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| June 16 2003 | Stage 3 Dubrovnik to Dublin |
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| A Day In The Life Of Darragh Crowley - The CF Cocktail. | |
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| When Darragh Crowley was 4 weeks old, he was not responding to medication for a chesty cough. A trip to the Coombe Hospital led to the diagnosis that Darragh was suffering from Cystic Fibrosis and a life expectancy of 12 years was pronounced. That was 22 years ago. During that time, the only relative relaxation for Darragh's family came when he was admitted to Crumlin Hospital several times a year with them knowing that the terrific staff at the hospital were looking after him for a couple of weeks. Eventually when Darragh was about eighteen he took full responsibility for his medication and wellbeing. Now aged 22, he is a second year genetics student in Trinity College, Dublin. "My most recent tests show that I have lungs at 30% of full functioning efficiency which may mean in the future I could be a heart and lung transplant operation candidate. Our main purpose in undertaking this trip is to let people know of the significance of Cystic Fibrosis in Ireland and that by simply carrying an organ donor card you can help save lives through heart and lung transplants. We need people to know that they can help by doing this one small thing. When I wake up in the morning it's usually accompanied by an annoying chesty cough. Once showered and dressed, I usually let the cough die down a little before taking my 1st inhaler of the day and my morning nebulizer, which takes about 10 minutes to do. During times of infection (2 or 3 times per year on average) this can be very irritating and often leads to bouts of coughing throughout the entire DART journey in to college. I was never much of a breakfast person, so usually give it a miss. So lunch time can't come soon enough and with quite an appetite on me, I also have to take Creon tablets (enzyme supplements, 5 tablets) first, to help digest the food. Then I'm free again until dinner time, when I must take another few Creon capsules with dinner (5 tablets). Alongside all the above, 4 to 5 enzyme tablets are taken per snack. In addition I also use a ventolin inhaler when needed. As the day winds down and I get ready for bed, I take my two nebulizers again (about 20 mins) before also taking my second dose of the inhaler. Accompanying this is a bit more oral medication: 2 vitamin tablets… vitamins A, D, E and K to help replace a deficiency present in CF. So in an average day I'd probably go through about 17 tablets, 2 inhalers and 3 nebulizers. Although this may sound a lot, time wise it's little over half an hour. Having said all that, I am also supposed to do physio each day which involves breathing into a special mask. This takes a total of about half an hour a day. As a child, my physio involved lying over either a couple of pillows or a specially made wedge for half an hour or so while having my back and sides of my chest clapped'/pounded by Mum, Dad and sometimes my brothers. As you can imagine this was the real 'pain in the ass' of having CF as a kid and it always seemed to come just when there was something exciting or fun to do! There was many an argument or fight in the past resulting mainly from Mum making me do my physio or even just eat my dinner. For the Drive for Life adventure journey, I will be taking my daily dosage of supplements and tablets on the road with a grand total of 2,040 tablets for the four months. This is only my own routine and it's important to realise that other CF sufferers may have routines a lot more complicated and less flexible than mine". |
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