The last post in 2005

There I go, my last post in 2005….makes me think I should write some decent stuff…ah.. maybe not…;)
There’s some great news and some that kinda suck…so whatcha wanna hear first…?
Well, the bad news is that after getting the CT done it’s pretty obvious that I’ll have to get surgery. I know, after 13 years of being so slack with it, I guess I could have expected that. But it just doesn’t fit at all into my already tight schedule…!!!
I mean, it’s not super-urgent, the doctor even said that for ignoring the polyps for that long he would have expected things to be much worse. But something has definitely to be done…
So yeah, no way I’ll mess with this shit before Africa. But after I have finished the volunteering programme it will be mid-April and that’s when I’m planning to go back to the UK, get a decent job for the summer and maybe get some more TEFL qualifications so by the time it gets cold I can leave and go to Latin America and work there as a paid English teacher.
That is, if things don’t change along the way…haha!
Ah.. hell, my polyps could wait 13 years, they can do another year or two…I’ll try to get things sorted out before I move back to Australia..;)
Enough of that, let’s get to the good news….
After emailing and making phone calls all around the world I have finally found the ultimate CF contact in Cape Town!!
Karin Kratz, a lovely lady who is the chairman (or woman..?!) of the CF Association in South Africa and mum of a 37-year-old CFer. She gave me lots of information about bringing my meds into the country (the Embassy of South Africa said I couldn’t post any kind of drugs by mail and I could only bring a one-month-supply with me in the suitcase. Well, since I’m staying there for three months, that’s not gonna help me much, is it..?!) and I’m sure I’ll manage to get a lung function somehow once I’m there…
For the customs I’ll get a letter from my doctor, a list of the medication I’m taking, explaining what every medicament is for plus a paper explaining what CF is. That should do it for a 3-month-supply in my luggage. If they still bitch, I’ll get them to call Mr. Willcox, the CF-doctor at the clinic in Cape Town.
So I’m glad I got that done and I’ll make sure I’ll give Karin and the CF clinic a visit..!

Other than that I've gotten another two vaccination shots.... so only one more to go..yaay!
And I'm starting to freak out cos it’s only like 3 (THREE!!!) weeks until take-off…!! I always get this before a “big” trip….first, I’m all excited and can’t wait for the time to come…and the, like now…BOOM! I start to panic, write bitchy, frustrated and drowning-in-self-pity kinda emails to a certain person I hope doesn’t care too much and just hits the “delete” button a coupla times…( Cheers, Jaan!!), my level of confidence drops to about zero and I’m convinced that “I just can’t do that!!”
You think with the travelling I have done so far things should get better…well, they don’t.

But apart from that I’m good to go and finally escape this winter weather ( I’ve busted my arse twice today riding my dad’s push bike on the snowy-icy road…grrr!!)

So yeah… everyone getting wasted tonight…. Have a drink for me as well since I’m planning on staying sober…( as surprising as that might sound for a certain group of people….hehe)

I’m so looking forward to a lot of things this year….I have no resolutions but lots of plans….and I know most of you do as well…so let’s go for it!!

Have a great 2006 everyone and I hope I’ll get to see some of you this comin´year !!!
xxx

ps. ah...and of course I'm joining Becky's "let's copy Jaan" campaign...so here is what I'm listening to: the mars volta - de-loused in the comatorium

Vaccination day....and more doctors....!

