On January 1, 1998 I got the flu. This time it didn't just go away like it normally did. It turned into pneumonia. I was in the hospital for a week and had to take I.V. antibiotics for the first time in my life. It really scared me, but I was able to get over it.
A few months later I got sick again. I could not keep anything down and I began to lose weight. I looked anorexic. I had to start taking prednisone and I developed Cystic Fibrosis related diabetes. I got better again, but I never was able to swim or play soccer nearly as well as I used to.
On September 18, 1998, I had a PAS-port. put in. Many people have never heard of this or seen it. It is an I.V. line that starts in my arm and runs up to my heart. It is just like a Port-a-Cath except it is smaller and it goes in my arm instead of my chest. This way, whenever I need I.V. antibiotics, it is not such a hassle to get an I.V. put in or a P.I.C.C. line.
During the Christmas of 1999, I got really sick. My oxygen level dropped and it would not come back up, even though I started to feel better. We thought something might be wrong with my heart, which really scared me. We were about to start looking at translplant centers for a lung transplant. Yet again, I got better and now I feel better than I have in 2 and a half years. I had to take Amikacin via I.V. for a long time and because of that I have some hearing loss. Now, I have to get hearing aids, so that I will be able to understand what my teachers are saying in school. I'm just thankful that now they have little ones that go inside the ear and are not even visible. I'm also thankful that there are antibiotics out there, like Amikacin, that make me feel better. However, I cannot rely just on medicine to make me feel better. I think the main reason I really got better is because I exercised. Everyday, I biked one mile, now I bike almost three. It's amazing what a difference it makes.
In October of 2000, I had my PAS-port taken out and a Port-a-Cath put in my chest. The PAS-port had stopped working. It took 6 hours for one 100 mL bag of saline to run in. (It is supposed to take only an hour).
During the Thanksgiving Holidays of 2000, I got really sick when we were out of town. I could hardly breathe and knew that I needed Oxygen, so my parents took me to the hospital. My oxygen saturation had dropped to 62%. The doctors said that I should have been blue but I wasn't. They transported me to a children's hospital in Knoxville, TN (since CF is a "children's disease" and that particular hospital does not have a pediatric pulmonologist). They found out the whole reason that I was sick was because I had gone into acute renal (kidney) failure. Luckily, the doctors caught it in time and I didn't need dialysis. After 2 nights in Knoxville, I was transported back home to Memphis so that my doctor could take care of me and I could be more comfortable. I had to stay in the hospital for 10 days in Memphis (my longest stay yet, I HATE hospitals!!)
As of right now, I'm still on oxygen at home, but I don't need it all of the time. I'm starting physical therapy in a few weeks to get my strength back. (I lost just about all of my muscle laying in hospital beds for 12 days). Also, I'm going back to school as a part-time student since I haven't fully recovered yet.
