Dear Friends,

With Easter passed and all our other public holidays over for a while, I thought now is the time to update you all on where I am at this present time, health wise.  Before I write any further though, I wish to dedicate this letter to a very dear friend of my mom, KATHY BRODERICK SALGADO, who passed away suddenly on 26^th April.  She was a huge supporter of both me and my fund and through the school that she taught music at, she, and they, collected more than R20 000 for my fund.  So it is with a heavy heart that I write this because, it is friends like Kathy, who are helping me reach my goal.

There has been very little change in my health in this last month.  My stats were slightly lower than when I last went to clinic with my lung function being 1% less and my weight a few hundred grams lighter; HOWEVER, my doctor did not think there was any cause for alarm as I am still well within the range for a lung transplant.  Having said all that, I can feel it is time for me to be admitted again.  My next appointment is on the 15^th of this month and after phoning this morning to confirm, the sister in charge asked me how I am doing.  I told her that I am more breathless and finding exercise more difficult, generally feeling run down, so she said I should pack my bags and take them with me at my appointment time and they will then consider admitting me.

Soooo, as you can imagine, visits to the mall have been fewer and for shorter time periods as I do not have the stamina nor the breath to keep going.  Visits to the coffee shop at the mall to catch my breath, have made me a regular as the waiters all recognise me and guess my order before I even look at the menu. Of course this also has nothing to do with the fact that my boyfriend is one of the managers there, does it!!!  HEHE…. 

 

I have spent very little time with my horses this past month, because of my lack of energy, and I know I will have to do something about that very soon, as I notice that they are starting to look quite round in the rump!!!!  My days have been spent mostly making beaded bracelets for sale for the fund and we have just recently started marketing them.  Here is a picture to show you what they look like.  They come in S,M and L sizes, with or without a butterfly, all with the letters C and F – which stands for ‘CLEARLY FABULOUS’…..no, kidding, it stands for ‘CYSTIC FIBROSIS’.  They are selling @ R10 a bracelet, so please all rush to place your orders.  We have had an order for some bracelets to be a monotone colour which we are willing to do, so if you wish us to do the same for you then specify in your order.  Obviously all bracelets will have the letters C and F in them to show support for the cause. 

                                       May month is Cystic Fibrosis Awareness month and we are doing our best to educate people.  We are putting ‘Did You Know’ facts about it on my facebook group page daily and we wrote some articles for our local newspaper….I keep saying ‘we’, but it’s more my mom than me, I am the ‘delegator’………..lol.  My ‘BEEEEEG’ project will take place at the end of the month and may I take this opportunity to encourage you to participate as I ‘REEAAALLLLYYYYY’ really want it to work.  29^th May is CF ‘Genes’ day….you have to wear your jeans, and or something purple if you don’t have jeans.  Take photos of your friends, get them to take photos of you, involve your work colleagues, friends and neighbours, and then send them to me via email, facebook, or just from your phone to mine.  Let them be fun, because with CF we can still have fun…jump around…pull funny faces…turn upside down…swing from a tree…I don’t mind…just SEND them.  I will then group them together in a slide show to a cool song and post it for you all to see.  n between all this ‘busyness’ I am also knitting scarves.  GlaxoSmithKline have challenged people to knit scarves for winter to hand out to children in schools to help keep them warm.  If you also want to get involved and can knit fairly quickly, then knit some up.  They must be in navy blue, 20cm wide and 1m in length.  Once knitted they can be posted to a freepost address, BUT they must be in before the end of May!!!  Hence, knit quickly….

So for now, this is me, updating you and hoping you keep the winter blues away.

With love to you all and may God bless you in all you do.

Fabulous and Fighting all the way

<3<3 <3 NiQi <3 <3 <3