Well, x - mas is over and I´m kinda glad…I´m not too big on this family-get-together-all-smiley-happy-faces…
Plus, I´m so busy I don´t really have time for any kind of holiday…it´s amazing how many more little things pop up only a few weeks before take-off that have to be done or organised or dealt with…and evidently my time-management needs improving…;)
I just got in touch with Cystic Fibrosis Worldwide to see who´s in charge of the National CF Association in South Africa. I need to know whether I can bring all my meds into the country without problems (sometimes they are a bit funny about antibiotics…) but from my experience everything up to a 3-months supply is fine with a doctor´s letter. I prefer to just carry a months-supply in my suitcase and post the rest by mail. That way I can carry more clothes.. and yeah, I guess I´m a bit of a girl about that.. I don´t care though….hehe.
So I have to ask, maybe even call the South African Embassy, if it´s possible to post my meds. I have always done that on my previous travels but I´m not sure about how things are in Africa.
Usually no one really knows what the deal about all that is exactly so I just pack and post my meds and at the customs act like it´s all been checked before. A few very important-looking documents really help…! And of course, giving the guys at the customs an earful when they wanna start bitching does as well….;)
Then I´ll have to check for CF clinics near Worcester which means the closest is probably in Cape Town. I already have an address but I think I´ll give them a ring and see if I can come by, have a chat with the doctor and maybe even get a lung function sometime around feb or march. I have found it quite useful to have these kind of contacts, that way in case I do need help I already know someone there. Of course, that kinda stuff is gonna be a bit tricky since my insurance doesn´t cover “pre-existing conditions” so obviously CF things (like any tests or doctor´s visits or medication) aren´t gonna be paid for. But from my experience if you get in touch with the right people and ask, there´s always a way around things.
And of course…vaccinations…!
Probably no biggie for most people but I`m just scared as hell of needles..(that´s one reason I keep the IV´s to a limit…waay to much pain)! It´s funny cos I have travelled through half of Australia with a knee that needed surgery, I did Jiu-Jitsu for two years and after practise I would come home all bruised up, I don´t mind getting piercings or tattoos done…so it´s not that I can´t take pain…but when I see a syringe with a needle.. that just makes me wanna run…! I was actually quite lucky that I got half of the requested vaccination stuff done before I went to Australia…so lucky me.. I only have to get six shots…argh!
Some of the vacc. I´m getting is because I´ll be working with street kids, for example typhoid fever and rabies. There´s nothing you can do really for malaria exept for take some pills when you go in a certain area…but some stuff doesn´t go well with my antibiotics so I guess there´s some useful information…;)
So the other day I got three of the six shots….and for two days I was basically out of it. To be honest, I had a bit of a cold and you´re not supposed to get shots when you feel ill already…but I didn´t have much of a choice. Between the rabies shots there has to be a certain period of time and since I´m leaving in less than four weeks….yeah, I know….next time..;)
I felt shit for a coupla days, then xmas and today…dadaaaaa…I went to another doctor to get my polyps (I think Jaan described it as “pea-sized growth that grows in your sinuses...quite common for CFers"….so i´ll just copy that, haha) checked out. I mean, I know I have them cos I have lost my sense to smell things a while ago….not that it bothered me enough to go to a doctor then, though. And now it has been more than ten years since they last removed them…yeah, time just flies by…! To be honest, the only reason I went now is because when I met Jaan in London he made me feel so slack (he claimed he got his removed every coupla years..!) that I had to get it done…cheers, Jaan, hehe.. !Tomorrow I have to go and get a CT so they can see what they`ll have to do. It´s not that urgent though so no drama if surgery has to wait until after Africa…

Anything else? Nah.. only that the weather sucks…a lot of rain, a bit of some snowy-mushy stuff ..nowhere near enough to have a snowall fight…so I can´t wait to get out of here…!

New year - new trip....

So..what exactly am I gonna be doing?!

well, because 2005 hasn´t been too great for me (after returning form Australia in January, I fell into this traveler-comes-home-and-doesn´t-know-what-to-do-with-it-hole. Due to the rainy and cold weather here in Germany, a break-up in a realtionship and some troubles at home I had a severe health break-down including weight loss and my lung function results to drop dramatically.
In Australia I realised that a warm and dry climate hasa very positive effect on my lungs so I packed my bags again and went to Spain. It was meant to be a 2-week vacation in Malaga to get better and to sort my head out....and I endet up staying for 6 months. Did a language course and worked in a bar.
My health got better there but I was really unsure of what to do with my life. You think if you have less time you sure as hell don´t wanna waste any of it...so traveling like this was great in a way but (coming from a family whose ethics are quite big on working and being independant) it´s not really a career to just have a low-paid job - hey..I got 4.30 EUR/hr in the bar...! even backpacker jobs in oz were paid better..hehe - here and there. And I had basically been living out of a backpack since I left for Australia in June 2004 - it´s exhausting after a while and I could feel myself losing energy. So I wanted to kinda "settle down", at least for a while (yeah..go on... all of my friends will have a laugh at me for that one...! that´s why I won´t even mention my attempt on getting a "serious" job...hehe) but had no idea where. By that time I had gotten tired of Malaga and was thinking of moving to Barcelona. But then I endet up going to Turin in North Italy with a friend - big ol´hugg to Patrizia, my fave raggazza..! - where i didn´t stay very long beacuse of the weather. Very moist and rainy which amde my lungs worse.
So I decided to head back to Germany, stay at my parents for a while, get an IV therapy - lasts for two weeks, 3x a day you get a strong dose of antibiotics trough a tube straight into the vein. To fight the germs in the lungs. very annoying..!! - and make up my mind about - some of - my future.)
ah....what was I talking about before giving you all this banter about what happened this year....?! Right, so 2005 kinda sucked so I wanted to for 2006 to start off a bit better...I chose South africa for its climate (it`s gonna be summer there...30°C...will be running around in shorts...ah...nice!). I´ll be living in a kibbutz in Worcester near Cape Town where I´ll be doing "Communtity developement" as a volunteer for 3 months. Means, I´ll be working with street kids, HIV orphants, drug addicts..etc. Might do some teaching as well (that´s why I just did a TEFL - teaching english as a foreign language - course in Oxford which was fantastic by the way).
One reason for doing this is because I have always worked in Hospitality and I´m wondering if that´s really what i want to do.
I would like to try out something different and I want so see another country without traveling like a backpacker. I think you always get to know a different side of a country and its culture if you work work with its people. i´m doing this with a british organisation that has volunteer- and teaching projects all over the world. i decided to do that rather than going on my own because I have never been to South Africa, don´t know anyone there and basically..have no idea what I´m getting myself into...;)
So I thought it would be nice to have someone to turn to if necessary...and on Jan 22nd I´m flying out to Cape Town..into another adventure..haha!
This volunteer programme lasts until april 16th and by that time I should have come up with something to do afterwards. Right now my mind is pretty much set on going to the UK (maybe Scotland or South of England) and working there for a while. Cos I´ll need the money - either for a trip to Latin America or for going straight back to Australia (I´ve heard Adelaide is supposed to be nice...?! hehe).
But none of that is set in stone yet....anyone who knows me is used to my plans changing quite frequently....;)
So for now I´m just busy with preparing for South Africa...getting some CF contacts as well as some information about bringing my meds into the country, health check-ups, vaccination, kicking my self in the arse to do some exercising (trying to get my lungs in shape....cos at the moment it´s not all that great)...hehe..and, of course...packing (ah..I´ll probably leave that to the night before take-off....as usual..)!

