GREEN GRASS

It's a good way to start the day when you can go out and play in the sunshine with your baby. I get up up 90 minutes before Hawke's scheduled wakeup time, to complete my morning treatment routine. This month I'm on the Tobramycin medication. I have been on this medication since eleven years old. I used to only have to do it, "when I was sick" and grew a bacterial infection in my lungs. That bacteria has seem to found a nice home inside me, and the last ten years I've been doing this medication every other month. The "one month off" is to help slow down my body's resistance to the drug. Having CF we are on antibiotics eminently. The bacteria and infections in our body get used to the antibiotics and mutate - developing a resistance to the meds so they become less and less effective, until the bacteria reaches full resistance. Not good - always trying to avoid this.

But my early morning treatment time has become a savory moment for me. Treatments are the first thing I do. That alarm goes off and I sleepily walk straight to my machine and get going. It's been several hours since my last one and lots of secretions have built up in my airways, morning breathing is hard. I find almost immediate relief as I start working through my treatment. This time has also become the moments I study my scriptures  ( Book of Mormon and Bible) and strengthen my relationship with my Heavenly Father. I have found it almost symbolic that my first moments of the day rely so much on him. I am struggling and he knows it. He has allowed knowledgeable people into this world to create medications and machines to help me feel relief and to keep going. He hears my morning prayers, and in those early mornings it's usually just he and I working together to get the day going. My early mornings are my worship time. I am working hard to take care of the body God created for me. Studying the words & stories of our Savior, and the Prophets of old helps me to care for my spirit and soul.

As I clean up my treatments, I'll hear the cry of my baby. My favorite moment of the day - Hawke is waking up. Living in Utah for the summer has allowed cooler temperatures and living at Grandma's house with a big, grassy backyard has been bliss. I pick him up, we go outside and work out his morning jitters, enjoying the morning sunshine and life of a new day.