Sunday 8 May 2011

Living with CF - the Davison family


Hi there, I’m Sophie and my husband, Iain, and I are parents to two gorgeous boys, James, and George, who both have Cystic Fibrosis. Almost three years ago, when George was three weeks old, we were given the devastating news that both our sons had Cystic Fibrosis. The day before we were given the diagnosis James was admitted into hospital with pneumonia and was seriously ill. That day it literally felt like our world had fallen apart and couldn’t get our heads round the fact that our little boys had such a serious condition that would affect their lives forever.

Living with CF can be quite tough as it means constant medication and physiotherapy twice daily. At the present time, we are told that only half of those living with CF are likely to live past their late 30’s. Obviously this fact plays heaviest on our mind as we don’t know exactly how our sons’ lives are going to pan out.

After the initial shock of the boys diagnosis, I took on the attitude that if it is possible that my sons may have a shorter life than the average person, then I am determined to make sure that they enjoy their life to the fullest and to not waste any opportunities to have fun with them. One of the best things we like to do with the boys is to take them on holiday, as my husband and I see it as extremely important quality family time, where we can try and forget everything and just enjoy being with each other. Six weeks after the diagnosis came, we decided to go ahead with a family holiday that we had booked before George was born. My husband and I felt still felt quite nervous about it as we were still getting to grips with the new medication and physiotherapy routine but I think it was the best thing we could do. It was great to be able to have a relaxing and happy time together after all the hell of the past few weeks.

After that we haven’t looked back holiday wise! We have visited Spain several more times as we have a small apartment there. We also had a fantastic two weeks in Jamaica 5 months after the diagnosis. A month before we went to Jamaica we discovered that James had contracted a bug called Pseudomonas and James was have antibiotics twice a day through a nebuliser, but that didn’t faze us, we just packed up the nebuliser into our hand luggage and prayed that the airport didn’t stop us with us “suspicious” luggage!

The best holiday so far was a month long trip to Australia over Christmas 2010 to stay with my sister and her family. Once again, something major happened just before the holiday and James was again admitted into hospital with a chest infection and we did think at one point we would have to cancel our much desired trip. But the little fighter James is, he was soon well enough and after a bit of a delayed flight because of the snow, we finally made it down under! The boys had an amazing time and it was so fantastic for us all to spend time with our much missed family. We did fill an entire suitcase with medication (see photo!) as it was summer over there I think it did both the boys the world of good health wise, running around on the beach and swimming in the sea was excellent physio for them and when we got home they had both put on lots of weight and grown loads!

We are now planning our next trip, where to go now?! So, despite having CF, nothing is going to stop my boys, they may have CF but CF certainly doesn’t have them!

Thank you for reading and getting involved with CF Week. With your help James and George will have a long and happy future ahead of them x

www.cfweek.org.uk


1 comment:

  1. This post given all the matter of both child life related.just given good advice for afected by Cystic Fibrosis and how to recover and solve our problem. James and George are son of Sophie. Who is afected by boys Cystic Fibrosis. so it means constant medication and physiotherapy twice daily.

    Physiotherapy in Northwich

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