well, more about all that (or whatever else I think I need to write about...) in my next post...
For now I hope you all have a good x-mas..is anyone having a white one by the way..?!

the first post

So here it is. My blog.
Finally, after a lot of "Hin und Her" like we Germans say, I decided to follow this mainstream of blogging.
Reason Nr.1: I just hate mass emails and I´m tired of listening to the bitching of my dear friends ("what have you been doing...? I haven´t heard from you in ages....! Are you still alive...?!" etc..)..hehe..I know, I´m quite slack with the writing...;)
But this blog isn´t just about my travels and keeping in touch with my friends.
It´s also about me and my life with Cystic Fibrosis. Some of my friends don´t even know I have CF, they probably don´t even know what it is. Some of you guys know about it, but only that "it´s something like asthma" and that it makes me cough. Can´t blame you for that though, cos that´s what I told you.
Friends that I have since childhood know about me and CF but we never talked about it so they know I have it but they don´t know how I feel about it.
The reason for this weird "mezcla" is that depending on the stage of my life where I met those folks, I dealt with my CF quite differently.
As a child, I didn´t really care if people knew about me having Cystic Fibrosis but as a teenager and especially when I started working I became more aware of it and how it affected my surroundings. And I was always healthy enough to hide it.
I didn´t do that out of embarassement. I just didn´t want for the Cystic Fibrosis to influence my life, I didn´t want any advantages or disadvantages because of my health condition.
Adjusting my life to Cf in any way meant for me "giving up" or "letting CF take over my life" and i certainly didn´t want that.
I was thinking a lot in "black-and-white" and that only changed on my work & travel trip in Australia 2004/05.
Ways of live there are much relaxter than they are here in Germany (or did I just have a different mind-set..??) and I began to see things about my CF a bit differently.
I realised that if I didn´t keep on fighting the CF so aggressively and even sometimes ignoring it, but rather deal with it, I end up living happier - and healthier.
That doesn´t mean I take more meds than before or spend more time with doctors. But I do consider my health more when it comes to making decisions about where or how I travel or live, what kind of work I look for or how and what I tell my friends.
Part of it is this blog.
I want to get it straight, not to dramatise things but I vowed to myself that I keep posting even when my health isn´t at its best. So if I start being slack, someone better remind me of these lines...!

ah...and before anyone starts wondering why I´m writing in English...
Due to my previous travels and living abroad, my group of friends is quite international and i didn´t feel like making a dutch, italian, american, spanish, swedish, belgium, french and german version (..not that I would actually be able to DO that...hehe) so i figured english is a language we can all agree on....:)

...which leads me to the next thing: I´m obviously not writing in native language, so please excuse

• wrong grammar
• wrong use of words
• foul language - I´ll try to keep it at a min...promised! (to blame are certain britsh/american/canadian/australian individuals I travelled/lived with...!!) If substituted for a word I couldn´t think of...creative minds, new words are always welcome!!

Damn, this is my first post - the hardest thing to do!! - and it´s probably just as boring as all the other "first entries"..but as least it´s not as short... :)

ah..better stop now and start tomorrow with a proper post about what I´m doing...cos this is why I started this bloody blog in the first place, eh?!