Although I'm glad that my two children with cystic fibrosis will soon have the opportunity to try Trikafta, I am also a little worried about whether they will have side effects and how well they will do on the drug long-term.
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It can be a lot to manage two children with cystic fibrosis who have other health issues. I made it work by making my children responsible for their own treatments and not sweating the small stuff when we can't be perfect.
Because my daughter's bowel perforated when she was a newborn, she needed to have surgery to temporarily reroute her stool so that it was collected through her abdomen into an ostomy bag. Those grueling days of ostomy care -- sometimes as often as every hour day and night -- were some of the darkest days of our cystic fibrosis journey.
When Brady was diagnosed with CF, I felt like I'd been thrown into a river without a paddle. But then I realized my “paddle” was CF advocacy, and it could help steer our boat in the right direction.
There have never been as many new CF drugs in development as there are today. In the second plenary at NACFC, Dr. George Retsch-Bogart outlined the progress we've made, the road ahead and the changes needed to make it all possible. Read on for my key takeaways.
As Congress weighs budget appropriations, we look at long-term funding for the National Institutes of Health. We decided to sit down with the Foundation's senior vice president of research affairs to learn more about why the work being done at NIH is so important in the search for a cure for CF and other serious, rare diseases.
Last week I travelled to D.C. to serve on a panel discussing the recent developments in precision medicine. I've got to say, it was pretty neat.
I struggled when I learned that in addition to cystic fibrosis, my daughter also had adrenal insufficiency. I felt anger, sadness, and anxiety. But thankfully, with the support of my husband, family, friends, and care team, we learned how to manage her condition and deal with emergencies.
Although I didn't have cystic fibrosis-related diabetes, I avoided dealing with my blood sugars. Now that I do, I feel stronger physically and emotionally.
I have seen tremendous health gains since starting Trikafta. But control of my cystic fibrosis-related diabetes has been elusive.