Healthcare — Page 17

The Arrival of Cayston and an Altera

June 22, 2010

I was sitting at the coffee table working away, preparing for my 10am Skype call with a client when the doorbell rang. I jumped up because I knew I’d need to sign for this package: a $2000+ Altera and the $900+ Cayston shipment. I was wrong about the signing part, but right about the package. It was huge with the nice styrofoam cooler and tons of polar packs inside. I like to keep the coolers (okay, A cooler), but that is not allowed because we have a 1-car garage. Gotta get me an outside freezer for the polar packs, too. Man, I could be such a hoarder!

Shall we open it?

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Growing Up – Hospital Style

June 19, 2010

Wouldn’t you know it, but it seems like darn near all of my new blogging/Twitter CF peeps are in “jail” right now for one thing or another, including a successful double-lung transplant. I thought it would be a good time to run down what my hospital stays used to be like, but I do have to apologize for the lack of real photos. See, they didn’t have cameras back when they used to put me in the can.

Annual clean-outs

That’s what they called it every summer. Sometimes July, sometimes August – depending on the Little League schedule, I think. I’d go in for 2 weeks, rain or shine as far as my cough was concerned. Come to think of it, I can only remember two or three times they put me in the hospital for my cough that wasn’t an annual clean-out.

Back then, you didn’t get your own room. Heck, the TV was a 5″ box that swung around next to your bed and cost $7/day to have turned on. There were times we couldn’t afford for me to have TV while I was in the hospital and times where they busted both arms with IVs and I couldn’t swing the TV by myself. I remember bonking my head one night because I fell asleep with the TV right in front of my face. Ah, memories!
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Fatboy’s Nebulizer Life

June 4, 2010

Owing directly to my eFlow nebulizers (Why you NEED an eFlow a.k.a. Trio and Altera), there is no way I would be able to function with all of my responsibilities without being able to do speedy breathing treatments. They allow me to break down a dose into 90 seconds to 3 minutes, depending on the med and how much is in the vial. Look how darn portable they are, too!

Here is a run-down of what is in the photo, why I take it, when, and etc.

Left side from the back

Advair Diskus 500/50 – a steroidal control bronchodilator med that I take twice a day. It’s a dry powder that gets sucked in when a blister inside pops.

Albuterol – my first dose I take with my Trio in the long chain of meds. It’s, of course, a long-time friend of CFers and asthma patients as a bronchodilator. Twice a day again.

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I Say Megase, You Say Megace. I Gain Weight.

June 3, 2010

No matter how you spell it, Megase (megestrol acetate) is really making an impact this week, so I looked up some information on how/why it works. Here is what I already knew going into my research:

It’s often prescribed to anorexia, cancer, and AIDS patients who have a severe loss of appetite.
Whenever I take it, it’s not that I become hungrier, my brain doesn’t receive the signal to stop eating.

Going along perfectly with one of my most popular articles: Eating With Cystic Fibrosis: It’s a Full-time Job, this is just another attempt at creating a caloric income greater than caloric outgo. This week, I’ve decided to try to take it as prescribed on the bottle instead of just as a little booster for meals to make sure I eat “enough.” Let’s see if I can express the results of said action accurately.”

“Oh my!”

I’ve been eating to the point where I actually have to lay down because sitting up is uncomfortable. My weight is back up over 120 at all times of the day, and it almost seems like I’m thinking about food more. Maybe it does have an appetite thing that I wasn’t getting the effects of when just taking a bit at a time for a certain meal.