Hello. You have not heard from me before; my mom is a frequent visitor and poster on this site, and identifies herself as "Bambi, mother of Jordan, 16." Jordan being me, of course.
I felt the need to respond to this post because most of the arguments being made are either non-commitial or supportive of sending a kid with CF to a waterpark, and my own view could hardly be more negative. First of all, I have never been to a waterpark, nor have I had the opportunity to "share toys with friends who are sick, play outside in the rain, eat dirt, eat bugs," etc. And no, I do NOT feel the least bit deprived, resentful, cooped-up, etc. Yes, I am slightly annoyed when my treatments or other aspects of CF get in the way of things I would like to do, like being near a friend who is sick. But I religiously avoid sick people, and no, my social life has not suffered. In fact, it is worth noting that people who have been turned away by the fact that I have CF are people that I would not particularly like to associate with anyway, because they tend to be more judgemental, rude, thoughtless, and so forth compared to those who can take it in stride. As a result, every single doctor that I have been to in the past decade has simply told my family to "keep on doing whatever you're doing." And so we have.
***Okay, after that introduction, the real answer is down here***
But all of this does not address the issue of the waterpark. To answer the original question here, I will refer back to some research I had to do to write a paper on swimming for my P.E. class so that I could get out of swimming (Grin). What I found was that swimming pools - and I'm sure the same is true of all recirculated bodies of water that people swim in - tend to be filthy, DESPITE the chemicals that are supposed to kill the germs. In fact, chlorine, the principal chemical used to "clean" pools and waterparks, has been proven to be extremely irritating to the respiratory system, and can in fact cause moderate reactions in asmatics. In short, this is not the sort of thing you want to have a kid with CF breating in. Period. Furthermore, the chlorine is only good inside the pool. What happens when water sloshes out around the pool, and perhaps puddles in isolated areas? Germs happen. Bacteria happen. Molds, mildew, and fungi happen. If some toddler has been in the pool and has felt the call of nature, e-coli bacteria may happen. Of course, e-coli infestation of commerical water parks is rare, but it has occurred. (People at my high school have boasted about peeing in our pool.) The point, however, is that if pools are nasty, waterparks can only be worse. The reason I say this is that waterparks often contain many "misters," things that aerosolize the very water that people have been sitting in. Isn't that what a nebulizer does (aerosolize, that is)? And isn't the point of nebulizing to drive medication DEEP into one's lungs? The droplets at a waterpark may not be as fine, but the concept is the same: every breath a guest of a waterpark takes is going to be filled with nice, warm, perhaps chlorinated water, that is at best highly irritating and and worst a haven for bacteria. I haven't even gotten close to to those small sprayers they turn on at zoos when it gets hot; I wouldn't dream of setting foot in a waterpark without a HEPA mask. Or maybe a spacesuit.
I apologize if I've come across as overly negative here, but I honestly believe that sending anybody - much less a kid with a respiratory complication - to a waterpark is a big risk.
- Jordan, age 16.5
