The Swimcation

     I have been receiving a lot of questions about the details of my Australia trip.  I figure I should explain them on here so everyone has the answers.  But first off, thank you to everyone who has provided such amazing support of my decision to go on this incredible adventure. Your love and support of me and this time in my life means the world to me.
    The plan is that I will be going to Australia Jan - March.  The first couple weeks I will be traveling Eastern Australia, then settling in to my apartment in Melbourne for 10 weeks to train. I will be staying as long as my visa allows, 89 days.  I will be swimming, weight lifting, continuing Pilates and also my favorite Gyrotonic work out.  I will miss U-jam and Orangetheory Fitness while I am away - but it will be a good time for me to focus on my swimming for a while.  I will be going with a training plan for the pool and have every intention to stick with it and work as hard as I can to gain as much strength and fitness in the pool as possible.
     I am also excited to have such great friends in the transplant community in Melbourne as well as spread out through Australia.  I will be visiting them all at some point or another and I am also being invited to participate in Organ Donation Awareness events.  It is going to be a great time to work on my fitness, my spirit, exploration of another country as well as deep within myself.  All while doing the stuff I love - promoting organ donation, working out, eating, and having fun!
     This idea of swimming in Australia actually came about quickly and came to fruition even quicker - call me impulsive but sometimes life places opportunities in front of you and it is your choice to choose to take advantage or look the other way. There are a million reasons why I should not go - but plenty of reasons why I should.  Instead of letting fear of the unknown and all the shoulda-coulda-wouldas I choose to jump in with both feet.
    There are a lot of magical moments in life but they don't just happen - you have to look for them, work for them and earn them. My goals of getting fitter, faster, and breaking records won't happen with me sitting on the couch.  I have to go out and work for it.  The final result may be magical but it is going to take a lot of blood, sweat and tears - but I am ready.  I am motivated and I can't wait to get to Australia for this amazing Swimcation adventure!

Big Things are Coming

I spoke of being almost 6 years post transplant and in those 6 years I have done a lot of traveling.  It could be debatable that I have done more traveling in the past 6 years than my entire life before my transplant.  Always having CF I never felt that good to travel.  I would do some trips, often close by and when I did travel internationally it was usually to club med or to a tropical island. I never could go and travel abroad and live in another country because my health was never stable enough.  Since my last post on this blog  before I started writing again it was my FIRST of THREE trips to South Africa.  I just got back from my 3rd trip at the end of September from visiting my friends Alice and Chris in South Africa.  I think it is safe to say I have caught the travel bug.  Well in my planning of training for the 2017 Games I came upon a very interesting idea.  I had planned a trip to Australia already - my first international trip all by myself.  And I thought of this crazy idea to stick around and stay for 3 months to train for the games. I will borrow their summer and their 50 meter pools.  I am taking a leave from work, and my life here in California.  I am renting an apartment and doing it up like an Aussie for the first part of 2017.  I realized I will be in another country for the inauguration of our next president.  How bizarre - after this heated election.  Depending on how that goes, maybe i won't come back home! HA!  But I am doing it - I have never left the bay area for more than 3.5 weeks - let alone live in another country for an extended period of time.  I am so excited at this opportunity.  I am re-starting this blog to chronicle my experiences.  What is it like to plan for a trip like with with CF, Diabetes, Double lung transplant?  I want to share my preparations, my thoughts, my training plans,  my fears, my excitement.  This is an amazing and new experience for me.  I hope you enjoy the ride as I share my perspective of being a short term Expat in Oz
    

Almost 6 years Post Double Lung Transplant Update

Wow.  I am 5 years and 11 months post transplant. This is incredible.  The statistic says that only 50% live to 5 years.  I am going strong and just about to hit 6. I have had many ups and downs in this journey.  Most recently I attended the Transplant Games of America in Cleveland where I was not only the co-manager for Team Norcal, but also worked really hard and pushed myself to enter new sports and I even took up GOLF for the games.  I entered into Swimming (7 events), Golf, Bocce ball, and Volleyball.  I did really well in my swimming events, taking home 7 gold medals, and also gold in Golf for a total of 8 gold medals.  I was also very honored to accept the award of Female Athlete of the Year.  It was a tremendous honor to be recognized for my efforts, performance, and sportsmanship.  I have made an effort to push myself every year in my swimming.  I was not able to attend the most recent world transplant games in Argentina due to the fact I had to have a bariatric surgery.  But this year I am all healed, healthy and ready to train to compete!  The next World Transplant Games are going to be held in Malaga, Spain, 2017.  To start off my training season, I am working with a trainer, have been continuing my Pilates class,  going to Orange Theory Fitness, and still attend my U-Jam Fitness class.  I am also going to be starting up my Gyrotonic practice as well.  I am currently working out of water to get stronger and fitter before I get back in the pool.  I have goals this year to really work on my muscle strength to help take time off my swim races.  I don't want to cram all of the updated info into one blog post so please stay tuned as a big announcement is coming  soon...

