Some BIG news

Hold on, if you read this post, you know what it ISN’T but it’s a step in that direction.

After 3 years of working with Slakey Brothers, Ryan has decided to take a new position in medical device sales. While we are very appreciative for all that Slakey Brothers has done for us,  we feel this is the best move for our family.

I can quit work, and we can start to look at buying a house. All things we have been wanting and hoping to do. I hope this move will bring Ryan happiness work-wise, something he deserves. His schedule will be pretty full these first couple months, and I know it will take some getting used to, but we are very excited for the future.

In other news, I have to update on our mini-clinic visit last Thursday. UCSF has another clinic in Pleasanton, so we were able to drive there to have Ben recultured. The drive was very nice, it only took an hour and a half versus our two and a half hour drive to UCSF. We met up with our nurse practitioner, she is at the Pleasanton clinic on Thursdays. She took his throat swab and talked about where we are going to go from here. If pseudomonas comes back up on his culture, we’ll start TOBI again in the beginning of April for another 28-day cycle. She also talked about starting him on Pulmozyme if he continues to culture pseudo. When you have an infection, like Ben has in his lungs when he cultures pseudomonas, white blood cells go to the area to help clear up the infection. In Ben’s case, his white blood cells get caught in his mucus and eventually die. Pulmozyme would help break down the white blood cells, causing Ben to cough them up.  It would be a 30-minute, inhaled treatment done once a day.

I am a bit hesitant to jump into Pulmozyme. There is very limited amount of research on children younger then 5 years using it and the long term effects it has. However, I have complete trust in our clinic but will want to wait until it’s really necessary for us to start it. We’ll just have to wait and see what his culture results reveal. They should be in mid-week.

We also talked about moving to the Pleasanton clinic. Our team would be the same except for our Pulmonologist. This is a huge decision because I LOVE our pulmonologist we have now. He has a great bedside manner, always a positive attitude, and thinks Ben is just adorable (who doesn’t though?!). So this is something to consider, a shorter drive would really help cut down my stress level on clinic visit days. I think I may go to the Pleasanton clinic for our next annual to meet the new Dr. and get a feel for her. I feel confident that I can make the best decision when I’m ready.

Ben’s fever seems to be going down. It got pretty high last night but it seems to have subsided today. Let’s hope it’s gone for good! Could have been teething but I’m done trying to guess when his teeth will come in. For now, we’ll just keep administering the Tylenol and replaying Thomas the Train.

Lastly, I want to say thank you again to everyone for coming to Ben’s party. Many traveled from far and it was greatly appreciated! Thank you to my in-laws for managing the BBQ and helping with clean-up. Ben is enjoying his new toys and thank you to all who donated to his college fund and the CFF, the best gift possible!