I heard these two words so much when I was young. Not from my parents telling me that I wasn't old enough to do something, but from my doctors.
See I have Cystic Fibrosis, which is a genetic disease that causes my body to create thick sticky mucus. This mucus builds up in the lungs and pancreas (and anywhere else mucus is located in a body). In the lungs it can cause serious, repetitive infections and scarring until the lungs no longer function. My pancreas doesn't digest my food properly so I can't get the nourishment from it. I take enzymes (pills) every time I eat to help with the digestion process, and I have trouble gaining weight. I also catch colds a lot easier, that pretty much instantly turn into an upper respiratory infection.
Luckily my lungs were never really bad growing up. My lung function tests were always 100% or higher (so better than a 'normal' person). Which is great. It really is and I'm not complaining, but it left me in a sort of limbo. I wasn't healthy, I still had to go to my quarterly checkups, but the doctors didn't really have that much to do for me. So my family would take time off of work and school and we'd drive to Denver (4 hours away) every 3 months to go to Children's Hospital. We'd check in, get escorted to a room and wait all day to see a doctor. The doctor would come in, look me over tell me that while I'm healthy now, just wait, one day the lung disease would catch up with me and I'd start to get sick. Really sick.
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| Me as a baby, at 17, and now at 36 |
