Blog, anyone?

When Sam goes into the hospital, we all go into the hospital.

Sam has been here since Friday, May 6. He has cystic fibrosis which affects his pancreas and lungs. When he was a baby. he spent lots of time (and so did we) here on account of his pancreas and liver. Now, he's four, and we're experiencing our first pulmonary exacerbation. Lungs.

CF kids are common here. They come here to get 'cleaned out' periodically for exacerbations - a drop in lung function for various reasons. When we stroll the halls, many are just hanging out like us, watching tv and playing video games. They don't seem sick on the surface, but they are. This will be what we do from now on. Sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months.

Our current issue is a "mucus plug" that has settled in his right lung, lowering his lung function. He is on IV antibiotics, and receiving vest and nebulizer treatments every four hours during the day. It's exhausting for him to be constantly poked and annoyed, but he's big for a four-year-old and handles it well for the most part. The idea - for now - is to chip away at the plug with lots of vest and inhaled meds. The antibiotics will help too.

Being here is a constant reminder of how valuable life is. There are lots - LOTS - of kids here who are much, much worse off than we are.

I've never blogged before. I think I'll include some pictures.

This is Sam. There is a killer rooftop garden here, where we go to get some air. This was taken on Saturday.

Ozzie. We miss Oz, Sam's brother (brohan, broseph, brozzie, whatever.). He has CF too, but he's doing ok right now.

The upside to all this is that Sam is eating french fries with just about every meal. Loves it.

Another great things is that today, we got rid of the "pole"! This morning Sam and I were given some great news -- we could lose the IV pole! FREEDOM!

We also go news that we could go home today. This was not very well-informed news. We're still here. Sam didn't improve in the short time we've been here, so we chose to stick it out until he's feeling better. We're hoping sooner rather than later. Maybe a week. The doctor says "one week in, one week out." But we don't want to leave without seeing some improvement.

Sam is coughing a lot. Very violent coughs, from deep down. His lungs are trying to expel the mucus that's plugging it. The mucus is too thick because of the CF mutation in Sam's cells. So, the mucus gets bogged down in the lung. We have to help his lungs break up the plug and push the mucus out.

Another picture:

We miss mommy. She had to go back to Champaign with the Oz-man. Sam doesn't complain about this, though, but I know he misses mommy, home, Mojo, and even Oz. 

We get lots of time to play computer games during treatments. He's getting very good at finding things to do while this happens. I'm very impressed.

Ok - this is a blog, so I've blogged it up. First time blogger. I hope to provide updates here for those interested. We're very comfy here, the hospital is great, the staff is wonderful, and the weather is AMAZING. 

cheers.