Jonathan's shirt says, "Save time and skip my sister"

This is the best I could do to get them all into one picture

Blah, blah, blah...  I haven't posted in a while.  Mostly because of the holiday.  Like so many, many others we spent the few days before Christmas cramming to be ready for Santa's arrival.  It was all worth it because Christmas for the Jaecksch's was great.  Jimmy was the first to wake up but Meaghan and Jonathan were not far behind.  Jonathan actually needed a little push to get out of bed.  He has never been into opening gifts.  He found the Rescue Bots and stopped opening anything else.  He even disappeared for a while.  He was down in the basement looking for his Optimus Prime Transformer.  He just wanted to assemble his team.  Jimmy and Meaghan tore through their piles and into each new gift in the blink of an eye.  Santa delivered on almost all of their wishes and managed to sneak in a few awesome surprises. Meaghan said with each gift, "This is just what I always wanted!"  And we heard a lot of, "This is the best Christmas, EVER!"  I don't remember smiling so much, my cheeks hurt by 9am.  I am so happy that the kids were all so happy, that is all I have wanted for Christmas for years.

Meaghan built 99% of all of this by herself since Christmas

Anyway, I really wanted to tell you about the new inhaled antibiotic that Meaghan started to treat the pseudomonas infection we just got back, AGAIN.  Where has this technology been all my life.  It delivered on its promise completely.  One treatment is over in 2 minutes or less.  Meaghan breathes relaxed and deeply through the whole treatment.  She does cough once or twice but she has not complained about burning or bad tastes.  The nebulizer runs plugged into the wall or by 4 "AA" batteries without making a sound.  It is SOOO different from anything else we've used to treat or maintain our CF life to date.  That is all that really matters but I do want to share the down side.  Just for me, not for Meaghan, this method is HIGH maintenance.  The refrigerated, powdered medicine has to be mixed with saline at the time it is to be given.  Figuring out how to assemble the medicine cup was a challenge for me.  Not the worst thing, right?  After the treatment has been delivered I have to disassemble the medicine cup and soak it in sterile water and soap (they sent the soap) for at least 10 minutes.  Then I sterilize the cup and parts in a sterilizer they also sent me to use with this set up.  I have to use sterile water to run the sterilizer too.  Then all the parts have to be air dried completely on clean paper towels.  Then I have to find a clean, safe place to store it all till the next treatment.  We do all that 3 times a day in addition to the other therapies and treatments we're already doing.  Like I said, Meaghan's part takes very little time and causes her almost no distress.  I spend at least 1 1/2 hours doing my part.  BUT, I'll take it all if this "kills the mean bug".

My already cramped kitchen could use a little help though.  Between the formula, daily medicines, medicine cups and sterilizer set I can barely use it as a real family kitchen.  But, Jason and I are planning to fix this not so significant problem this summer.  Lots of things have to be decided before then but I can't wait to actually get that project under way.