Life in November - CF Scare, Freelance Work and the Vikings

Lately I have not been able to write as much for AC as I would like, as real life has reared its ugly head. However, now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and as long as it is not coming from a train, I should be able to get back to a more normal schedule.

I'd like to start off by passing along some good news. Tests have confirmed that my son Trent does not have Cystic Fibrosis, so hopefully there will be no more trips back and forth to Brenner's Children's Hospital in Winston-Salem.

Our local pediatrician put him on a nebulizer and that seems to have gone a long way in improving his breathing. All of the specialists that we've seen want to treat Trent by putting him on every medicine known to man. And I'm just not comfortable giving all of that medication to a four-year old, especially when it doesn't seem to help.

Research indicates that nearly 75% of people with breathing problems suffer from a form of acid reflux. So, the first thing that specialists do is treat reflux. After two-plus years of giving Trent reflux medicine, I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt - he does not have reflux. And you know how specialists respond to that - they say it won't hurt him, so we want him to keep taking it.

We saw one specialist that gave us a daily routine of medicines to give Trent to keep him healthy. It worked for a little while, but soon we were back to non-stop coughing which eventually leads to throwing up. We returned to the specialist to let him know the routine wasn't cutting it, and he replied - "the thing is, it works well until it doesn't."

I think he should ask for his money back from all of the years of medical school if that's the best he can do. We no longer see that specialist.

I understand that it's difficult treating young children because they can't always give you an honest answer to your questions. They want so much to please and they give the answers that they think are going to make the doctor happy. I get that. What I don't understand is the decision to treat by giving massive amounts of medication.

At one point, Trent was taking Zyrtec, Singulair, Prevacid, Nasonex, Qvar, Proventil and Oropred. The only one that helped was Oropred and that was a steroid that could only be taken for a few days.

Right now we're on a daily dose of Pulmicort administered with the nebulizer. I feel a lot better about one medicine compared to seven, especially as this is (knock on wood) working.

Another thing cutting into AC time was that I picked up more freelance work for the fish wrap. They had me write four college basketball previews for them, which was a nice change of pace from the usual prep stories I normally do. Here's the links for anyone interested:

Greensboro Basketball Preview

High Point Basketball Preview

Guilford Basketball Preview

Elon Basketball Preview

It's always a challenge to go from writing for the Web, where you have virtually unlimited space, to writing for the newspaper with definite fixed space requirements. Plus there are the conflicting pressures of what the newspaper wants, what the school wants and what I want the article to be.

The Guilford one turned out the best. Both the paper and the school accepted my premise (life is so much better when people agree with me!) and the interview subjects all gave useful quotes. Anyone who has ever interviewed coaches and players knows how rare that is.

There were other parts to these articles, but this was the main text.

And finally, I've spent a lot of time trying to create a new freelance gig. I'm trying to establish myself as the college basketball source for Duke, North Carolina, North Carolina State and Wake Forest for a wire service. I covered the New Orleans-NCSU game for them and I'm hoping to do more games in December and then be a regular contributor for the heart of the ACC season.

Here's the game story that I wrote for them:
UNO-NCSU

And here's an ACC preview story where I tried to go off the beaten path:
ACC Preview

Finally, you know I live and die with my sports teams. The Vikings have been making things tough with their coach who looks like a serial killer and their quarterback who performs that action on his team's chances to win. But they've pulled together lately, winning three of their last four games, including a spanking of the Giants. It can never make up for 41-0, but it's nice to be on the winning side against the Jints for a change.

So, that's what's been going on in my corner of the world. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Now I'm ready to produce more content and I will try to get back to reading and commenting on other CP's work, as well.