This has been a crazy week. I have come to a realization that God has a plan for me, HE will always provide for me and i need to let go of control and just have FAITH that everything will workout the way it is meant to be. I am so blessed in more ways than i even realize. I believe everything that you go through in life, even the mistakes and heartache, make you who you are meant to be.It has made my heart huge, it has given me EMPATHY for others ( to really feel someone elses pain and understand even if you havn't walked in there shoes.) & lots of strength. It seems like lately everytime I get to that place where I just look to God and ask " what am I going to do!?" he has walked in and given me blessing's upon blessings.
Not to jump around but I have really been wanting to write about this because it is near and dear to my heart! It is coming to the end of may which is Cystic Fibrosis awareness month. When I was doing my pediatric clinical rotation for school I was always assigned to CF patients. We went over CF briefly in class but we didnt go in depth, to learn more about the disease and to help me be a better nurse I decided to "youtube" the words " life with Cystic Fibrosis". I came across a documentary by a young lady named Farrel.
The Video pulled at my heart strings and I contacted Farrel via facebook. After many chats, I truley consider Farrel a friend, she has a huge heart and is a fighter in more ways than one! Here is the difinition of CF from CFF.org -
Cystic fibrosis is an inherited chronic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system of about 30,000 children and adults in the United States (70,000 worldwide). A defective gene and its protein product cause the body to produce unusually thick, sticky mucus that:
- clogs the lungs and leads to life-threatening lung infections; and
- obstructs the pancreas and stops natural enzymes from helping the body break down and absorb food.
- Statistics
- About 1,000 new cases of cystic fibrosis are diagnosed each year.
- More than 45% of the CF patient population is age 18 or older.
- The predicted median age of survival for a person with CF is in the mid-30s.
The struggles CFers have to go through on a day to day basis just to BREATHE is unbelievable to me. Just to give you an idea here is a list of medications that a CFer has to take daily to help keep there lungs healthy, and dont forget The VEST two times a day for 2-30 mins. The vest is a vest that vibrates and basically shakes the mucus off of the lungs and helps to break it up, this is usually done while doing a breathing treatment. Can you imagine the time it takes day to day......
Albuterol 2x/day
Pulmicort 2x/day
Pulmozyme 2x/day
Cayston 3x/day (one month on/one off)
TOBI 2x/day (one month on/one off)
Symbicort 2x/day
Flonase 2x/day
Creon w/food
Arixtra 1x/day
AquADEKS 2x/day
Singulair 1x/day
Prednisone 1x/day
Nexium 2x/day
Iron 3x/day
Zithromax - MWF
Magnesium 2x/day
Senna 1x/day
Colace 1x/day
Vitamin C 1x/day
Allegra 2x/day
Novolog insulin w/carbs
Lantus insulin 1x/day
The Vest 2-3x/day
OsCal Ultra 2x/day
I have truly found my passion and I cant wait to become a nurse and specialize in CF, but hopefully by then we will have a cure and every CFer will finally know waht its like to "Breathe Easy" . To learn more about CF and what you can do to help find a cure go to www.cff.org. Thanks xoxo Katherine
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