Columns

Philips, a company that manufactures and sells respiratory equipment to a big portion of the United States, recently posted a statement saying it was discontinuing “the sale of hospital ventilation products, certain home ventilation products, portable and stationary oxygen concentrators, and sleep diagnostic products.” This change was a shock…

Have you missed me since October? Did you wonder if something Pompe-related had happened to me? Did I get lost “on the road to Pompe,” or did my engine break down somewhere? Truth be told, I got lost in a bank of fog and didn’t know when it…

Last week, my 5-year-old son, Cayden, and I spent a few hours preparing for his Valentine’s Day celebration at school. He’s in kindergarten, so it’s the first year that we got to make Valentine’s Day cards for his class. We even took it a step further and filled goody…

This school year is the first for my 5-year-old son, Cayden. He attended preschool when he was younger, but now he’s in kindergarten at a public school, where things work a little differently. One of the biggest of those differences is transportation. For preschool, parents were required to…

My 5-year-old son, Cayden, has been seeing an otolaryngologist, an ear, nose, and throat (ENT) specialist, for years. The first visit was suggested by his metabolic doctors, the ones who manage his infantile-onset Pompe disease. Pompe disease can lead to hearing loss, so they wanted to…

It’s been a little more than 18 months since my 5-year-old son, Cayden, made the switch to Nexviazyme (avalglucosidase alfa) infusions as the main treatment for his infantile-onset Pompe disease. We started seeing improvements almost immediately, but now that he’s been on the new medication…

When you become a parent, one of the first things you must learn is patience. Sometimes you’re in a rush to get things done, and then — boom! — the baby is crying or your toddler is yelling your name. At that moment, you have to practically drop what you’re…

In our school district, the first two days of the holiday break were reserved for parent-teacher conferences. I quickly scheduled a meeting with my 5-year-old son Cayden’s kindergarten teacher. Because this year is his first in elementary school, it was also my first time attending such a conference. Before…

Not everybody is a morning person, myself included. Nonetheless, the whole idea of sleeping in went out the window years ago when I had my son Cayden, who’s now age 5. Cayden is a fairly good sleeper, but between his school and appointments, we rarely have a day when we…

Because of his infantile-onset Pompe disease, my 5-year-old son, Cayden, has always relied on a feeding tube for nutrition. For the first six months of his life, he used a nasogastric, or NG, tube. After that, he needed something more permanent, so he underwent surgery to have a…