Flowerpot Men Three plastic flowerpots cost: £1.38. You'd think I had bought him the moon! My grandson came to play today and brought his flowerpot man. For those of you not brought up in England in the fifties/ sixties, Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men and their friends little weed (a large yellow flower) and slogalog (a large tortoise) were the characters in a children's TV programme. They lived behind the shed in a big garden and when the gardener went to the house for his lunch they came out to play I have a video of the original black and white series and it has recently been re-made with a few additional characters. Grandson Stanley (aged three) loves his flowerpot man as much as he loves his Woody doll from Toy story.Same premise! I found him a little weed doll and today we went shopping and I got him some large plastic flowerpots. (Bill and Ben live in flowerpots) Wonderful play value in those three pots. Woody joined in the fun and the game went on all afternoon. One of the pots went back to Stan's house with Bill inside.Stan is an exhausting toddler but well and happy. This means a lot as he spent the first three months of his life in hospital. At two days old doctors at Redhill realized there was something wrong as his belly was distended and he was not passing any stools. He was very tiny, just four pounds. They rushed him to Tooting hosp in London gave him and emergency illeostomy, bypassing the bowel and making an opening in his side and attaching an illeostomy bag. The first op did not work and he had a second. The waiting was agonizing. The docs suspected Cystic Fibrosis but would not confirm till they had results of tests. This took two long weeks.My daughter and her partner first lived in at the hosp then were allocated a room in a parents house just outside the hosp. Claire had had a caesarian so was not too well for the first week but she is one tough girlie and her fight for Stan overcame any pain of her own. I went up to the hosp when I could from Kent. Staying overnight to keep her company when her partner had to go back to work.Stan was hooked up to monitors so could not be breast-fed but my daughter used a breast pump so that he could have the best nutrition. When Stan was stabilized they were sent back to Redhill. We walked in to visit them at six weeks to find a consultant (who had been away_ ordering an ambulance to take them to the Brompton in London. Stan had dipped below his birth weight. The dietician at Redhill had been upping his feeds but not getting the meds balance right. By now CF had been confirmed and he had (Has) to have enzymes to help him to process the fat in his food as otherwise it goes straight through him and he would starve to death. Also he has to have extra sodium because he loses salt quickly. The ride to London in the ambulance was a nightmare. The driver got lost in London. Stan was due a feed and was screaming. When we got there and Claire found that he was in a cot in the ward and not in a side room she was frantic. Any infection would kill him. However, the docs and nurses reassured her that he would be fine in the ward. They cut his feeds down to barely two ounces and upped his creons (enzymes) and got him on some other meds. We had to weigh all of his output, his nappies for wee and his bags for poo!Claire could not breast feed any more as her milk dried so he was put on formula. It was quickly discovered that he had a milk allergy and had to switch to a special milk. From that day though he started to gain weight, slowly, slowly. The physiotherapists showed Claire how to do his ‘patting’, tapping his chest and back to keep his lungs clear. He has to have that all his life. The parent facilities were good. A whole floor of rooms with a kitchen and common sitting room. Most of the babies in the ward had had heart operations but the hosp is one of the main ones for CF children, they are nursed separately as CF kids germinate particular infections and cannot mix.I continued to go and stay at the hosp one or two nights a week, juggling it with work and a production I was involved with in am-dram and looking after the rest of my family. I learnt to do the 'patting' and give the meds etc. I carried him round the ward on my shoulder and sang him nursery rhymes.He did well and we brought him home at three months to their new house they had been in the process of buying when he was born. It was a brilliant sunny day just near my birthday. What a birthday present!One in 2,400 people carry the CF gene. If two people with the gene make a baby there is a one in four chance that the child will have full CF, it may just be a carrier. We have all been tested and it seems that Claire's gene comes down from her father's side of the family as does her partners but no-one in either family ever got CF so nobody knew.The prognosis for CF is, I believe, now about thirty-five years tops, with luck and not too many chest infections, which can cause scarring and lead to heart lung transplants. Twenty years ago life expectancy was about fifteen years oldStan has had a couple of hospitalizations with coughs and the milk allergy (coincidental) it means he has to have all Soya products and milk that are not very high in fat. He should have a high fat diet. He loves sausages though, and chips! As he gets older his Mum will have to work out the creon to fat in food ratio for all his meals and he will be encouraged to swim and do sports to give his lungs a sporting chance.He has long ginger hair and is totally eccentric and lovable.