Ricky has been doing very well as far as his sinuses are concerned. When he had his sinus surgery a year ago, the ENT said he'd probably need another one after a year, but his sinuses right now look GREAT so it looks like that won't be the case! Hooray!

In February he cultured a nasty bug in his lungs, stenotrophomonas maltophilia, but we immediately countered it with inhaled and oral antibiotics and hope to have it beat. I guess we'll find out after we get him cultured a month from now. Because of the bug, he's developing a chronic cough for the first time in his life. Most CFers have a chronic cough so I guess it's just Ricky's time.

Ricky's behavior problems got so bad back in November (before his hospitalization) that I took him to a child psychiatrist. We've been following with the doc till now. Ricky's trying play therapy with the psychiatrist and after the last visit three weeks ago we started him on Paxil, an antidepressant, because we think his behavior stems from depression over his chronic illness (by the way, any other parents with experience in this area, MACS or other, I'd love to hear from you). Well, though it made him a generally happier person, Paxil got him ripping his hair out in chunks from his head and chewing on his fingernails and cuticle like mad. It seemed to actually be activating his bad behavior too (I swear he is going to get kicked out of day care)! So he was weaned off of it this week.

We saw the psychiatrist yesterday and he decided we should try Celexa, another SSRI class of antidepressant. He is double-checking on possible drug interactions, because Ricky is on so many other drugs, and then he will call it in to the pharmacy. If that doesn't work, he's considering Concerta, an ADD drug/Ritalin derivative, because Ricky definitely is active, busy, and destructive, which can be caused by depression, not just ADD. So even if he is not ADD he might still benefit from it. The big problem with any Ritalin drug though is that it will supress appetite, which is the last thing my skinny boy, or any child with CF, needs. I checked the the GI doc and she is okay with it if the psychiatrist feels it would be valuable for him. We'll just have to monitor his weight extra carefully. But we are getting ahead of ourselves because we are all set to try Celexa first!

Andy (little brother) had his third birthday on Sunday, and is doing just great. Driving his brother crazy, but then that's his job! So there's a little update for you.