CF Awareness Month Day 6 - Clinic

My clinic visits are usually pretty simple.  Thankfully, the clinic I've attended most of my life is now only a mile and half from my house, so I don't have to worry about travel.  In college, I didn't have a certified CF center nearby, so since I'd have to travel to get to a center anyway, I actually would take a long flight a couple times a year to attend clinic at the Stanford CF Center because they are one of the best.  Looking back, that seems very random, but they were a VERY good clinic.  Since I didn't have a history of needing to be admitted, this actually worked just fine at the time.  Once I graduated college and moved back to my hometown, I went back to attending the same CF clinic I'd attended for the first several years of my life.

When I was younger, I used to get really stressed about clinic visits because I was always afraid I wouldn't "pass the test" with my health and they would tell me I would need to be admitted to the hospital or put me on another medication.  These days, though, I guess I have a more grown-up attitude toward it all.  I appreciate the doctor's hard work to keep me healthy; I want to know how I'm doing, even if the answer is not great; and I've learned how to speak up for myself a when I feel like doctors or other clinic workers aren't listening to me.  My CF center isn't perfect, but I feel like the doctors and nurse practitioners really do work hard and care about the patients.

I get the impression this is a little "behind the times" in CF infection precaution, but our clinic still has a big waiting room where all the patients wait together before being taken back.  I think they try to bring us back to a room as quickly as possible, but there's always still a little bit of waiting in the waiting room.  We're required to wear masks, though, and we all keep a respectful distance from anyone else wearing a mask.  Since CF patients don't get to meet in person very often, I secretly like to look around and sneak glances at the other patients sitting in there to figure out how we might be alike or different. :)

Once in a room, its usually about 2 hours of a parade of doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists (RTs), nutritionists, and social workers.  

I'm not sure what P.A.T.S. is.  If you know, please enlighten me in a comment below! 😆