It's a full-time job...but someone has to do it!

So what have I been doing the last few weeks...I've been my own personal nurse here at home trying to get better. I have been sick now for over a month. My breathing test (PFT's, aka lung function test) have been down around 40%. Most healthy people have lung function around 90-100%. Sam, my sister w/CF who can run up to 16 miles or more a week, is about 85%...my normal (base line) is between 50-55%, so I'm definitely not as healthy as most people. Anyway, we did almost 4 weeks of oral antibiotics with my test only going up about 1% each week. So we decided to go to home IV's to help me get back up to my base line level. Well they are starting to work! This week when I went to the doctor my test went up 6 points!!! Yahoo!!! So if that happens again this next week I'll be back up to my base line and hopefully off of antibiotics for a while. Oh, on top of the one IV antibiotic, I'm also taking 2 oral antibiotics and 1 inhaled antibiotic....so with all of that something had better work! (this is what happens when you are resistant to most antibiotics and now allergic to some of them....having just one doesn't do the trick, but if you combine 2 or 3 of them it works great for me. This is not recommended for most people!)

The current IV antibiotic that I am on has to be given every 6 hrs! It's not very stable mixed up, so I have to mix it right before I give it. Normally I have my little "bottles" with my medicine in them that I can hook up and go. This one has to go in via gravity drip...so I have an IV pole at my house that I hang my medicine on. This one definitely isn't very travel friendly, so I stay home a lot. It takes about 45 min. to go in and then I unhook, flush and go until the next round is due. My current schedule is 8 am, 2 pm, 8 pm, and 2 am. Yes it would be so much easier to be in the hospital and have the nurse worry about this, but I'd rather be home than in the hospital. It's a good thing we have an alarm...Curtis has also been really good at helping me. He is my own personal nurse in training. :o)

On top of taking my IVs and other oral medications, I also spend a lot of time doing breathing treatments. Since I'm sick, I've been doing them 3 times a day. My inhaled medications take about 30 min. in the morning, 30 min. in the afternoon, and about 45 min. in the evening. I also use the Vest for 30 min each time I "smoke" to help loosen the mucus in my lungs and get it out. On top of all of this I'm suppose to eat and try to get as many calories in that I can. (easier said than done when you don't feel very good...but I'm trying!) I'm also suppose to take it easy and rest. This can also be very hard when you know there are dishes and laundry to be done...but I have lots of help. Sam helps when she is here and Curtis helps a lot too after work and on the weekends. The nice thing about all of this is that I've been doing a lot of reading...I've finished 3 books in the last 2 weeks. I also worked on my scrapbook for my Grandmother. It took about 2 weeks to do, but slow and steady wins the race.

Anyway, I'm starting to feel better and thought that I would take some pictures of what my day is like. I'm excited to be feeling better for Christmas. I feel very blessed to have all that I have, especially a wonderful loving husband who loves me and makes sure that I get the medical care that I need.