Rosetta Stone Part 1

So here is how Unit 1- Lesson One went.

I did the lesson first, which is a good thing because the instructions for each section are not very clear. It's possible if I had sat through that whole long introduction to the program part it may have been explained it there, but I tuned out after 10 minutes of hearing about the "total immersion system".

Lesson one equaled about 30 minutes. You go through 5 different parts... pronunciation, grammar, spelling, writing, .... and others. There is a lot of repetition which is GREAT. You will see the core Lesson One words in different ways, spoken and writen, at least 50 times. You will repeat those words back to the program prabably 25-30 times.

They introduce a word by speaking it and showing it over a picture of the item, then you match the spoken/shown word to a matching picture. You do that for several different items, in this lesson is was about learning girl, boy, lady, man. They then toss in things for those people to do, in this lesson eat, drink, cook, swim, run, and write. Only they don't tell you straight up BEBEN=DRINK. You have to figure that out from the picture and probably getting a few questions wrong. This I found frustrating.
You are also asked to speak the word/phrase into the microphone and it grades your try. In the pronuciation section it breaks the words down into parts and grades your trys. NA, then DA, for swim. (yeah I didn't know this was swim either I thought it was the word for nothing) I was fine with this section til the word CO-ME. I was about to toss the laptop into the street over the CO part. It wanted a short gutteral CO almost like a cough. That was totally un-natural for me.
When my son sat down to the computer for his Lesson One I sat and watched him because I knew he would have questions on the HOW TO end. Like when it says Una Nina (pretend that has a ~ over the n) and then pops up this blank window and then it waits. And if you didn't have help you'd be like... okkkkkk now what. Which is exactly what he did. This is where you repeat the word to it and it DINGS or BONGS.
There is also a audio companion CD. So far it's listen and repeat. I'll let you know more about it after we move on.

So far my cons are only that if you are using a computer with a touchy touch pad or one that likes to randomly lock up you will lose parts of your lesson and take a hit in the score department. It does grade you. This irriated my son no end. When we got to the end of his lesson one we realized it lost two sections of his lesson totally so he will have to retake those because this is for his school. This happened to me also but since I know I did take the section and passed it at the time, I'm not retaking it.

I'll update again after Unit 1-Lesson Two.

Rosetta stone so far rocks. We can have different users so I set myself up a user name. I did the first part of the first lesson and it's pretty good.

Baby goats should arrive tomorrow.

Sarah... I will take you up on that offer. I may not have the stamina to clean out a hard kidding. I'm knocking on wood I don't have any of those... ROFL.

Yes Mandy looks like one of 4 LOL.

Awww. I got the sweetest anonymous comment yesterday and it made me feel really guilty for avoiding my blog.

Yes, avoiding.

Because how much talk about my nasty poor health can 3 people stand. And two of you talk to me in real life so you get the story TWICE. At least parts of the story twice. Because really, here I only highlight things. That's because I'm a horrible writer and I know it.

So here is the basic update.

I've been home for just shy of a month and have another ripping lung infection. I am back on a different antibiotic, pill form. The inhaled one I take daily is a heavy duty one, but it's only for one specific infection and this is probably not a flare up of that one. We did order, and I was able to produce, a sputum culture (mucus from lungs) to see what I'm growing. Again. So quickly.

We know that the reason my lung are in this bad of shape is because the last year I've had reoccurring infections going that weren't treated heavily enough. What we didn't realize is how fast they were reoccurring. Normally I wouldn't have seen the signs of this infection coming like I did this time because I wasn't ever in as "good" of shape as I was coming out of the hospital.

Good... that's relative I hope you know. I can be off my 02 during the day. As long as I don't DO anything. I am by far getting stronger all the time. I unloaded a huge amount of my stress yesterday because I just can't make a commitment too far in advance. I'm even afraid to say, HEY next week lets do something... because I hate to cancel and change plans, that irritates me and I never know how I'll feel tomorrow let alone in a week.

My pets are fine, my cat is still lost, my goats are due to kid any second, my husband is about to be laid off again, my son is recovering from the flu/bacterial gut infection, his school is going well, my mother is still coming weekly to help clean my house, and it's sunny today.

Is it odd that my dog, the long hund, seems to know when my lungs are getting worse before I do? She isn't a really clingy dog, but shortly before I notice I'm "sick" she starts clinging to me. Like VELCRO. Like right now she's so close to my leg she might as well be UNDER my butt. Well ok, thigh.

