1st PFT Video / CF Update

Lil' Chris' CF clinic visit went VERY well!! His appt was Wed 8/24/11 and he did his very first PFT!!!! I was soooooo proud of him!!! We were told that he wouldn't do these Pulmonary Function Tests until he turned 5 or 6, but I guess they thought he could handle it now?!?! Either that or it was just an excuse to get him out of the room so that they could ask me questions about his eating habits and such. I'll admit...I was VERY disappointed I did not get to go with him to do his first PFT;( I tried to, I told them I wanted to take pics, but they said they wanted to talk to me not my husband. Oh well, there is always next time, since he will be doing this test EVERY CF clinic visit for the REST OF HIS LIFE, which is every 3 months.

Anyway, while he was doing his PFT, I was talking with a specialist. She asked me lots of questions about what he eats and what he does when we try new foods with him(spits it out). She said to encourage him to eat more and try new foods, we should praise him and give him a reward or something. I told her we already do that. That was basically all it was. I don't think I needed to miss his PFT for something I already knew. Oh well!!

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You know....I always dreaded him having to do a PFT, but it wasn't so bad! He seemed to really have fun with it, since they have kid games associated with it. He had to blow up the hot air balloon, roll the ball in bowling, and blow out the candles on the computer screen, all just by breathing out really really hard and long! In the video, you can kinda see the computer screen and Lil' Chris blowing, but it got cut off a little when I uploaded it, sorry:( He kept stopping and taking a breath, but he still blew a 83%! Not too bad for his first time! Hopefully next time will be 100% or more:) Also, PFT's always worried me b/c of the possible cross-contamination, since every CFer in that clinic puts their mouth on it, but my husband said that they put a new mouth piece on for every patient, and the nose piece is always a new one too! Lil' Chris liked playing with the nose squeezer thingy afterwards;-) LOL

Since Lil' Chris did such a good job and didn't cry or anything when they did the throat culture, we took him to play mini golf!! Does anyone recognize the shirts Lil' Chris and I were wearing?? We got them from Josh at "Welcome to Joshland." Thanks Josh for the Awesome shirts, and Awesome CF blog, and Awesome videos that teach lil' kids about Cystic Fibrosis!!! (Click on that last blue line and you can watch Moganko do a PFT:) Lil' Chris LOVES watching his videos, b/c they contain a puppet to make it fun, named Moganko!! Plus, Josh is pretty hilarious too:)

His last CF Clinic visit was 5/18/11 (3 months ago) ......

Weight was 38 lbs. 6 oz .........now it is 38 lbs. 8 oz :( wish it was more, but dr. didn't seem like it was so bad since he keeps getting taller.

Height was 42 inches .........now it is 42 3/4

BMI was 47 % .................now it is 44% again, the dr. said this was still good since he keeps getting taller.

I was hoping for better results, but I guess I won't worry too much if the dr. isn't too worried about it. I'm still going to try to feed him as much as possible and get as many calories in him as I can. I asked the dr. if there is a certain amount of calories he should be eating every day, but she didn't really give me certain number. She asked what he was eating and then said to switch fruit snacks for snack to oreo's or another high calorie snack. By doing this, it could add a couple hundred calories per week, but he LOVES fruit snacks and isn't a big fan of oreo's, he does love chips though!

I just emailed the clinic to find out what his throat culture was, b/c he has been coughing quite a bit the last couple of days. Last night he had a hard time falling asleep b/c he kept coughing and coughing, poor thing;( It's kind of a mix between a dry and wet cough. I would say more dry than wet. He was complaining his chest hurt. To help him stop coughing so he could sleep, I gave him 2 puffs of Albuterol and a drink, and did some manual CPT. Today is definitely going to be a 3-4 times a day for his Vest!! I'm praying he didn't catch any bad bacterias. He's only been in preschool for 2 weeks!!! I wonder if he's going to make it the whole year without having to be put on a daily nebulizer treatment?!?! It's not looking so good;(

Thanks to Mary, local fellow CF mom, I went and bought an alcohol free hand sanitizer which is what they use at her CF son's school. She said that the kids use it every time they enter or leave their classroom. His teacher said that it cut down on the number of colds throughout the year, which is GREAT when you have a CFer in the class!! So Mary told me where I could find it, and I went and bought some for Lil' Chris' classroom. It comes with a MSD paper(I think that's what it is called) which basically says it's legal to have in the classroom if a health inspector comes in. His teacher was very receptive to it!! I haven't had a chance to ask her how much they have been using it though. I'll try to remember next time:)

Last night he woke up in the middle of the night throwing up a few times too. Not sure what from yet. My husband thinks maybe from all the coughing earlier, but he was throwing up like he ate some soy protein, which he is allergic to. I would say the hardest thing about Preschool is that I have no clue what he eats for snack! So I'm not sure if he was throwing up from something he ate at preschool or not. I'll have to start hanging around afterwards so that I can ask what they ate for snack, I guess.

Please pray his forceful cough goes away soon and that he won't need an antibiotic!
Thanks,
M