|
For as long as I have been alive I’ve been dealing with cystic fibrosis. I was initially diagnosed as a cystic at 12 hours and an operation to deal with digestive complications immediately ensued. Although I didn’t always understand what cystic fibrosis was while I was growing up, I always knew something was up. The indications of my abnormality were everywhere: medication in with my food, the scar that crosses my stomach, the shit load of pills, and the periodic hospitalizations. By the sixth grade the curiosity to better understand my condition drew me to the "infallible" Encyclopedia Britannica at the school library to find our more. My research brought me to one conclusion. Basically... I was hosed. Although it wasn’t evident yet due to the fact that I was still growing and relatively healthy, I learned that my lungs didn’t work right. The problem was that they could not deal with the pollution that is normally cleared by healthy lungs. As a result they would be coated with crap that would lead to infections that would ultimately destroy them. With that in mind, the highlight that I learned from professor Britannica was that this cataclysmic event and my demise would occur by the time I was twenty years old. My immediate thoughts... fuck school. I’m now 28 years old, I play in a band, work a 9 to 5, pay bills, and deal with the same bull shit I had to then - just more of it. Instead of taking two pills with every meal I now take seven (at breakfast and dinner I take 10-12). I wake up early to do hour long breathing treatments 3-4 times a day. I struggle to maintain weight so I don’t look like a concentration camp victim. I go to the hospital a few times a year for a couple weeks stay. I try not to suffocate on a daily basis from everyday air pollution and toxic cigarette smoke. Does it suck? Yes. Are there people worse off then me? FUCK YEAH. Over the years I’ve known people with CF who needed tubes and pumps to breath, had lung transplants, who have died, and those that I’ve helplessly watched die knowing in the back of mind that is what is waiting for me.
It is a terminal disease that primarily attacks the lungs and the digestive system. Currently the average life expectance has grown from 11 to 31 due in large measure to the new research paid for by individual donations. Of major significance too is that the amazing new genetic research for C.F. has direct applicability to all other genetic diseases as well. And the lung research should directly benefit other bronchial problems such as Asthma, Bronchitis, and Pneumonia. To make a donation by mail, please make your check payable to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and mail it to: Cystic
Fibrosis Foundation
|
