You know you have CF when...

On one of the CF facebook groups someone started a "fill in the blank" thread. I got a kick out of them & had to share some of the answers we came up with.

You know you have CF when....

You walk a block & look & sound like you ran a marathon.
your "over night bag" consists of a suitcase carrying all your machines.
You're on a first name basis with the pharmacy.
you sound like crap, feel like crap, but look amazing!
You tell your friends you have to go home to get a good beating.
Your dog licks you cause you're extra salty!
You can eat 4000 calories a day an not gain a single pound.
Your pharmacist knows who you are by your voice.
The receptionist at your doctors knows you by your voice.
Discussing your bowl movement & mucus color is a normal convo.
You can swallow 5 (or more) pills at once.
When at least once during a convo your voice gets crackly.
Your family & friends can find you in a store by your cough!
When your best friend has a bottle of enzymes in her purse.
When you trip on the IV pole in your room while getting ready.
You leave the drug store looking like you bought the whole store.
When your dog can find you in the house by your cough.
You can tell the nurse how to run the IV pole or PFT machine.
You can sleep through anything thanks to your oxygen & vest machine!

I hope you enjoyed these as much as I did! This is only a small portion of the list, but these were some of my favorites. Oh the life of a CFer. Feel free to add on to the list (:

The ups & the downs of the CF community!

It's been along time since I've blogged. Now that school is finally out I'll have some time to update this, but that will have to wait a little bit longer.

I wanted to talk about the wonderful CF community for a bit. I haven't been apart of this online community very long, but I can't imagine my life before them. It's this huge support group of people that deal with the same things you do. They are there to celebrate your highs & to lift you up through your lows. They give you advice & someone that totally gets what you're going through. Out of this HUGE online community there are a handful of people that I've become very close to. One of my best friends I've never met in person yet I feel like I've known her forever. Others I can truely say I love them & am so grateful for their friendship in my life. We don't always talk about stuff dealing with CF in fact alot of our conversations don't touch on CF at all, but it was the CF that brought us together to begin with. Many of these friends I won't ever have the privledge of meeting in person, but it still breaks my heart to see them struggle.

It's been a roller coaster of emotions these last couple months for those in the CF community. We celebrated many getting the gift of new sparkly clean lungs & the gift of finally, for the first time in their lives, know how it feels to truely breath. We've also suffered heart break as we had to say bye to too many of our beautiful CF warriors so close to Christmas. Just because you've never met in person doesn't make the loss of a life from someone you had grown close to, someone you celebrated life with & someone who was taken too young from the same thing you have, any less heart breaking. While heart break comes hand in hand when you get involved in the CF community, I wouldn't trade all the friendships, support & great memories I've made over the past couple years for the world.

One of those we lost this this past month was one of my first CF friends. Ms. Hannah Ruth. She was one of the most amazing people I have ever known. She was strong, positive, beautiful caring, determined and so many other things. Through her I have met so many others in our community that I don't know if I would of met other wise. Hannah made me feel good about myself & always pushed me to be better. The night she passed away it was a flood of emotion. I cried for the loss of an amazing friend, but I felt relief that she finally wasn't in anymore pain. I still get on facebook hoping to see a wall post or update from her... if only heaven had facebook. I will always look up to Hannah. I hope that in face of adversity I can be as strong as she was. I love you to the moon & back baby girl, we'll miss you.

During this holiday season I'm asking everyone to please count our blessings. Tell your family & friends you love them & how much they mean to you. Don't take a single breathe for granite. So many fight every day to breathe & far to many families have lost loved ones this holiday season. Remeber the reason for the season. It's not about the presents & the holiday parts, no matter how awesome they may be. It's a time for giving, a time for family & a time to remember Christ.