New clinic visit

Yesterday, we headed down to Pleasanton for our first, official 12-week CF appointment. We are trying this clinic out for the first time and will be meeting our new RT and seeing Dr. L again. We have dealt with Dr. L before and know she is wonderful, she’s just not our beloved Dr. N.

Turns out, she only popped her head in to say hi because I had little to no questions, Ben’s height and weight were so good, and his lungs were clear! At nearly 32 lbs, Ben is still well in the 90th percentile for weight. We can thank Ryan’s gene’s because Ben is a physical clone of his father as a child! As neither of us are tall, I never expected Ben to be either but he’s still rockin’ the charts at 88 centimeters, well into the 75th percentile. We are so thankful for how Ben is doing, this doesn’t go unnoticed by us!

We met our new RT and this is one of the negative sides of the new clinic. He has a lot of book training but no real personal experience (he told me this) but seemed eager to help us out, keep track of when we should be changing our nebs (every 6 months) and brought in a handful of free nebulizers and bubbles masks. We are lucky that we’ve never had to pay for nebulizers or masks because our clinic is so well stocked.

Our NP came in and was so excited to see Ben. Since Ben has been doing so well lately, I haven’t talked to her in awhile! We presented her with our Thank-you-for-a-healthy-2010! basket, filled with See’s candies that she promised to take to UCSF the next day.

We SO appreciate all our clinic does for us and we want to keep them fat and happy so when that magic pill comes out, we’ll be the first in line :) While some people may not count a 5-month battle with Pseudomonas and a 2-week hospital stay as “healthy”, after losing Conner and seeing the decline of Skye, I do.

Our NP listened to Ben’s lungs and said they sounded “crystal clear”, hallelujah!! She thought it was a great idea, us adding HTS back into his treatments as night in an attempt to keep Ben healthy this winter. Ben showed her how he can now cough on his own (it’s more like a huff) but she was impressed none the less, and was on her way, basket in hand.

We saw our nutritionist next and that was pretty easy too. Since Ben is doing so well all around, she said to keep doing what we are doing. She also said it was okay to add in Gummy Bear Vitamin C and D into Ben’s diet during the winter. I purchased some from GNC and am glad that Ben will be able  to use them. I also read on Cystic Life about Coconut Water and the benefits it has. It’s something I’ll be adding into Ben’s diet during the summer to help keep him hydrated in place of Gatorade which has double the sugar. However, that’s a ways away and will be talking about it more in the upcoming months. 

Even better is that Dr. N visits the Pleasanton clinic once a month and we will be able to see him then for our annual visits. We will see Dr. L for any illness related visits and I am totally happy with that. The new clinic shaves over an hour of drive time off, we don’t pay for the Bay Bridge ($4) nor for parking (usually $12), don’t have to deal with city traffic (can be AWFUL!), and don’t have to deal with a huge waiting room of sick kids. I’ll take it!

They took a culture at the end, before we left. This, I am a bit nervous about. In the last week Ben has developed a dry cough which could be caused by a number of things. The change in weather, starting HTS again, becoming sick or growing something in his lungs. I feel at peace though, I’ve done all I can to keep him healthy, short of putting him in a bubble. The results will be in next week.

Thank you to everyone who has kept Ben in their prayers. Please keep it up!