Ok the teacher is coming. We are getting Rossetta Stone Spanish soon, I hope it's here.

Nothing to see here.... move along.

Home again Home again... jiggity jig.


So while I was forcfully removed from my normal living exsistance I wrote up a little journal with the intention of boring you to tears with it. I can't bring myself to torture you like that. Arn't you glad!

So you'll get the foot note version.

Into hospital with a lung capasity of .75L.
Out of hospital with a lung capasity of 1.46L. That put me at 39% of normal or right below the "can live a normal life" line. The good thing is that is without a breathing treatment. We are guessing that I will range in the 41-45% with treatment. 40% is normal living.

Into the hospital with so many infections they couldn't figure out where to start.
Out of the hospital with one that I will have forever and will be on the treatment every 28 days to control.

Out of the hospital with less drugs or regiemes than I figured. They are varied but not un-doable.

Home from the hospital on room air! Oxygen only at night and to excercise.

Home from hospital on Jan 30, only to relapse BADLY on Jan 31. A few frantic phone calls and my DR said if in 6 hours I wasn't markedly improved I was to go to the ER and make them call him, he was afraid on the trip home I had popped an air sac and was leaking air into my chest cavity.

New meds for over the weekend and rest rest rest.

Today Feb. 5th is the first almost normal day I've had since I got home. I have a all the meds in from shipments that I was waiting on. My new vest arrived today (you ever want to try it AD you can come anytime, it's rockin'
for airway clearance). I did say I would never own one of these rotten things, but I have 30 days to decide if it's helping or not.

I'm not sure how long it will be until I'm up and ready to work full time. Right now we are schedualling everything for weekends so Bill can cover me without having to reschedual people if for some reason I can't do it.

The ups and downs are daily right now. I'm sure soon they will be weekly then hopfully monthly then maybe yearly.

I'm schedualed for a 3 month check up in SF. After that we'll determine a longer term medication plan, meaning we may actually peal off more of these drugs (thank god, we're at $6000 a month now), and we'll plan farther out checkups. Blessedly though my nurse is only a phone call away and she ANSWERS her phone. *Gasp*

My dad and I are debating whether we should buy our own plane, invest in cal-or, or write it off as "will never happen again". Between us the flight people have gotten 60K in the last year.

Miss me?

Guess where I am. No Sarah you can't guess you have the answer.

I'll give you a hint. It involved white coats, airplane rides, and more white coats.

Oh yeah we're in San Fransisco. I'm at Cal Pacific getting a much needed tune up.

The lungs are in bad shape. The heaviness I've felt for ages in my left lung are cysts. Those may never gop away and they harbor infections in there. When the infection in my lungs get bad those swell and the sensation I feel is heaviness. I do have damage in both lower lobes that may be irreversible but all those things things I've said I KNEW, I did know. The damage is from long term infection being harbored in my lungs for years.

Best case is that we can kick the infection and that will reduce the swelling that is making me unable to breathe. I will gain back my lung function and I will go along like a GOOD girl and keep in touch and working with a CF doctors and you all can read my ramblings for lots longer. You know without lifetime o2.

I do have to say thanks to the 4 of you that have stuck through all my rambling emotional distress. When you are surrounded my doctors that are a bundle of negative you tend to drag down with them. The doctors here aren't like that, and while this is major, everyone is totally positive.

So ready to get scared.
My lung capacity as of today is .89L.
HEY WHAT?! That's UP from yesterday, which was .75L. Normal for my size is 3.0L "Normal" for me is about 2.0L. So I'm at like 1/4 of my normal.

So here is where I am. Unfortunately my computer will leave with my husband tomorrow. So no regular posts, sorry. I will probably be here for at least one week more than likely 2.

Please keep me in your thoughts. I'm thinking I'm doing ok. I'm totally feeling better than how I felt before I got here.

Oh and I still hate to fly. EWW..... That flight was great they say, flat even. Pfftt... felt horrible to me. Of Course I was strapped a gurney.

Answer me this... because I can't get the internet to tell me which means I'm not asking it the right questions.

If the barometric pressure is rising that means it's going to......?

Rain or Sun?

I always look to see what it is.. but never think to remember what it was. IE Oh looks it's nice and at 30.5 but what was it while it was raining.....

Oh sure I could probably dig back through wunderground.com and find the answer, but I bet one of you loverly readers know that answer off the top of your head.