me & Nic gone Racin'

on march 30th, me & Nic went to the STP 500 NASCAR race at the Martinsville Speedway. we had a great time!  here are some pics...

Nic's favorite driver is Dale Earnhardt Jr. (#88). Dale had a good run, finishing 3rd that day. Denny Hamlin (#11), who raises money for the CFF every year, finished 19th. the race was won by Kurt Busch (#41).

Make-A-Wish Kid Goes to California!

i wrote before about Nic being selected to receive a wish from the Make-A-Wish Foundation in 2010. He chose a trip to Disneyland in California! So in October of 2010, Nic and our whole family were treated to an all-expenses paid trip to Anaheim, California with tickets to 3 amusement parks and lots of great perks. Nic was treated as a VIP everywhere we went. One of the best days we had was at Knott's Berry Farm. Nic and his sister, Somer, rode every roller coaster at the park. I tried to keep up but after the second time on coaster #3 i lost my breakfast. We still had lots of fun.  Here are some pics from that day....  

 

 

 

learn more about Make-A-Wish and what they do HERE

GS 2002

just about every year at the Great Strides walk there is at least one Firetruck parked nearby for all the kids to check out. all kids love firetrucks! big ones and little ones. here is Nic back in 2002....

more pics on the way.....

May 5th!

On Saturday May 5th, for the 14th straight year, our family will take Great Strides to cure Cystic Fibrosis. We NEED YOUR HELP to sponsor our walk team!!!! Every dollar contributed brings us that much closer to finding a cure for this devastating disease.

Raising money for this worthwhile cause is the very least we can do to ensure that one day a cure will be found for my 16-year-old son, Nicholas, and other kids like him. So please support Nic's Team with a sponsorship donation if you can. Lots of generous people have helped us in the past and we are extremely grateful.

THE PICTURE is of Nic at an IN-n-OUT Burger restaurant in California. in 2010, Nic was chosen as a Make-A-Wish kid and he choose a trip to Disneyland. so last fall we went as a family to Orange County, California and visited the Disney parks, Knott's Berry Farm and Medieval Times. It was LOTS of FUN! Yes, we have lots of photos from our adventures at the Disney parks but while we were there we just had to eat at an IN-n-OUT while we had the chance.

Great Strides is the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's largest and most successful national fund-raising event. Please help by sponsoring me and Nic's Team. Your generous gift will be used efficiently and effectively, as nearly 90 cents of every dollar of revenue raised is available for investment in vital CF programs to support research, care and education. Every dollar contributed brings us that much closer to finding a cure.

Making a donation is easy and secure! Just click the "Click to Donate" button on this page to go to make a donation that will be credited to my team. Any amount you can donate is greatly appreciated!

More research is needed to help EVERY patient with CF. There are some amazing advancements being made all the time. Add more tomorrows with a donation to Nic's Team.

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a devastating genetic disease that affects tens of thousands of children and young adults in the United States. Research and care supported by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is making a huge difference in extending the quality of life for those with CF. However, we continue to lose precious lives to CF every day. That's why your help is needed now more than ever to ensure that a cure is found sooner - rather than later. To learn more about CF and the CF Foundation, visit www.cff.org.

Together, we can make a difference in the lives of those with CF! Thank you for supporting the mission of the CF Foundation and Great Strides!
If you have an extra few dollars then please consider giving. Even $5 can make a big difference. All contributions are tax-deductible.

THANKS FOR YOUR GENEROSITY!
 --- Chris Hodges, “Nic’s Dad”
 e-mail: curecf@cox.net

trying to get back to "normal"

The last post was meant to provide readers with information about the disease Cystic Fibrosis (CF) and why we need to support efforts to find a cure. All those good links, plus some more, are now located over there on the sidebar. However, this blog is not meant to be all scientific and technical and stuff. It is more about overcoming CF and Nic's Team and Great Strides and positive things.

Cystic Fibrosis, while a serious disease, is not debilitating. Most people with CF lead very normal lives. The biggest difference in their everyday lives is the large amount of medicine they have to take. This is true for Nicholas also. Since he was 2-months old, Nic has taken regular breathing treatments using a nebulizer. This kind of therapy is like second-nature to him by now. I have taken quite a few pics of Nic over the years. Here is a pic of little Nicholas taking Albuterol before he could complain about the camera....


Later on, Nic started using a VEST machine for airway clearance. He still does that everyday. Here he is years after the last pic doing his therapy, trying to get me and looking kinda like Dr. Octopus....

One of the medicines that Nic takes every day is Pulmozyme, a drug which was developed with the help of funding from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF). This means that people who were Great Strides supporters back in the 1990's directly helped my son with his disease. So I know that donations we make to CFF today can help Nic and many others in the future. There are many scientific studies and research developments happening all the time. Check Out the news headlines from CFF over there on the sidebar to read the latest.

