Beckett’s Beginning...
Beckett Preston Salyer was born on March 11th, 2016 in Fort Worth, Texas at Baylor Scott and White Hospital. On this particular day, the weather was anything but pleasant. The 20-minute drive to the hospital, in the rain at 5 in the morning, felt like we were driving on a treadmill but we eventually made it to the hospital safe and sound. After peeling my fingers from the steering wheel, we went and checked in. Once we completed the long, daunting task of checking in, it was time to enter the room where we would finally meet the baby boy that had been planning his escape for almost 9 months. After being in labor for close to 8 hours, his mother gave birth to Beckett at 7:00pm without any complications. He weighed in at a whopping 5.14 pounds and was 19 inches long. The original due date was April 1st or April fool’s day but little did we know his first prank was to come out about 3 weeks early. For the first 2 months, everything went as smooth as first time parents could hope for with a newborn. He didn’t cry very often, he didn’t mind riding in his car seat, he didn’t have any problem latching on or any of the horror stories that I had heard from other parents. When we finally started getting into a routine and settling into parenthood, we received a call from the hospital saying that there is a good chance that he may have Cystic Fibrosis and that he would need to have a sweat test done to make sure their screening was correct. The news was incomprehensible at the time, since neither of our families had any history of CF whatsoever. We refused to believe it for a while, or thought that maybe it was a faulty test or a mix up of some sort, hopefully. Then, the genetic test came back, confirming that he in fact had 2 different genetic mutations, which made the news undeniable. Once it settled in, that it was in fact real and that it was something that would be a part of our lives forever, came all the negative feelings, such as guilt, helplessness and the “why us” phase. But once we started educating ourselves and reading more into CF and all the medical advances that have come about over the last 30 years, we started to lose those negative emotions and replace them with positive ones. What really changed our way of looking at CF was when we read other people’s blogs or first hand accounts of people that either had CF or was directly affected by someone who had CF. Almost every blog I read was extremely optimistic and high spirited which allowed us to become more and more optimistic and hopeful for our family’s future and the quality of life that we worried about missing out on. Having a child with CF opens the door to a whole new way of living and thinking. It opens your eyes to how many families and friends are directly affected by CF and how extraordinary these people’s stories are. It was amazing to read how positive and how helpful these people were after years of dealing with CF, and how certain things become routine without effecting the overall quality of their lives. Beckett has transformed our lives in a variety of ways that we are extremely grateful for and that we wouldn’t have ever experienced any other way if it weren’t for him. He continues to make us better people every day while we try to do everything we can to give him the best life we possibly can. After a year of being a part of the CF world, every day is still a learning process with uncertainty lingering in the background, but with all the different medical advances and events being held all over the world, the future looks bright for CF. There are several new treatments and medications that improve a variety of symptoms in CF patients, but there is still no cure for this genetic disorder, yet, but soon enough!!
