When I decided to study abroad in 1974, I also decided that I would not allow CF to stop me from living my life to the fullest.
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My oldest son, Nathan, was 18 years old when he was finally diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. While we both had been waiting a long time to get an answer to what had been plaguing him, I'd been hoping and praying that he'd escape the CF sentence. The diagnosis, however, did not come as a surprise because exactly 35 days earlier, my younger son, Caleb, at 14 years, had already been diagnosed with CF.
As a hospital administrator, I try to apply what I've learned from receiving care as a person with CF to provide better health care for my patients.
When I was 13, my family went from having two seemingly normal kids to two CF patients in a manner of a few short months -- and boy, did it change everything. Because of my late diagnosis, I faced a unique set of challenges that helped make me the strong person I am today.
Hospital stays are hardly a party. But since they're a part of life with CF, let's get the most out of them and help ourselves make them fewer and farther between.
Cystic fibrosis can't take living away, especially when one loves life!
I knew that I needed to make a change when I began checking on home from the office and checking on work at odd hours from home.
There is no greater instinct than a mother's need to protect, and I have had to willfully disregard it countless times in my journey with CF.
While I am not grateful for having cystic fibrosis and cystic fibrosis-related diabetes, I have no doubt that if it weren't for me having CF, I would not have become the person that I am today.
All my life I wanted an answer to why I was so sick. Then I got it, in the form of a CF diagnosis.