Home!

Hi everyone,

I got home Tuesday from Oregon. I drove with my niece, little sister, two older sisters and my dad from Oregon all the way back to Arizona. Instead of going by miles, my dad would measure our progress by the weather. He'd yell out every so often "Now we are at 85 degrees. Now 90!" Did this till we got to our house, the temperature being 110!! I missed my bedroom and the soft water we use for the shower; the shower in Oregon was not soft water and made your hair feel even dirty after a shower than it did going in. =P 

While up in Oregon my parents surprised me with my own laptop! They got it for me as a graduation present! It is an HP and I LOVE it!! 

I went with my two nieces and my little sister to our church today to help set up for Vacation Bible School Camp. After that we went to my grandma's house for lunch and swimming. 

I wrote an article for a newsletter called PathLight. PathLight is the newsletter that the Pulmonary Hypertension Association sends out to all it's members. When they post it on their website, I will post the link so you all can read it!

Not much else is new here! Thanks for checking in!

Love,

Becca 

Oregon!!

Hi everyone!!
Sorry I haven't written in a while. I have been really busy with my vacation in Oregon! Just a quick re-cap; I got to see my two uncles on my dad's side. Uncle Gary, his wife Lindy. And then we saw Uncle David and his wife Liz. It was a lot of fun to see them! I also saw my mom's cousin, Walt and his wife Weeze. The weather has been pretty nice so far. Yesterday we went to a small county fair which was fun and interesting to see the big difference between the fair here in a small town and a fair in Phoenix back home. We have made several trips to the Cheese Factory in Tillamook where I have gorged myself on my favorite ice-cream; Wild Mountain Blackberry. Yum!! We have seen several deer so far and we had a camp fire with the neighbors a few houses down from us.

The other day we went on a hike to a waterfall. The hike was only a mile but the trail was very windy and all down hill. Now we all know the saying ‘what goes down must come up.’ Same is true for when you walk down a hill, you must always walk back up it. Normally I prefer walking down hill than I do uphill because it is a lot easier and not as tiring. But on this hike I didn’t like either one too well. Normally when I am walking down it is on a flight of stairs, so I can pace myself and hold onto the railing. Well walking down a dirt path, there isn’t much to hold onto to help you slow down. So while I stumbled down the hill, my heart started to race because I was going so fast and couldn’t slow down to catch my breath. I actually started to feel light headed and stopped whenever there was a flat part of the trail before starting to walk down hill once more. I made it more than half way down the trail, but several of my family members who were already down the hill told my mom that the hill would be too steep for me to climb back up. So she and I sat for a while to let me catch my breath. When I had finally been able to start after “walking” down the hill, my legs were shaking so uncontrollably. My legs have only shook that badly one other time in my life and that was when I had finished a stress test in which I was on a treadmill, hooked up to machines, inside a hospital and they pushed me to see how far I could go before I had to stop. My legs shaking now scared me more than it did when I was in the hospital because, I was in the hospital. I knew that if anything happened, I would be safe. Here, out in the wilderness, not as safe. So after my legs calmed down we started the uphill trek towards our car. I must say, for the first time in my life I preferred going up hill as opposed to down hill because I could go slow, stop whenever I wanted to and my heart wasn’t racing. My heart works harder when I go up hill, which hurts and I don’t like it. Everyone now and then it’ll race when I walk up hill, depending on my speed. I made sure to go at a snail’s pace so it wouldn’t speed. We got to the car and I have never been more excited to see a flat surface before in my entire life. I am proud of what I did and how far I was able to go. But I will say, I never want to do it again. Ha-ha. On our way back up the hill I turn to my mom who was helping me up and I said: “So do you think we can tell Dr. Feinstein that I don’t need to do the stress test this year because I already did it today?” Even though my sides hurt from all the exercise and my heart was tired, I had enough energy to laugh. Sadly though, my mom doesn’t think my doctor will let me skip the stress test. Worth a shot though, right?
We got home after getting ice cream from Tillamook and I just laid down the whole night. I honestly never want to do another hike ever again in my life because of how uncomfortable it was, but I am glad that I did it; because it shows that I can do it. Having the energy to do that hike is something I am so thankful for. Our neighbor who went with us said: “Well you must be feeling good if you were up to trying that hike.” She is absolutely right. I am feeling good and I am so grateful for that.

Love,
Becca