Annual Review

Last week I visited the hospital twice; once for an appointment, which turned out I didn't need, as I also had my annual review three days later.

An annual review is exactly how it sounds.. a review of your health which happens once a year. To prepare for it I can't eat, take any vitamins or drink anything other than water from 12 the night before. Then I go to the hospital for tests.

I have a blood glucose test, which is what the fasting is for. They do a blood test, then give me some lucozade to drink, then repeat the blood test 2 hours later to see how well my body deals with the sugar. It's to test whether I am diabetic or not. They say no news is good news, and I haven't heard back yet so I'm hoping I'm diabetes-free for another year! :D

Blood test room

They take about 13 bottles of blood in the day to test for different things. I also have an xray, bone density scan and a more thorough lung function test than they do at the regular appointments. I haven't seen my xray yet, but the bone density scan man said my bones look stronger than last year, but still a bit on the low side and the lung function came back pretty similar to last year, which is great news.

I get to see the physio, dietician, pharmacist and someone from the CF homecare team too, to talk through everything I'm doing at home.

All in all, it's quite a long and tiring day- especially when you haven't eaten! It seemed to go relatively smoothly though, thankfully.


Asides from that, I'm being a Halloween witch at the garden centre, before the elfing re-starts. It's been nice seeing the children all dressed up in their costumes with their faces painted. My good friend Emily has designed the Christmas grotto this year and during this week I've helped out with painting some of the scenery for it. All ready for Christmas :D