<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">I am new to this chat line business, so be patient with me. I turned 51 years old last month. I was not diagnosed as having cystic fibrosis until I was 35 years old. Just happened to get a doctor who really looked at my past medical history, both written and oral, and put two and two together. She had me tested for CF. It was positive. Had a second test done, and it was also positive. I was sent to a specialist at Tucson, Arizona's University Medical Center. He doubted I had CF because I was overweight. I explained that I was underweight all my life until giving birth to my only child years earlier, at which time I gained 80 pounds! This doctor tested me again, and again, it came out positive. He said just to be thankful that I obviously had a recessive form of CF or I'd have already been dead of it by then. I went through all the reactions of being told I have an incurable disease, got some literature to find out more about it, and began receiving treatment for it, which at that time was a daily dose of tetracycline antibiotic to help control respiratory infections.I now reside in a very small town in the White Mountains of Arizona. We have a small hospital and two very small clinics. We also have a high turnover in physicians. Within the last year, we have had our two pulmonologists leave town so they could make more money elsewhere. I have been battling chronic pneumonias for the last year and also lost almost 90 pounds since one pneumonia episode April of last year. I have no appetite. I went to my regular physician, but he specializes in gastroenterology and says he can't be of much help to me since lungs are not his speciality. This is very frustrating, and also very frightening, since I have this nagging suspicion that I am perhaps entering the end stages of this disease. That may just be my fear speaking to my mind, but I can't help but feel that this is perhaps the last best year I'm going to have.I am interested in talking to other adults who have CF, and am curious about the types of treatments you are receiving. I am on oxygen 24 hours a day, and I do nebulizer Atrovent/Albuterol breathing treatments 4 times a day. Every other 28 days, I also twice a day do a Tobramycin antibiotic breathing treatment. Tobramycin is actually meant for injection, but the pulmonologist I saw last April, who moved away, told me we needed to take more aggressive measures in treating the pneumonias I was having one right after the other, so he prescribed this liquid (injection) antibiotic so that I could inhale the antibiotic in, directly into my lungs where it might hopefully help control the pneumonias. That helped during the first year, but it's not helping this month, since I'm just finishing up another 28-day regimen of Tobramycin, and still have a worsening respiratory infection. I am on Social Security and cannot afford all the out-of-pocket expenses for some of the medications necessary to help me, such as Pulmozyme. Any suggestions? Have any of you had to seek "indigent" aid directly from the pharmaceutical companies so you could get the medication for free?Anyway, I would like to hear from other adults living with cystic fibrosis, although I'm open to communicating with anyone else who is curious about a CF-er of such longevity. Thanks.