Today, I had yet another doctor's appointment. A few days ago, I went in to get my blood drawn so I can stay on a new medication that attacks the root of the Cystic Fibrosis problem. The doctors are inching towards a cure, and while they put me on these pills that are designed to change how my cells function in my body, they have to monitor me closely for health and research reasons. 

Cystic Fibrosis, as many now know, is a progressive disease. Its progression cannot be completely stopped yet, but it can be slowed significantly. However, the new pill I've been on since March is showing promising signs in both me and almost every CFer on it. Yet, CF is still progressing. While I've received great news today, there are some places of concern. 

I'll start with the bad. 

One of CF's main targets is my pancreas. I can't digest my food without medication, and while my pancreas produces insulin, it doesn't do it well. As I get older, the scarring on my pancreas caused by CF gets worse. While I've made significant diet changes in hopes of taking a lot of stress off my pancreas, CF related Diabetes (CFRD) is inevitable. However, CFRD isn't like the diabetes people are used to hearing about. In fact, CFRD is different in everyone, just like how CF is unique to everyone who has it. There's ways to avoid the needles associated with diabetes for the most part, so I'll be looking into those in the near future, and the symptoms in me are minimal. Even with my organic wild game, fruits, and vegetables diet, that lacks almost all processed junk foods, not even I can stop the progression of CF or the development of CFRD. However, I'm on a medication that is showing promising results with everything including my pancreas, and there is another medication that is much more effective in trials, so I'm not exactly worried. 

Now, on with the good stuff. 

There's a test I do every time I go to the doctor's called a Pulmonary Function Test (PFT). Basically, I blow into a machine that measures how well my lungs work. A 100% PFT is considered that of an average person. Anything higher is above average, and anything above 150% is considered significant. The higher the PFTs, the better the lungs. For the last two years, I've been stuck between 85% on my worst days, and 93% on my best days, and that was with another medication called Albuterol, which is an inhaler commonly used by people with Asthma to open up the airways. Those PFTs were also taken when the air wasn't smokey and the pollen wasn't a problem. 

So, naturally my doctors were ecstatic when I started blowing PFTs between 98-102% without Albuterol, or any other treatment for that matter except for what I do in the mornings. With this, they did a small exercise tolerance test, and I did very well with that too. I'm certainly a lot healthier than the vast majority of CFers my age, older, and younger, and my doctors said that's something to celebrate. They told me if I'm going to stay healthy and fit, I must push myself whenever I can, and they also recommended I threw out my PoS office chair in exchange for a yoga ball, so I can work out a few muscles while I'm just sitting down. 

While I haven't grown Pseudomonas in the last several months, my doctors still want me to go on at least one antibiotic every other month for a year, just to deter any possible chance of developing Pseudomonas again. This I'm not happy about. The inhaled antibiotic they want me to do dries up my insides and sticks to everything it touches. It's like breathing in watery maple syrup for 20 minutes, twice a day. Only, it tastes like the stuff I sprayed on my taxidermy so my dog wouldn't eat it (I only know this because the spray can wasn't exactly great and it sprayed most of the stuff in the air), which is very bitter and unpleasant. So, it looks like I'll be doing that six months out of the year, even though I haven't tested positive for Pseudomonas in a pretty long time.