Introduction and Life with Cystic Fibrosis

Hi guys! I just joined this app yesterday. I would love to introduce myself… My name is Andrea, I live in Valencia which is in Santa Clarita and after being diagnosed days after being born, on November 25, I turned 55 years old and I still have my original lungs. My whole life until about five years ago my life was very unlike most with CF. My first hospitalization was not until I was 21 years old which came to be when I became the sickest I’ve ever been in my life while I was traveling for what was to be six weeks in Israel by myself. I had to depart the tour three weeks early where I was picked up at the airport by my parents who had known what was happening with me who had already gotten in touch with my CF doctor and I was driven directly to my hospital where I was admitted for that very first time. Since that first hospitalization and first IV, I have only been hospitalized and had an IV 10 or 11 times. I went to and graduated from a regular four-year university and had lived in the dorms. I went back to graduate school for an additional three years to obtain my teaching credential. I ended up teaching elementary school for 11 years until my CF slowly started to progress back in 2007. Because of my CF because coincidentally my husband is also a carrier and a carrier of one of my mutations, we adopted our son when he was 15 months old from an orphanage. We have continued to travel internationally that is of course until Covid hit… Although now which started three years ago I now need oxygen when we fly and at times even walking around I need it as well. So once we feel safe enough to start traveling again, our traveling will not be able to be as involved as it used to be because I get too winded. Although I do not have the targeted mutation, my CF doctor in June of last year put me on Trikafta. While it has not improved my lung function where I still have a lung function of only 29%, it has given me more energy and I was able to put back on the 12 pounds that I had lost since last year. This is a good thing because at 4‘9“ tall, I had dropped without trying to a very scary 77 pounds. So after all that my question is… Are any of you around my age? I do have several friends who I’ve never met of my age who I’ve met through various CF circles on Facebook. And my final question is do any of you live anywhere within Los Angeles?