Great Strideswalk was a huge success!

This year was Elizabeth City's first ever Cystic Fibrosis Great Strides walk event and it was a huge success! What started out as a few family's wanting to help our babies turned into about 70 walkers and over $31,000 raised!!!!!!! I could not be more proud of the woman I worked with and of the overwhelming amount of support our little town gave us. Montero's brought out an amazing breakfast and Little Ceasers gave 15 pizza's for lunch, and I could not begin to rattle off the many companies and people who generously donated their time and money to this cause. There are no words to express my gratitude, this money goes toward finding a cure to save my son's life. Thank you to everyone who had any part in our success. I can't wait to see what we can do next year!

Bump in the road...

We went into the doctor last month and Seth had another great check up, his weight was up and his lungs sounded clear. We walked away feeling great about his progress. Two weeks later Seth started suddenly complaining about his side hurting, it went from a small pain to a pain so strong that he could not take deep breathes and was crying to just lay down and go to bed in a matter of three hours. By the time his dad and I got him to the hospital he was running a fever of 102, shaking, and leaning completely to one side to help off set the pain. We were in the Albemarle Hospital for three hours, they told us his x-ray showed no pneumonia and that his blood work showed no infection but that they wanted to transport us to CHKD so the CF doctors could check him out first. I watched my 4 year old get strapped into a gurney and loaded up into an ambulance. We arrived at CHKD at 1:30 am and sat there for three and a half hours until we were finally told that the doctor on staff wanted to admit us. 7:30 that morning we were told that Seth has pneumonia in his right lung. We stayed in the hospital for four days while Seth had a PIC line put in and IV anitbiotics administered every six hours with Vest and Albuterol treatments four times a day. This hospital visit was also different in that we were on contract, meaning we could not leave the room to play or walk. After Seth was released we went home and I played nurse continuing him on the same schedule as he had at the hospital for a total of 14 days. Yesterday he finally got his PIC line taken out, he is feeling much better and is back at school today. It's funny how fast things can happen. Its interesting how my son caught pneumonia in the middle of summer having not been exposed to anyone who was knowingly sick. And it is heart breaking that my son has been admitted to the hospital more times in his four years than I have in my whole life. But even through all this Seth Soria has kept smiling and laughing, he isn't mad at the doctors for what they have to do to him, he's not grumpy about all the meds I constantly pump into him. We were laying down for nap last week and he kept rubbing my hair, I looked at him and asked how did you get so sweet. He kept rubbing my hair and said without missing a beat, "because that how God made me, special." I've never felt so blessed as I did right that minute.