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This morning all three kids and I headed up to Primary Children’s for Julia’s CF clinic appointment.  This is a bit different because I usually don’t take all of the kids.  I make most of Julia’s appointments when Austin and Olivia are in school, so today, we packed a huge bag of  ”things to do” and headed out the door.  These clinic appointments are usually two hours long and that’s pretty standard.  Today was no exception.  This appointment was a bit different in that Julia was due for her yearly chest x-ray and labs.

The chest x-ray is no big deal.  The labs…require a blood draw, so that thing that kids dread most about doctor visits, the needle, comes out of hiding.  It has always been my practice to warn my kids well in advance that a poke is in store, but this time I hesitated.  Julia had such a terrible experience a year ago when she had her clean-out.  She was poked around ten times over the course of a few days and she resorted to hiding in her hospital room whenever a nurse, or anyone entered.

I mentioned yesterday to Julia that she had clinic in the morning.

“Am I  going to get a shot?”

“Yes.”

“Am I going to get a throat tickle?” (culture)

“Yes.”

“Do I get to get to blow up the balloon?” (PFTs)

“Yes.”

“Do I get to go to the cafeteria to get a treat?”

“Of course!  That’s the best part.”

“OK.”

And that was that.

I did, however, expect for her to put up a fuss about it when we got down to business, but not a peep…not a tear…nothing eventful.  She just sat nicely on my lap, held her blanket close, buried her head in her blanket, and it was magic.  I did tell the phlebotomist to draw from her wrist and she struck gold the first poke.  Julia’s elbow bends tend to be nightmarish when it comes to blood draws and I didn’t want to witness another “digging for gold” scenario and Julia probably didn’t care to experience that.

I’ll keep you all updated on culture results.  Julia is looking very good.  She didn’t gain much weight this summer, but she is growing taller and has been very active.  Julia starts TOBI tomorrow, so together we’ll devote two hours a day to kicking some major CF booty!

I’ll leave you all with some pics of the kids participating in some Pioneer Day activities.