Breathing Deeply: My Life With Cystic Fibrosis

As some of you know, this has been a very rough year for me with my health. I've been on disability from work since Thanksgiving. I was due to return in May, but was hospitalized again. In the last calendar year I've been admitted about 7 times.

Because of this, my doc has kept me on a VERY tight leash. I've been having spirometry weekly, and clinic appointments every 3 weeks. At my last appointment I was told that they don't have anymore tricks up their sleeves for me. They had prescribed everything possible, and I was doing all that I needed to. All we could do was wait and see if all the aggressive treatments were going to be effective.

It looks like we're on the right track! My FEV1 went from 2.08 to 2.22. I gained 3 pounds. They are giving me a month to see if I can continue to improve. They would like to give me another round of antibiotics to try to get me all the way up to 2.7 or 2.8L, but they were satisfied enough with my current progress to let me wait.

Like I said, there's still a lot I have to do to be in stable enough condition to go back to work. I have some de-sat issues that we're looking into, and my heart rate is still crazy.

Nonetheless, it was a very encouraging appointment. Brad and I were all smiles, and celebrated with a trip to our favorite Chinese restaurant. My next appointment is in a month. I hope to report even more progress then.