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San Jose Mercury News Article

I was featured in the San Jose Mercury news today.  First page of the local news section.  Pretty great article if you ask me.  I want to thank Bruce and Gary for working so diligently to accurately represent my story... Here is a link if you would like to check it out.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_24090103/competitive-swimmer-using-grit-and-lung-transplant-winning

Good-bye Emdoneni

I don't think I could ever get enough of walking by baby Servals, crossing paths with impala and Zebra.  Emdoneni is a magical place.  I wish we could have had at least 1 week there.  Time to rest, enjoy, and explore the great land of the Zulu.  While in Durban we learned some basic Zulu, but it was within the park, in the bush, that I could really feel the Zulus.  The spirit of Kwa-Zulu Natal.  Unjani, jeelapela. Sowabonga, sowborna.  The words of the black people of the area.  The clicks in the language.  It was music to my ears, I could listen to isizulu all day long.

We went on our last cat tour with so many more visitors this time.  However, being the pushy American that i am, I got to the front of the line.  Partly it was because Casey and I were not scared of the animals like many of the other visitors.  It was great to be with the cats again,but I am thankful we had the first day we did with them, as they were getting annoyed and overstimulated with the amount of attention, and some didn't even come out to visit.  But it was still great to watch them and pet the baby servals.

We said goodbye to the zebra, impala, nyala and cats.  We headed out on our 2.5 hour drive back to Durban.  I wanted to explain what the drive was like.  We were driving in the rural part of south Africa, but the highway is well paved.  It is surrounded for miles and miles and miles with blue gum trees, a type of eucalyptus, that is farmed for poles.  It made me sad to find out that these trees suck up 300 liters a day of water.  In a country spare of water,these trees used for poles are sucking the country dry.  The amazing thing was the lush land around, and the villages on the sides of the road.  There were black south Africans, Zulus, walking along the road,waiting for taxi pick ups, or catching rides on passing Mack trucks. The rondavels and huts are sparce with a nicely paved ( much better than california) roads throughout.  It was an interesting experience.  The custom is to allow people to pass,and drive in the broken down lane, when you can.  When you pass a car, it is polite to blink your hazards as thank you and acknowledgement. Casey did a great job driving on the wrong side of the road,  it was actually a quite peaceful drive.  As we thought we were tight on time we ended up stopping for gas, a pee, and some McDonald's on the way,  it was easy and fast,  tasted almost the same as McDonald's at home ;) we successfully returned our car at Avis, and got our bags wrapped, and checked. We were unable to check our departure and when we arrive at the airport we had a few hours to kill as our flight was delayed.  However, we just got some ridiculous pancakes at mug and bean, got some coffee and enjoyed the time. I am now on the plane, just about to land for our adventure in cape town.  I'll keep you posted! 

Full day at Emdoneni, with animals galore!

Our first day consisted of a 9am semi-private cat tour.  The lodge is full of a tour group, and there fore there are only a few of us not within the group.  Us and 2 other couples did the cat tour. We all got to snuggle and cuddle with the Cheetah, Moya.

One of the greatest experiences of my life.  Absolutely nothing better than hearing the purr,feeling the fur and warmth of a gigantic, magnetic cat.  The most incredible thing to me is to watch the behavior of the large wild cats.  A cat is a cat.  They lick, purr, hiss, rub and head butt.  We got to spend time with the Cheetah, Caracal, African Wild cat, and Serval.

The Serval is by far the softest coat.  In my interaction with the sweet Serval, he was rubbing and head butting me, then a hard fast stream of pee came fit out of his butt.  I luckily dodged it, but he was trying to claim me as his territory.  it was awesome!

I had little fear facing these cats and I felt I got a great interaction with them.  Casey also had a fun time playing with the big cats.  It really is taking all my will power to come home from here, as this was absolutely my dream,and I could do this all day every day.  If I could lead the cat tours, what a dream job! This will be something I remember for my entire life time.  During our visit with the Cheetah we saw the Zebra begin to gather by our cottage.  It was the beginning to an amazing couple of days.

After the cat tour we walked around the grounds finding Zebra and Impala.  It was awesome to walk around with them.  

