As my health rapidly improved, I began to focus on other things besides my amazing health. Now that I was no longer anxiously awaiting the next time I got fucked over by an infection, I felt much more comfortable with change. I decided to start that off by getting a new bed and mattress, as well as helping Mom rearrange some things, and get rid of some stuff in the house that needed to go. I really liked my old bed, but it was old and needed to go. Plus, I figured it would be foolish to ignore the fact that Mom could afford brand new everything for us. Five years ago, we relied on free shit from Craigslist to furnish our house, but thanks to my mom's booming real estate career, we could afford everything we wanted and then some.
I woke up early one Monday morning to disassemble my old bed and bring it outside to the driveway. I had everything I needed. Tools? Check. Music? Check. Freakish physical strength granted to me by Trikafta? Check. Diet mountain dew? I didn't exactly need it since I was already jacked up on Trikafta five minutes after waking up, but I still enjoyed the refreshing taste of it, so I took fifteen minutes to drive to the nearest gas station to get my day's dose of caffeine.
As soon as I came home, I popped open my tool boxes and went to work with the one wrench that fit the nuts holding my bed frame together. I also armed myself with my expensive, multi-bit screwdriver my mom had borrowed and then lost for almost a year, to tackle the two-by-fours that held the mattress over the bed frame. I was going to town on that bed! Within the first fifteen minutes, I was more than halfway done. Only two more nuts and bolts held the side rails to the headboard. However, there was a problem. I lost my wrench. The only tool out of my entire collection that fit the specific nuts holding my bed together had vanished. But, my room wasn't messy, so where could it have gone?
After I spent at least twenty minutes desperately searching around my bedroom, as well as searching the rest of my house to see if, for some strange reason, I misplaced my wrench somewhere I knew I hadn't ventured to all morning, I accepted the fact that my wrench had glitched out of existence. The nuts holding the rest of my bed together were quite loose, and the bolts were very short. So, I laid down on my back and used my legs to shake the side rails until the nuts were loose enough for me to unscrew with my fingers.
Only, there was another problem. As soon as I unscrewed the last nut and pulled out the second side board, that headboard was gonna fall over. So, I did what any genius adult would do. I went into the storage room across the hall from my room, found my dirtbike helmet, and sat back down on my bedroom floor knowing damn well, as soon as I moved that side board, that heavy headboard was gonna fall on me. I unscrewed the final nut off the final bolt, slid the side board away, and had enough time to catch the headboard before it landed on my protected head.
I moved all of the disassembled parts into the main room of the basement, walked up the basement stairs, opened up the garage door, and headed back down again to start moving individual pieces outside. By then, Mom had come home, so she helped me move everything out into the driveway. Even though the whole demanding project took over an hour for us to complete, I was barely feeling it. I was still very energetic and breathing just fine, even after all of that hard work. Typically, I would've needed a two hour nap halfway through the disassembling process, and would've probably needed another two hour rest after finishing disassembling the bed, let alone moving everything up a flight of stairs, into the garage, and out onto the driveway.
Yet, I'd done all of that in the morning, without stopping, mostly on my own, and I was still as hyper as a squirrel on crack! I didn't even feel like I'd done very much work. My heart wasn't racing. My breathing rate hadn't increased. I wasn't sweating or panting. The only physical sign that I'd done some work was a slightly tight muscle in my forearm. But, even that went away after several minutes of rest. Mom was just astounded. She tried to wrap me in a tight hug, but I dodged it. I didn't want a hug. I wanted to keep moving. So, like anyone would do in my situation, I threw on my hiking shoes and went on a two hour walk.
During my walk, I again noticed just how scent-filled the air was. Aside from the scent of ponderosa pine trees, I didn't know what I was smelling. All that I knew is that everything smelled pleasant and fresh. A strong weather front was also moving through, but I only noticed it because of how windy it was. If the wind wasn't gusting as hard as it was, I wouldn't have known there was a cold front moving through. My joints and sinuses were completely unaffected by the fast-moving weather system. I could also breathe extremely easily, even against the wind that kicked up dust into my face.
That was another thing that was completely new to me. Before Trikafta, I couldn't deal with dust or wind without choking on it. I avoided the outdoors when it was that windy out, and if I couldn't avoid it, I'd turn my back to it and hide my airways behind my sleeve. But now, thanks to that breakthrough medication, I was doing just fine in that weather. The only complaint I had about it was that I kept having to chase down my damn hat! But, thanks to Trikafta, I had more than enough stamina and speed to keep playing the same stupid game of chase, every time a big gust hit me head-on when I didn't have a hold of my hat's bill. And before someone tells me about this amazing technology called "string", let me ask what kind of dork ties their baseball cap down with string?
After I'd finally tired myself out, or more accurately, after my bottle of water had made its way through my system, I finished my walk/run a little sore and incredibly satisfied with myself. My day wasn't even over by then. I still had a full sink of dishes to wash, a writer's meeting to attend, and my new mattress arrived shortly after I returned from my walk. Getting that thing open was an adventure in itself. I knew what that mattress would do once I sliced away the layers of plastic holding it into a tight roll. But, because I had no other choice, I sat in the line of fire and carefully sliced the plastic with my bowie knife, which was the only knife I had on hand because all of my other, much more reasonable knives were packed in a box deep in the storage closet.
I slid my knife over the plastic using the same technique I'd used to skin the pronghorn I hunted, until the mattress suddenly burst through the remaining layers of plastic, literally knocking my feet right out from under me. Thankfully, I had a soft place to land, and since I was fully prepared for what happened, I had complete control over myself and the knife I was holding. But, even though I thought I knew what would happen, nothing could prepared me for the force and the speed that mattress had. I certainly expected to get hit with it. I didn't, however, expect to get knocked off my feet as violently as I was. That was startling!
I yet again did more than one day than I'd ever gotten accomplished in a week, thanks to that lifesaving medication. I just could not believe how beneficial that medication was to me.
