Jack is a fairly normal 11 year old boy, he likes football, Minecraft and playing X-Box, he does however have Cystic Fibrosis, it is an inherited disease effecting many parts of the body but mainly the lungs and the digestive system. In Cf sufferers, the body produces a thick, sticky mucus that clogs the tubes in the body allowing bacteria and infection to settle in and make themselves at home, this over time causes scarring and inflammation and leads to lung damage.
Jack takes 40+ oral medications every day plus several nebulisers and food supplements, all this keeps him ticking over and then every 3 months he has 2 different types of intravenous antibiotics for 2 weeks at a time through a portacath that lives in his chest so we always have a quick access point for a vein.
One no of the biggest parts of cf treatment is physiotherapy, this is more formal types such as percussion (rhythmic banging on the chest and back) or using things like an acapella or pep (little plastic devices that you breath through to vibrate the goo out your lungs!) but also exercise and keeping fit all help to keep the lungs clear and free from all that horrible gunk that fills them.
Jack is growing a bug chronically called pseudomonas, this has caused something called bronchiectasis which is where the tiny tubes in the lungs have turned into wide hard tubes and in some places they create little caves, these are all perfect for the infections to grow and this makes coughing it all up that much more important but that much harder.
Jack does a lot of keeping fit but as he gets older he is finding it harder, his lung function is at 65% now as a base line, it doesn't really go up but does sometimes dip right down.
Finally I'll get to the point!
What we're crowd funding for is a physio vest. This is exactly what it sounds like, a vest he can wear that attaches to a machine that will perform physio on him when he's just not feeling well enough to do the running and jumping himself. They are more commonly used in America and aren't funded by the nhs over here so we're asking for a small donation from everyone we know to try and get one for Jack to make his (and our) life a bit easier during the harder days.
If there are any questions please ask.