Thumbs, lungs, and bras

I feel like I  kinda left you all hanging a bit on a few things...

First- Drew and his thumb. Nope. Didn't work. I was starting to get concerned that Drew wasn't using his thumb AT ALL when the Band-Aid was on. The skin was also tender and puffy, the way any skin that's under a Band-Aid gets; while that might be okay for a day or two, weeks at a time just didn't seem like a good idea. At that point it had been over a week, and he seemed to be sleeping through the night well again without the thumb, so we thought it was time to take the next step. We took the Band-Aid off and he whined and complained that he needed it back. He wouldn't sleep, in fact. So we gave him back the Band-Aid and figured we'd try taking it off early the next day (instead of right before bed), so by the end of the day he was good without the Band-Aid. That worked better and we put him to bed and hoped... Next morning? He woke up with his thumb in his mouth. Sigh.... Overall, though, I have seen him carry his blanket and flick the corner (that's his "thing") without sucking his thumb- that never used to happen. And more often than not I find him asleep without it. Just today I went in to get Drew up from nap time and there was no thumb, but in his waking-up grogginess he popped it in. So, that's that.

Second- my IVs. Unfortunately lung function dropped again at my follow-up appointment. That's exactly the opposite of what we want, of course, and of what is supposed to happen when you're on antibiotics. First off, this pollen is killing me. To give you an idea, pollen count measures the number of pollen grains per cubic meter of air. Pollen counts above 120 are considered extremely high. On Thursday last week the pollen count in my area was 8,024. Today it's a mere 1,386. I have seasonal allergies, so of course that's not going to help my lungs. Additionally, I caught a cold. I think it was from Drew (probably from school). We thought it was allergies bothering him so we really weren't all that careful. And honestly I thought that was really all it was for me even though I felt miserable, but now James has come down with the same symptoms, and a trip to the doctor confirmed a cold, not allergies. Sooooo..... my doctors are extending IVs by a week and adding an oral antibiotic and a new inhaler. My mom is going to come down to help out a little so I can get some good rest, and hopefully avoid going in to the hospital next week (which is their "threat" if my numbers don't improve by then). I would appreciate prayers. To be completely honest, this is kind of a scary road for me. I've never had this much trouble recuperating from a dip in lung function and my numbers are the lowest they've ever been, as far as I remember. It took everything in me not to burst into tears when I saw the pulmonary tech write down my current numbers on his sheet. Just FYI- the numbers are obtained through a PFT- Pulmonary Function Test. It measures a number of things, but my doctors focus on the FEV1- forced expiratory volume in 1 second (the volume of air I can breathe out in 1 second). The number obtained is a percentage based on the expected FEV1 for a person of the same age, height, and weight. CF doctors use FEV1 as an indicator of lung health. I'm not sure if I've explained everything completely accurately, but that's how I understand it. ;)

Well, if nothing else, I hope you learned something today. :P Want to learn something else? If you're a woman, go check out this blog post on bra sizes and be shocked by what you didn't know that you thought you did!