Friday, September 19, 2014

Staying Active and Sad Pirfenidone News

Our friend Barbara had skin cancer removal surgery yesterday. Speedy recovery, Barbara!

William is not here yet!! Something happened and he couldn't leave as early as planned, so he spent the night somewhere in southern Oregon or northern California. I am going to work out at the other rehab early this morning, spend some time and lunch with mom then will arrive home in time to welcome him from his long drive.

At my special free facial yesterday, it was all I could do not to fall asleep. I was so totally relaxed that I fell into my chair at home and promptly fell asleep for over an hour and a half. It felt fantastic! I stumbled awake, had a late lunch of tuna then hit the yards. Besides the usual work, I removed a number of large branches over the entrance to the hidden garden. We need to replace the posts, which have rotted away. The Burmese Trumpet Vice has become to big for the area, we will be removing it bit by bit over the next couple of weeks and replacing it with a cool, long planter filled with horsetail bamboo. Cool. Contemporary. Clean.

It took three hours to do all the work including cutting all the branches into the recycle bin. It was sweaty work. It was mostly done from a high ladder. I must have braced myself while on the ladder as I have several large bruises on my right shin. After blowing the area clean, I climbed back up the ladder to wash the high windows and others that were so dirty from all the sanding when the house was painted last week. I use the Windex wand, which worked great. I finished just thirty minutes before Michael arrived home to a very dirty, bruised, full of sweat, very lovely wife!

I forgot to mention that I ran into Robin at yesterday's ILD Patient Appreciation luncheon. She was diagnosed with IPF and has been in the pirfenidone study for ten years! Sadly, she shared with me that suddenly her lung capacity numbers are falling at the same rate as others with IPF, which is not good. It may be a sign that this drug - that is probably being approved by the FDA this year - may only work for a limited number of years. Or not. No one knows, at this point.

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