Gabrielle's Journey to Breathe Easy

My daughter Gabrielle is a beautiful 15 year old with hopes and dreams for the future!  Her biggest hope right now....is to someday breathe easier.  Gabrielle has Cystic Fibrosis, a chronic, life shortening disease that primarily affects the lungs and gastrointestinal system.  Gabrielle has a rigorous daily regiment which includes medications both orally and nebulized and various airway clearance techniques. She must eat a high calorie diet and make sure she gets some form of aerobic exercise.  With the progression of this disease she is hospitalized about every 4 months now and this means even more medications usually IV meds that begin in the hospital and most times need to be continued at home.  Because of this Gabrielle has recently had a port placed as her veins in her arms are scarce now due to all the picc lines that have been placed over the years.

Through it all though Gabrielle has a great attitude and a fighting spirit!  Even when we decided that going to school is too hard on her and she needs to be home schooled, giving up the traditional high school setting, she stays positive and hopeful.

Gabrielle's journey is just beginning.  As we head to another hospital visit. (the third one since October), we realize that we need to fight harder and find more ways to beat this disease.  We will be traveling to Shands Hospital in June to have further discussions of a possible lung transplant and these visits will start getting more frequent as the doctors determine whether or not a transplant is in her future. 

If you were to ask Gabrielle what she wants most in the world right now, she would simply say that she wants her mom by her side to get her through this difficult time.  I would love to be able to do this for her even if it was just for a while.  But there are still medical bills to pay, co-pays for medications, a mortgage payment and all those other household expenses and that is why I am participating in the gofundme fundraisng to be able to give 100% of my time to my daughter but still get bills paid.   I need to be there to keep and guide her on the right track so she can continue to fight this disease and eventually breathe easier.