3 Ways Cystic Fibrosis has Affected Me.

1.) How I View Life: Most teenagers tend to view life with a carefree attitude. Smoking is ok, Drinking is ok, What's the worst that can happen? Some even go through life with this "I'm invincible mindset," which thanks to cystic fibrosis i don't have the luxury of having that attitude. This I like to think of as a blessing and a curse. The blessing part would be I don't take life for granted, I have fun with my friends, I work my but off in high school, and I do treatments three times a day. I'm not saying my mindset is better, I'm saying its different, I'm not judging either, and I am aware no one has a perfect life but our views are different based on what we have experienced. What I have experienced has made me value friendships, my beliefs, and being able to walk into school each day. This also has made me an anxious person. For a long period of time I was sick. I am still recovering from that not physically but mentally making me show symptoms for PTS, and sometimes when i get a mild illness or virus i get anxious and have even had small midlife crisis where i would think because i have cystic fibrosis i was going to die at the exact life expectancy time.

2.) Being self conscious- Now 99 percent of the time I am an extremely out going confident person, or at least act it, But I am a teenage girl There are lots of things i don't like about my body or personality, But to start off with the thing that bothers me the most is my height. I am a 16 year old who is 4'11 and weighs 90 pounds. Now this isn't just related to Cystic Fibrosis or that both my parents are short (5'2 and 5'6) but it is also because a steroid called prendisone came into my life around 6th grade. It was there to help my asprogilous and it did but along with it my body swelled up and i stopped growing for 2 years. I am growing again because my bone age is only 14 right now, so i have 2 more years to grow than other girls. This still though is a confidence breaker for me especially when shopping for pants and dresses. Now most of the time pants i can find but dresses are extremely hard for me. When you shop for dresses you're supposed to feel pretty I feel miss-shaped. Its always too long or too big. Its extremely frustrating and even now in October I am already dreading dress shopping for my junior prom. My friends always tease me about my height and i honestly don't care it doesn't bother me what bothers me most is when I get embarrassed by my height or when i go out to eat and get a kids menu (except for at friendly's, than I'm happy :) ) Another thing I'm self conscious about is coughing. I hate when I'm at school and I just get a coughing fit randomly and just feel awkward or when I'm over a friends and start coughing, One time my friends mom handed me a handful of cough drops, I just took them even though i knew it wouldn't help. But I try my hardest not to let cystic fibrosis define my life or make me feel bad about myself.

3.) Exercise and Eating- Now with Cystic Fibrosis I thought i was invincible, I could eat whatever whenever and nothing would happen. Which to an extent is true. One really big plus with cf is being able to eat high fat high calorie foods. BUT it really isn't good to eat like that all the time even with CF you still need to eat fruits and veggies and have a balanced diet. I am going to be honest I'm not so good with eating fruits and i eat veggies maybe twice a day but i am going to try. Another very touchy subject for me is exercising. The best exercise for someone with cystic fibrosis is running or swimming (cardiovascular) I HATE RUNNING. So much but i have done couch to 5 k and am starting up again because it is so important. Seriously though I would much rather play a sport like basketball that do at home workout but my height isn't really helping there so i  need to find things to encourage me to keep going like sprinting for spring track (personal goal this year) So i just need to work on it and set a goal and its possible.

So those are 3 ways CF has affected my life :) thank you for reading <3