In 2007, Nic went into the hospital for the first time since he was a baby. He had pneumonia. He was in for 4 days because he needed some powerful IV antibiotics. He missed a couple of weeks of school after that. Here is a pic of Nic and his brain in the hospital the first time...

Coincidentally his first hospital stay happened at the same time as a big event for me. For 3 months prior to that I had planned to attend a Van Halen concert in Greensboro with some old friends. It was the BIG Reunion with David Lee Roth and I didn't want to miss it. I asked Nic if I should still go and he said it was OK as long as I bought him a hat at the show. I don't think he knows who Van Halen is. The concert was amazing, that week was long and Nic got better quickly. You can read what I wrote about all that back then over on my music is music blog HERE. Naturally I had a camera around. Here is what I felt like in the hospital room the morning after the show....

These days Nic is a very normal teenager into video games, robots and horror movies. He has gone a long time without getting a serious illness. Getting sick is never the plan for anyone, especially people with CF. When I started this blog last month I did not think that I would be writing about getting sick. But since then things have changed a bit.

Recently Nic had to go back to the hospital for his second stay. Pneumonia again. Plus some other stuff. This stay was for 7 days. Then another week out of school after that. That is what we have been dealing with this April. I am not going to go into details about all the medical issues. But the GOOD NEWS is that he is home now and trying to get back to normal. Whatever "normal" means. I certainly hope that we are done with hospital visits for a while.

Coincidentally this hospital stay came just a week after a big concert again. I went to see Prince in concert, someone I have wanted to see since I was Nic's age. The show was amazing!

Nic did NOT want me to take any pictures of him in the hospital this time. Of course i still did. (He He) But I won't post that one, instead here is a pic I took of the little drawing I did on the message board in his room.....

From here on i will be posting lots and lots of pictures and not that many words. Please check back for updates on the fund raising and more good stuff.

PLEASE SPONSOR US IF YOU CAN!




thanks for reading,
Nic's dad

What is Cystic Fibrosis?

What is Cystic Fibrosis? found out some answers at these helpful links:

CF Foundation - www.cff.org

Cystic Fibrosis - wikipedia

cysticfibrosis.com - information resource

kidshealth.org - Cystic Fibrosis


families and friends of CF patients are doing what they can to bring a cure closer by supporting the CFF and GREAT STRIDES this spring. Nic's Team has been walking in the Roanoke Great Strides event for several years. here is a pic of Nic walking with his Mom way back in 2001....

coming up: more pics

me & nic pic 2

here is a much more recent photo of me and Nic. this is from December 2010....

me & nic pic 1

here is a pic of me and my son Nicholas when he was about 1 year old.....

more pics and words coming,

Nic's Dad

first post

Hello,

Welcome to the Nic's Team web page. this site is dedicated to highlighting our fight against Cystic Fibrosis, a deadly genetic disease that has no cure. We are raising awareness of the disease and gathering sponsors for our Great Strides walk team. Every year our family raises money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (cff.org) to help them support research into new treatments and ultimately a cure. Research equals life.  

Nicholas is my 15 year old son. He sometimes likes to spell it "Nick". When Nic was 2-days old he had major surgery to fix a problem in his intestines. It was a miracle of modern medical science that he survived. Since he was a little baby we have supported the CFF and their annual Great Strides walk-a-thon campaign. It is a yearly event usually attended by families and friends of people with CF. We always have a lot of fun. Our local walk is held at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

Our family can attest to the progress that comes from targeted research into fighting this disease. Several of the medications that Nic has taken were direct results of the CFF's support for those promising drugs while they were being developed. It is important to do everything we can to help fund research not just for Nic but also for the thousands of other CF patients out there. The CFF certainly lives up to its motto: adding tomorrows everyday

Hopefully this blog is gonna be a collaborative effort between me and Nic. We are both going to write posts here so be prepared for that. Nic is just like any other 15-year-old in every way. It's just that while dealing with being a teenager, he also has to deal with a serious disease everyday of his life. He does a pretty good job of coping with it all most of the time. He generally does pretty well in school and even volunteers for the YMCA Leader's Club. As Dad, i spend a lot of time making sure Nic takes his meds. I also take a lot of pictures and will be posting some of them here.

Please consider sponsoring Nic's Team this year. I will be posting more info on that very soon. Come back here again to see how we are doing. Any comments are welcome.


THANKS,
Nic's Dad




To get things started here is a pic of a 7-year-old Nic walking the course at Great Strides 2003...

.....this was the first post on this new blog. stay tuned for more....