Lil' Chris had his annual CF clinic visit on May 16th and he had a GREAT report! Lungs are CLEAR!! YEA!! For those who don't know, CFers go to a special CF clinic, usually at a Children's Hospital, every 3 months for a checkup. Then every year around their birthday, they have their annual visit, which is when they go over EVERYTHING!!! These visits usually are 2-4 hours long;( We have to prep for this visit by getting x-rays and blood work done beforehand. They said that his blood work looked GREAT!! The Dr. also said his x-rays looked GREAT too!! They aren't 100% clear in the pics below, but she said she didn't see any scarring yet! BIG YEA!!!!! Here are the pics from the past 5 years, one year was missed, not sure how that happened??....
|
5/21/08 |
|
6/16/10 |
|
3/16/11 |
|
4/4/12 First time standing up while taking x-ray |
Click here to go to the post where he got his last x-rays taken standing up.
His weight went up from 41.2 to 43.8 and his height did too a little from 44.5 to 45 inches. His weight was in the 74th percentile(up from 66th last time, 3 months ago) and his height the 90th percentile(down a little from 92) and his BMI the 40th percentile(up from 20th percentile last time:) The doctors like CFers to be at the 50th percentile or higher for BMI, so this big jump is so nice to see!!!
The doctors made no changes to his meds, but they suggested we up his pressure to 5 instead of 4 on his vest for the first 20 minutes of his 30 minute treatment. We changed the setting on our Vest and he is handling it fine:)
Now that he is almost 5, every clinic visit(every 3 months) he will have to do a PFT(Pulmonary Function Test) which they will keep track of. Up until now, he has been practicing for it, but now they will keep it on record. Most kids can't even do it at age 4, they always are impressed with him:) He did a GREAT job and scored a 99 for his FEV and a 93 for his FEV1! Pretty good, but we want 100%!!! :) Next time...next time! You'll see in the video that he got one good one in the beginning, but he got tired after that. He's still learning. What he has to do is take a really deep breath and then blow out as hard and as long as he can. He's getting there:)
He got a throat culture taken too. He impresses me every time when he doesn't cry or anything!!! I guess he is used to getting it done every 3 months now. It surprises me that he doesn't say things like, "I don't want to go to clinic, they will try to shove a thing down my throat!" He never complains, even though he knows it's coming! He just takes it like a man! :) That's my boy!!! I will let you know when I get the results from it. He didn't have a cough going into this visit, so I'm not expecting any bad bacterias, but you just never know with Cystic Fibrosis. That last antibiotic finally kicked out that wet cough he was having for what seemed like months! He coughs every now and then, but it's dry, so I'm not worried about it. I'm so glad that I pushed to get him on that antibiotic, b/c they fought me on it saying it was just allergies. Please pray the results come back clear or no new bad bacterias!!
So the doctor never ended up having him try the Pulmozyme for the first time in the doctors office like I was told. I guess that was just if we went with HTS instead of Pulmozyme, b/c some kids have reactions to HTS. My husband wanted to know if we could start it after vacation, and the dr saw no problem with that since it's only another month. I was kinda excited about getting started and going on vaca for the first time with it, but I guess it will be easier without it and that will make this our last vacation with no breathing treatments. Makes me sad when I think about it, but this Pulmozyme will be good for him. We want his lungs to be as healthy as they can be for when that CURE comes!!! Studies have shown fewer hospitalizations, lung infections, coughs, and antibiotics with the daily use of Pulmozyme, so I am ALL for that!!! I will post pics and videos when we do start it though:)
After our clinic visit, I had a CF fundraiser at CiCi's Pizza! BIG THANK YOU to my fellow Kohl's associates for helping out so that Kohl's would give a $500 grant!!
THANK YOU...
Jill P.
Kathleen S.
Jill S.
Laura T.
You girls are the BEST!!!
I was raffling off 2 tickets to an Indians game and we raised $170!!! Woot Woot!! Our winner of the raffle was our good supportive friends from church, Stephanie and Clay!!!! THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH FOR YOUR AWESOME DONATION AND FOR COMING OUT TO SUPPORT US!!! They have also signed up to walk with us on June 9th at our Great Strides walk!! Stephanie has been posting her Great Strides page on Facebook and everything to help raise money!! We can't thank you enough Steph!! You'll be surprised as to how many friends and family will donate when you tell them about Lil' Chris!! Small amounts from each one adds up to a lot!!
So our total for the night including the raffle, the Kohl's grant, and the percentage from all the customers receipts was around $730!!! WOO HOO!!!! THAT'S AWESOME!! Special thanks to our neighbors Tiffany and Ryan and their kids for coming, and also Lil' Chris' teacher Ms. Carrie and her husband Justin for coming!! Thank you all for coming to support Lil' Chris and for your generous donations for A Cure 4 Lil' Chris and ALL who suffer from Cystic Fibrosis!!
BIG thank you to everyone who donated that night at CiCi's!! Cystic Fibrosis is not funded by the government, so these fundraisers that us CF parents do are soooo important in finding that CURE!!!
My next CF Fundraiser will be at the Wooster CiCi's Pizza again on Tues May 29th from 5p-8p!! Raffle will be 2 tickets to an Indians game of your choice!!!
ALL are invited and please help me spread the word, either my word of mouth or by Facebook!!
Thanks again for everything!! Keep the prayers coming!!
M
PS. Garage Sale/CF Bake Sale Results coming soon:)