It has been quite a week. After church last Sunday, I loaded my car up and drove up to MD to my sister's place. Traffic was great and I was able to attend a church in her town for the evening service. Now, my sister has two cats and I'm highly allergic to them, but I happened to manage it pretty well while at her place. Then, on Tuesday, we drove to MI to be with our family. My parents and brother live in a small house and the animals as well as the smoking like freight trains really started to get to me. My brother and I went out to do some Christmas shopping (but I would have scrapped the idea had I know it was only his second time driving in the winter...yipes!) and then went back home. I used my nebulizer, but it just did not help me at all. My mom then took me to the ER at about 3am. Five treatments and some steroids later, I was able to breathe some. We got home about 7am (we did some grocery shopping on the way). I did get a little bit of sleep, went to church that night, then went home. Our power went out and I needed to use my nebulizer so I went over to my uncle's house and stayed there. My dad picked me up before heading out to pick up his brother who lives in a group home. There I got to see Carole and catch up a little bit. I hadn't seen her in about a year. We then went home and opened out gifts and had dinner. All of it was nice. I was trying to tough it out and after a few rounds of the nebulizer again with no results, I went back to the ER (again, about 3-4am). That time they admitted for observation. I thought it was kind of funny that when I finally got to my room, I had breakfast before I got any sleep. The IV did not bruise as badly as it has done in the past, so that was good. I finally left the hospital at about 3pm and visited some of Nessa's friends with her. I opted to stay at my uncle's house for the remainder of my stay in MI.

In true family fashion, we had planned on leaving Saturday, but did not leave until Sunday night. With that change of plans, I was able to attend my "home" church again. I really missed my church family. We got to MD about 5am and my sister had to work at 6am. Yuck. I got a little more rest and then headed on my way to VA. Since I did not leave early enough, I got stuck in DC traffic (mostly stop-and-go) and doubled the time it should have taken me to get back. Thankfully, all the traveling done was basically uneventful.

Well, I'm home and safe. I'm back in my non-animal, non-smoking environment and I should be able to get my breathing back under control. I have been feeling a little light-headed today, but I'm thinking a good night of rest will help that.

I do hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Even though I had a rough one, I'm thankful I was able to see my family again. That meant more than anything to me.