids during the winter time. I have been able to stay clear of any serious illness (not to jinks myself, knock on wood). Although I must say I have had a few scares here in there, but that did not involve the school environment.

My last visit to the doctors office was yesterday, following up on a visit to the E.R last week, for what I thought was a pneoumothorax. Turned out it was all in my mind. But what I did find out was that I might have high-blood pressure. I still have to go in next week to get it checked again to make sure. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. As having another ‘burden’ added on to CF is the least of my desire.

What else, guess I’ll try to write more often now that I’ve felt inspired and ecnouraged. Maybe I’ll write about that in my next blog. Because tonight, there’s a couple of meetings that I have to get ready for so I need to go get ready. Until then, my cyber CF community, take a deep breath, hold it, and dive into the ocean of possibilities and explore your heart out!!

” guess it’s gonna have to hurt,
I guess I’m gonna have to cry,
And let go of some things I’ve loved,
To get to the other side,
I guess it’s gonna break me down,
Like falling when you try to fly,
It’s sad, but sometimes moving on with the rest of your life,
Starts with goodbye.

I know there’s a blue horizon,
Somewhere up ahead, just waiting for me,
Getting there means leaving things behind,
Sometimes life’s so bitter sweet….”

parts of a song entitled Starts With Goodbye by Carrie Underwood.

This is something that I’m going through at this point in my life. I’ve spent many nights thinking about this, that sometimes making a new start means leaving certain things and people behind. My life as a whole, whether it be my health, faith, or anything that makes me who I am – there are things I have to learn to let go inorder to make a new start. It’s a sad reality, but then those lyrics are exactly the train of thoughts that’s been running through my mind.

As for my faith, I’m at a turning point where I need to focus on my own culture, the Hmong people. For many years now, I have studied the Hebrew roots of Christianity and have learned a great deal. The cutlure, tradition, and how all that makes understanding of Scripture more real than anything I’ve ever experienced before. And the more I learned about the Hebrews, the more I am nudged at my shoulder about my own people. Our culture, tradition, and even religion. Yes religion, even though that’s something that I have chose not to practice, it is still important to know. Why? Because instead of just a no and that’s that, I would like to give an explanation and help others to understand why I no longer practice it. When people see that you have the knowledge and have made a decision base on that, there’s that respect there. Instead of just a plain o’ no, where it seems that you know nothing about the other side at all. In short, I want to learn about my culture and tradition as a Hmong believer to help me understand the path that I have chosen, where I’m going and where I come from.

And for myself, work and family have become complicated. In the sense that if I want to start seeing some real changes, professionaly and at home, I need to make some realistic moves that will enable the changes to fall into place. For instance, my commute for work has increased from 10 minutes to about 45 mins to 1 hr, one way (and that’s on a good day in the summer time). Not only that, but putting fort the effort and experienced that I have, knowingly that I am well underpaid is very discouraging. I’m tired of feeling bitter and discouraged, I know that I have two choices, stay and put up with it or find a new job. I have been applying for new jobs and sending out resumes, hopefully something will turn up.

With the family, I am working on getting a new place. I know that buying a new home is a huge investment and have undertaken some time to educate myself about making the move. I have spoken with an agent and she has agreed to work with me along the way, she was referred by friends of mine. So I know that she’s a good candidate, as far as trust and reputation goes. I plan is that within the next few months, for sure by the end of this year, I will move into my new place and settle down. With this move, it will alleviate some room around the house for the rest of the family. Remember, I do come from a very large family, 17 people to be exact. And of course, other things will fall into place as well.

And finally, my health. I have spoken with the social worker at the Cystic Fibrosis center and we both agree that my plan is a realistic one. However, it is very important to make sure that I maintain doing my treatments and keep up with my check ups so that I don’t neglect it. Because the last thing I want is to accomplish my plans only to get really sick. And that’s a real possibility to keep in mind, not in the back but in the forefront. My doctors and I have talked over the past two appointments and they are working on getting me either an inhaler or another nebulizer so that I can do the 2nd treatment during the day in my car at work. I have to do 3 treatments a day, morning, afternoon and evening. They have also given me a device that is similar to a flutter. It’s a horizontal device where I blow into and it’s suppose to shake up my lungs. Substituting the vest while I am on the road. I won’t go into much detail about it but it’s quite interesting. Anyhow, that’s the update on my health and my plans for taking care of myself.

In a nutshell, this is what I have on my plate at the moment. So keep me in your prayers and I hope that all will turn out for the best. I will keep you updated as well. Thanks.