FREE!!!

Pseudomonas free that is!

Last Thursday, Ollie had a checkup at Children's Hospital in Birmingham. Her regular doctor was out so we were seen by the CF head honcho doctor. We had met him before but were totally unaware of his mannerisms. As most of you know, all doctors are different. Some beat around the bush, some only tell you what they feel you need to know and others scare the hell out of you (basically tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth). Well this particular doctor was a scare the hell out of me type of guy. That being said, our visit was a little out of the ordinary. Although Ollie looked and sounded great (she has moved up to the 36th percentile-from the 10th when diagnosed), we were told that if the culture from this visit came back Pseudomonas positive, they would consider it "colonized". WHAT!!!  This would mean that the Pseudomonas was there for good and we could only give her meds and treatments to contain it. He also said that if if came back negative, it would mean the Pseudomonas was eradicated. YEEHAW! Basically we were at a crossroad. Not the worst case scenario, but a relatively "bad" one considering her young age. There are several CFers living and doing fine with Pseudomonas now, but the longer we keep her lungs clean and clear, the better. Well, I received the call about an hour ago and her culture is clear. Clear, clear, clear! Praise God!

Live, Love, Breathe!

Hot Child in the City...

Running wild and looking pretty!

Woo Hoo!

Come on, Mom. Let's go!

Yay! We're finally outside!

Play time!

What's that over there?

Ok, enough with the pictures. Seriously!

(Just thought I would break it all down for you.)

Lynsey

Happy Anniversary

Three years ago, John and I were married in a small ceremony overlooking Gantt Lake.

Our wedding was followed up with an amazing trip to Jamaica.

We swam.

We ate.

We kissed.

And we sat in the water

so a Jamaican man could take our picture

and then charge us an arm and a leg to purchase it.

In the years John and I have been together, we have been on many adventures.

The Bahamas.

Atlantis.

Snorkling.

The top of Mountians.

The haunted lighthouse of St. Augustine. My favorite, of course!

And our greatest adventure of all.

OPD

Through it all, we have been together, and I couldn't ask for anything more.

I look forward to many more adventures!

Boogie and the Beach

A trip to the beach was all we needed!

John has been working at Eglin Air Force Base for the past few months but starting this week, he will be there 3 days out of the week. Although Eglin is relatively close to home (especially compared to most of his other jobs) Ft. Walton is much closer.  Lucky for us, my parents have a condo in Cinco Bayou. Ollie and I decided we would make life easy on John and stay at the condo for a few days. We shop and swim and have a big time. Ollie loves it! The video below illustrates why O loves it so much....CARPET! She has been walking all over the place with no fear. Although she looks somewhat like Frankenstein, we are super proud. Our little Boogie is quite the entertainer!

Lynsey

Gimme 3 Steps....

Gimmie me 3 steps baby!

Ollie is finally walking.

We'll, she is taking steps, but doesn't that classify as walking?

She has finally become brave enough to walk

back and forth between people,

always ending it it with a laugh

and clapping for herself.

We are so proud of our little Boogie!

She is such a big girl!

(sorry the video is so dark-we don't use a lot of light)

Live,

Love,

Breathe!

Hangin Tough

Blogging is tough.

Finding time to blog while chasing a 14 month old is tough.

As I type this post, Ollie is rubbing her cheesy lips all over my clean shirt.

We just indulged in a few Doritos.

Ollie is almost 14 months old now.

She has 5 teeth and her back ones are starting to make their debut.

She cannot will not walk. She insists on crawling...everywhere.

Wood floors, concrete, bricks, dirt, everywhere.

She has great balance and can go from sitting to standing all by herself. She can walk really well while holding onto your finger, she just hardly does.

She started crawling at 6 months, so she's been doing it almost a year now and boy is she quick!

They say that the longer they crawl, the better hand-eye coordination they have and the better readers they will become. If this holds true, she should be reading any day now.

Ollie is also quite the talker.

I have no idea what she is saying but she sure does.

Her favorite word/thing right now is bird (buurrd). To her anything that flies is a buurrd. The other day, while eating lunch, a fly flew over our table and Ollie pointed to it and said buurrd.

Her favorite show is still Dora the Explorer and she's fond of Jack's Big Music show as well.

Her sleeping schedule sucks and we need a bigger bed!

To say she is into everything would be an under statement.

Case in point;

I have been working really hard on our annual poker run fundraiser. Several of the Ollie's Army items are stored in the attic and I needed to get them down. I pulled down the 12' ladder and headed up into the HOT attic leaving Ollie playing in the living room. I could hear her banging around and saying, "mama". As I searched through the many boxes of junk, I could still hear Ollie talking so I knew she was OK.  As I made my way over the boxes  I again heard "mama", only this time much closer. To my surprise, Ollie was at the top of the ladder! I about pooped my pants! I did however remain calm, not shouting, but talking softly. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her into letting go. My mom asked me how I got her down the ladder and all I can say is it's true about adrenaline in emergency situations. I don't remember going down. I had so much adrenaline I could have flown down.

On a CF note:

Currently all is well!

No news is good news!

Ollie continues to have breathing treatments twice a day.

She is on albuteral (to open lungs) and Pulmozyme (preventative maintenance).

We are also taking part in the Hyper tonic Saline study and Ollie receives HS twice a day. This is a breathing treatment as well. We are not sure if she is actually receiving the HS or if she is just inhaling a low salt content placebo. We will not know until the end of the study which lasts 1 year. Not knowing kinda sucks but someone has to do the study in order to make progress in the battle against CF.

These breathing treatments are followed up with chest PT's.

These combined take about 45 minutes in the morning and 45 minutes in the evening.

Not so bad.

Ollie has been Pseudomonas free for 8 months now!
Woooo Hooooo!

LIFE IS GOOD!!!

LIFE IS AWESOME!!!