The Maine event — Lung Story Short...

It's been a hot minute since I, Laima have composed a blog post. I've been living in my old shoes in Brooklyn. My time there is coming to and end but not before I got to come up to the Boston area/Maine to see my family. My Uncle and Aunt own a home up near Bath Maine on the ocean. This year was their 50th wedding anniversary so it was a big to-do! Our two cousins with their kids would be there, one all the way from Bangkok and one from Virginia.

**Breakfast pizza waffle, yes thank you!**

Rima was still in the hospital and was unsure if she would be able to make it on the plane to come back east. Her lung function dropped down to 18% from 19%, which is not good. Not good at all since she was in the hospital and on IV's and in the care of the doctors doing everything they could to make her better. Rima was having anxiety over flying by herself. She moves very slow, is on more oxygen now because her number is down and traveling with all her meds is not a walk in the park. My brilliant best friend Emily came up with the magnificent idea of changing her flight to a day later so she could travel with my brother. You may be wondering why we didn't do that in the first place but at the time of the booking she was not this sick and they booked at different times.

Thankfully changing her flight was pretty simple and her anxiety level went down quite a bit. She was able to fly to Boston with our brother, Paul. I picked them up bright and early from Logan on Friday morning and the three of us made the drive up to Maine. Reunited and it feels so good, should have been the song of choice on the ride up. I had not seen Rima in about five weeks and was smiling ear to ear. When I hugged her after she got into the car I could feel how weak she was. What a trooper for bucking up and getting on that plane. I know she had not slept and was pretty miserable and in pain but she did an excellent job of sucking it up. Where is her super woman cape??!?

The tree of  YESSSS — **The tree of YESSSS**

We had breakfast on the way up and then stopped at Trader Joe's to stock up on wine and some food. We then drove to the house. It's a picture perfect location right on the basin of a cove on the atlantic. The family other than us and our parents were already there and eager to see us all. After the initial hellos Rima needed to get some rest, we decided it would be best for her to rest at the Bed & Breakfast our parents had booked in town. The house is large but with 9 extra people not including us space was limited. I drove Rima to the Inn and got her set up. With all the meds she's on her brain is not functioning as well as it usually does and she forgot some very important IV meds back at the house. So I drove back 20 minutes to get them.

On my way there I had an "huh" moment. Where or where is my wallet?!? Yep, I lost my wallet ladies and gentlemen. EVERYTHING was in it! My money, my credit cards, my debit card, and my LICENSE. I had to drive back to deliver Rima's drugs very carefully. I followed the speed limit there like never before. Rima getting her drugs was way more important in my mind than getting pulled over. I got there and back without incident. I called the Trader Joe's to see if anyone had found it but no luck. Getting a new license from Colorado if lost is not an easy task. You have to mail them in a form with a check or money order. Yes, you read that correctly check or money order. What is it 1998?! Yeah for Colorado it sure is, no internet for them or E signatures. Poo on you! Magically a wonderful human being found it on the side of the road and looked me up via Facebook. I picked it up on our way back down to MA. Boy oh boy am I lucky, thank you universe!

Anyways we had a wonderful time in Maine with the whole family. We ate a lot of food and drank a lot of wine. We got to catch up with our cousins and all their kiddos. Rima was a trooper the whole time. Walking up and down steps for her was a big struggle. She was on IV's this whole time, and still on o2 half the time but did not let that stop her from enjoying herself. We took a lot of photos, lots of sister selfies, haha, sorry not sorry. With what is to come this was a wonderful time with everyone. We filled in our family with everything they might have missed or had questions on. We had a fantastic three days they went by too quickly. We hope to be back next summer, fingers crossed!