Leah has created her own website to tell others about living with CF. Please check it out and let her know what you think:​

P.S. An update on Leah's health will come soon. 

We are happy to say that Leah is nearing the end of her stay in the hospital! The plan is for Leah to be discharged on Sunday afternoon after completing the 14 days of IV antibiotics. After spiking high fevers every day for ten straight days, Leah has been fever free since Monday morning!

On Sunday, Leah had a CT scan done. Thankfully, the scan showed no new NTM changes. The inflammation seen is most likely due to the acute pneumonia infection or possibly ABPA.  On Monday, Leah had a bronchoscopy done. Doctor took a sputum sample from her lungs, which has been sent out for testing for all sorts of bacteria, viruses, and fungi. We are still waiting on the lab work to help us determine what is the underlying cause of this exacerbation and any further treatment we need to start or consider.

Doctor also did blood work to test for ABPA (Allergic Bronchopulmonary Aspergillosis). ABPA is an allergic reaction to the fungus aspergillus that causes inflammation (as an immune response) in the lungs. He decided to start treating her for this with steroids. If the tests come back negative, he will take her off the steroids, but if positive, we will have already started treating her.

Thankfully, this treatment seems to be helping. Since she started with the steroids, she has not had a fever. This is not confirmation on whether or not she has ABPA, but it is helping her to recover from this exacerbation of her CF.  Doctor says she sounds clear and is not hearing crackles in her lungs. Her chest x-ray from Wednesday looks 60-70% better than when she was admitted to the hospital. So those things all point to her moving in the right direction!

If Leah does test positive to ABPA, that will be one more condition causing further lung disease for Leah. Please pray for healing and wisdom for next steps in how best to treat Leah!
 
We are looking forward to going home soon, especially since starting today, no visitors under the age of 18 are allowed due to flu season, which is always hard on Leah and her sisters. On a lighter note, we have added additional pipe cleaner people. Can you guess who these creations represent? See captions below the pictures for a hint.