After being in college for one whole semester, I've been thinking about what I have learned about myself and my CF just by being in college so here it goes:
1. I have the ability to take care of myself because I WANT to. It is rare that I ever skip a treatment even with the freedom of living away from home. I would rather I feel good for the day so it isn't even an option. I have the ability to go above and beyond my routine of care by exercising as much as possible. Its so easy when the gym is just a 5 minute walk from where I wake up!
2. The people who love you will always want to take care of you. I have made so many friends, and a handful of great ones. The great ones are the ones who love me enough to ask me if I did my treatments today, or notice that I did in fact take my pills when I forget if I did. Just like my family checks to make sure I'm doing every thing right, so do my good friends. They even are careful to avoid me or purell their hands and keep their distance when they are sick cause "they don't want to get me sick." It's so great that I am still able to have people like that in my life when I'm living away from my family.
3. People are accepting. I was skeptical at first about whether or not people would understand my disease but everyone who I have told about it is so accepting. We are even able to joke about things without it feeling awkward. No one judges me or treats me any differently. Where I barely did my Vest in front of my friends from home, I sometimes have an audience at school chatting with me and pretending that I'm not sounding like a shaking chipmunk!
4. CF isn't who I am. My whole life I've grown up around people who always knew I had CF. Granted, THEY never treated me any differently because of it but they still knew right off the bat. For example, almost every adult I see asks me how I've been feeling (and I don't mind that, but it just shows how prevalent it is) At school, I am able to be myself FIRST and then when they ask me why I've been coughing for the past month, I tell them about CF after they get to know me.
5. I don't have to live in a bubble and CF can't define my life. I'm going to college, making plans for the future, and doing every thing to the fullest extent. As long as I'm taking care of myself through it all, CF (or even cepacia) isn't going to change that!