Then we came back to rest, take showers in our outdoor shower and head out on our first game drive. We were so lucky to have a private tour of Hluhluwe game reserve.  Our guide was Vernon, and he has been a guide 16 years, at many reserves.  It was clear by his save the white rhino bracelet, his love and knowledge of the white rhino, this is a passion of his.  He taught us all about the white Rhino, as we first came upon 4 right on the road, as we entered the park.  W watched them graze calmly, watched some of the pecking order happen,and admire the long horn on one of the females.  You would think when I say white rhino, it is white in color, but this isn't so.  They look exactly the same as the black rhino, they just are docile grazing creatures.  Where as the black rhino is aggressive and eats from trees and bushes. There are so few white rhinos left in the world, they will be extinct in 12 years at the rate they are poached.  So sad.  We got our fill of rhinos for sure as we saw them many times throughout our drive.  We also came upon warthogs, monkey, a zebra group where one had clearly been recently attacked by a lion, as the scars on his rump were fresh. As we were leaving we saw a whole family of baboons, probably over 30 of them playing, grooming, eating, and walking to their fig tree where they spend the night.  It was awesome to see the babies playing, wrestling, and chewing paper and rubbish they found on the road.  It was quite a site I will never forget.  We saw giraffes in the distance, and a gigantic herd of buffalo.  It was fantastic.  The views were tremendous, it he park of rolling hills, and trees.

We arrived back home in time for dinner, which was great, with roasted chicken, veg, dessert.  It was very high quality food.  We headed back to our room soon after to get some sleep before our next game drive at 530am the next day.  

The drive to Emdoneni

Today we checked out of the Elangeni hotel, in the midst of utter chaos. Almost all of the transplant games participants all were checking out at once. During which everyones card keys deactivated at once. There was a line for check out, and panicked people all trying to get their room keys working agin for the 11am check out. After a little chaos, we said good-bye to my parents and took a cab to pick up our rental car. We packed our car with all our many bags and began our 3 hour journey to the game reserve and Emdoneni lodge. It was Casey and my first time driving on the wrong side of the road and with a 6 speed manual car. At least it was a Toyota Corolla so there was some similarity, except everything, including the steering wheel were on the wrong side.  We had a beautiful drive for the first 2.5 hours, and the last 30minutes was utter hell for me, as my bladder got to the point of pain, and I was close to going in a bottle, or stopping on the side of the road in an African villiage. I have never been in such dire need for the bathroom. It was the worst time, in rural Africa, to need a bathroom. Good job Anna. We finally reached the lodge, and we had to drive slowly 1km, on a bumpy road. Once we reached the lodge, I ran out of the car. The best and biggest pee of all time.

After the epic piss monsoon, we were taken to our room, the windfall cottage.  To get there we all jumped in our car, drove by the Serval, and came upon our luxurious room. 

Our room is the windfall cottage, and it is off the beaten path from the rest of the rondavels. It is luxiourious with a leather couch, bar, 2 rooms, large "princess bed" as Casey calls it, with a mosquito net canopy, a claw foot tub, and out side shower, within our enclosed patio. I'm not so sure about the shower, as we have already seen an African wild cat, frog, and plenty of bugs out there... The exciting thing, was when I looked outside the first time, we already had a large and cute African wild cat out there grooming himself for us to see. We couldn't get a picture as the night time pic was too hard without prior set up. They set up a green light on our bathroom patio, which works as night vision. I think we figured showers will be taken in the middle of the day, between activities :) The rooms are decorated with traditional African hats, and beautiful black and white shots of the cats. It for sure is Anna and Casey's paradise. The one problem is the bathroom has no noise control between the bedroom, so we will be taking turns in here... The one problem. As we say, it is the honey moon suite where all was lost ;) 

Right out in front of our room are the cat enclosures, and when we walk to reception, we will pass by the cute cats every day! We already saw the caracal, and the cheetahs off in the distance. There are all kinds of antelope, zebra, and a variety of animals that live on the property. We already saw some antelope and an unknown large animal on the drive in. There is plenty of Scat around and I am sure the animals will be spotted today or tomorrow.

Our itinerary today is to have breakfast then head on over for a private cat tour at 9am. Then at 2pm we will be heading out for our first game drive. It is very exciting to be here. 

We are literally living in the bush. To go to reception it is about a 5 minute walk, and we walk by the cats, and through the bush. Last night it was pitch dark. We take a flash light to lead the way. It is quite the experience. I can't wait to see what happens on this adventure!