we're kicking things off with our story of inspiration we meet a local woman
who's sharing her experience with cystic fibrosis and how she is not letting that
keep her from family time Fannie Vlahos was born with cystic fibrosis but was
only mildly affected growing up so I didn't really have many complications
growing up I not very many of my peers or colleagues nobody really knew except
my immediate family cystic fibrosis is an autosomal recessive disease it's a
genetic disease that people inherit from their parents and essentially people
with cystic fibrosis have a defect in a channel that's on the cell surface which
regulates sodium and chloride exchange so ultimately this affects the lungs and
the pancreas the most but sometimes there aren't symptoms right away for
Fanny her health took a turn when she became
pregnant with her son towards the second the end of my second trimester I caught
pneumonia and I was hospitalized and then I just took a nosedive and my lungs
couldn't recover I delivered my son about four months later I was on oxygen
full-time I didn't have enough energy to pick him up out of his crib but they
started coughing a lot mucus was kind of filling up my Airways and then I would
start getting fevers unfortunately during her pregnancy her lung function
declined fairly rapidly and during her first year of being a new mother was
also dealing with advanced lung disease it kind of shook me and was terrifying
I was fighting my heart and so I was fighting and I I wouldn't I didn't want
that to be my the end of my story about 90% of patients with cystic
fibrosis ultimately develop advanced lung disease and lung transplantation
can be a life-saving therapy for them Fanny was placed on the transplant list
and shortly thereafter found out she was set to receive donor lungs I didn't have
much longer on my own so it was pretty dire for me and I didn't want to leave
that up in the air in order for me to to see him graduate elementary school see
him graduate high school to be at his medical school graduation that's that's
okay that's what if that's what I had to do then that's what I have to do going
into surgery I had a picture of my husband holding my baby and the nurses
had taped that picture to my to my hospital bed and when I woke up it was
right in front of me on the on the left hand side and I opened my eyes and I was
breathing on my own and I looked at the picture and I just kind of started
crying and it worked
over the years Fanny had a few major setbacks but ultimately her health
dramatically improved Fanny is doing very well
it is fairly typical after transplant to have some bouts of complications I felt
so proud and I was so happy that I could be the mother that I wanted to be well
there's no cure for cystic fibrosis Fanny is able to work with her doctors
to remain on track I'm doing really well though so I'm playing basketball with my
son again I'm living the life that I wanted to live live and I'm grateful for
that opportunity I'm doing really well it is a lifelong disease that can be
managed with the right mindset and the proper attitude and taking care of
yourself being what a mother should be isn't lost on me I don't I don't take
the simple things for granted I'm thankful for my family my husband has
been the absolute greatest and most of all my son I think he's the reason why
I'm why I want to get out of the hospital I wanted to breathe why I
wanted to run around and do those things again so he is all the inspiration that
I need to keep living a healthy life