CF Clinic Update

When I went into clinic on Friday, I knew I was not feeling my best.  The week before I had food poisoning, which took me nearly three days to recover from.  It left me feeling tired and with no appetite.  Also, during the course of the past couple months my sinuses have been giving me problems on and off.  The last two weeks I have been back to having headaches and pain, which propels an extreme exhaustion.  But through it all, my lungs felt great, so why then did I find myself with a 15% drop in FEV1?  As I stood there facing my lowest PFTs ever, I was determined to blow my normal range.  I tired my hardest and the numbers would not budge.  As I tried to reflect on why the sudden and surprising decrease in lung function.  I realized there were actually a lot of contributing factors:

I have not been implementing my normal exercise routine,
I have not been 100% compliant with treatments, and
Low energy was inhibiting my ability to put forth the maximum effort needed to do the test.

Looking back at these reason, I really should not be surprised by the drop.  Really this is a wake up call.  It is a reminder of how hard I have to work to stay ahead of this disease.  I cannot take my high PFTs for granted.  It is time to get back on track.

But before that, I will be starting IV antibiotics this week.  I go in for the PICC line today.  I really didn't expect IVs walking into clinic, but I know it is really the right course for "maximum medical therapy" as my doc calls it.