Moments of CF

Here I sit, as I usually do late at night, although technically it is just really early in the morning. I am not asleep, however I am a little tired. Insomnia. I know when it is striking, just as I can recognize anxiety and paranoia, yes I have those as well. I am not afraid to talk about those things which occasionally occur. But this post is not going to be an elaboration on that topic. . . I'll leave my craziness to another post :)

Tonight I would like to do some reflecting. Many times you will hear me or many other CFers talk about how much we view our life with CF as more of a blessing than a curse. That it has made us stronger and wiser, which is true. To pinpoint a moment in time when we found ourselves facing the things in life that strengthened us is often difficult. I can remember a few. . .

I can remember the smell of pine which helped drown out the smokey air from the small fire which we kept at a light burn. The mountain air and feeling as though there was not another soul for miles was relaxing. Of course I was not alone. My family traditionally spent Memorial Day camping. It had become something I looked forward to and yet at times despised. Too many times I remember spending hours which seemed like days, (sometimes they were days) huddled around the fire with a flimsy tarp canopy as the only thing keeping the pouring rain from completely soaking me. There were even years when snow would decide to join our camping trip. However many times mother nature was very generous and gave us beautiful sunshine, the smell of dew on morning grass and a variety of birds singing. This day was one of those.

Bryan and I had only been married a couple years, I kept what happened that day to myself for a long time. Despite feeling like I could tell Bryan anything, I couldn't tell him this. . .not yet. I had laid down for a short nap in midday to catch up on the terrible sleep I got from laying on the hard ground in a sleeping bag the night before. My nap was refreshing and I woke ready to participate in whatever activity had been planned while I was sleeping. As I laid there, I noticed a very wet, gurgly sound when I breathed. It seemed to get worse and then I could not breathe at all. I felt as though I was drowning I sat up abruptly and began coughing. The feeling did not go away. As I coughed into my hands I began to taste blood in my mouth. I looked down and noticed I had a small pool of blood in my cupped hands. I don't know how much blood I coughed up, but it was enough to terrify and shock me. I had never coughed up blood before. Although I was finally free from the gurgling and watery feeling in my lungs.. I was not free from the fear that followed. Tears welled up in my eyes. I was frightened, but I knew I was stronger than most people and the responsibility I felt to protect my family and Bryan took over. I discretely discarded any evidence of what had happened. I pushed my fear to the back of my mind. I realized what coughing up blood meant. I put on a smile and my day continued as though nothing had happened. That was the day when I knew I had to be tough, where I was tough. . . that was also the day I realized CF was catching up to me.

I didn't have many other episodes of lung bleeds for several more years after that one. But it was a sign of what was ahead of me & it didn't take long before coughing up blood didn't even faze me, in fact I rarely took notice of it most of the time.

*I don't want this post to seem negative, but it's honest and these are the kinds of things we deal with at young ages that do make us tougher than most people.

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