I finished IV antibiotics last night.  It’s been a long 5.5 weeks of multiple antibiotics.  Doing IVs is second nature now after all these years.  I’m very organized so I always have things set up to make IVs easier to weave into my regular schedule.

Final dose!  

I have been using ziplock baggies to make life easier for years when it comes to organizing IV doses.  In a quart size baggie I put the number of saline flushes I need (usually 2 if there is only 1 antibiotic), a heparin flush, alcohol preps (just in case they are needed) and a SwabCap (the new fancy things they have to keep the end of the IV clean) plus the dose of antibiotic.  I label them with the dose time…ie; 6am, Noon, 6pm, Midnight, Morning/7am, afternoon/3pm, night/11pm, etc.  I reuse the same baggies for every dose and course of IV antibiotics.  When I finish a dose I load the baggie back up with flushes, alcohol prep (if needed) and a cap then put it at the back of the line up.

This process makes my life much easier.  It also makes it easy when I need my husband or stepson (or someone else) to grab my dose for me. Some might say it’s my OCD side coming out.  Call it what you want, it works and it helps.  I gladly embrace my OCD.  It makes my life easier in many ways.  haha

Now to how I am feeling after all these antibiotics.  Let me give a review of the last 5.5/6 weeks.  On November 20th I started IV Amicakin and Aztreonam.  I did those two antibiotics until December 2nd with no improvement.  I was admitted to the hospital on December 3rd.  I started IV Colistin on December 3rd while continuing IV Aztreonam.  On December 7th they added IV Cipro to the IV Colistin and IV Aztreonam.  Then the next day, on December 8th, they stopped the IV Colistin and IV Aztreonam, kept the IV Cipro and added IV Zoysn.  I was discharged from the hospital on December 11th to continue IV Zoysn and ditched the IV Cipro to oral Cipro.  Are you confused yet?  It was a lot of changes in those 5.5/6 weeks.

I wish I felt better after this long on antibiotics but I don’t. My body needs a break from the antibiotics for a little bit.  Your body sometimes needs a reset after being hit so hard with all the big antibiotics.  Antibiotics kill bad and good bacteria so a break will help get my gut back to somewhat normal.  I’m worn out from being sick for so long.  Basically I’m worn out from being worn out.  My lungs/chest are sore from all the coughing.  Coughing is what I do because of the CF.  I’d like to even say I’m a professional by now.  My lungs are still very weak.  I get out of breath very easy with things like taking a shower, getting the mail, getting dressed and from coughing.  It takes awhile to catch my breath and to stop huffing and puffing.  I can’t do anything when this happens but sit there and focus on my breathing to calm it down.  It is frustrating and scary to say the least.

Of course I feel bad for needing to take things slow or not do certain things to avoid getting out of breath or to bring on a coughing attack.  I feel like my husband has to miss out on things because of me and I hate that.  He says not to worry about that but it’s hard not to.

With all of that said, I do have good moments and embrace them.  Of course I usually overdo it when I get my spurts of energy and pay for it after the fact.  I do still have a positive mindset but I’m also realistic in my thinking.  I just want to be able to travel.  I NEED to go to the beach!!  I don’t think I could endure a long travel at the moment which I hate.  Thankfully my sister, mom, step-daughter, dad and stepmom are all coming here in January to see us!  I’m sure I will be worn out just from having people here but that’s ok, I will try my best to take it easy.  They all know I need to take it easy so they ok with doing nothing.

I see the CF doc in 3 weeks so we shall see what they say then and how my lungs perform on lung functions then.  I’m not expecting too much out of these crappy lungs but they could surprise me as they have before.  I think that about sums it all up!

Have a happy New Year!

Until next time…