No Ordinary JOE

I’m sitting at the front desk of my job and a young man walks through the door wearing this shirt

 I was stunned.  Before he could say a word I blurted out…."Do you have CF?"  He said yes….and I said " I do Too!!!"  I was the first person with CF this 14y.o ever met outside of the Dr. office and he is the first person I’ve met with CF since my last visit to CF camp when I was 12! 

This young man left an everlasting impression of an empowered CF patient.   14 years old, going to work out on his own accord, knowing it will help his over all health, eager to ask questions and not just accept what he is told; he was just like me when I was 14.  

Life is confusing when you are 14 and CF absolutely complicates the process.  Making choices in regards to telling people about your CF is a heavy one.  Fear of being rejected, laughed at, explaining pills and treatments and why you have to go to the nurse so often is outright SCARY.  At 14, I was just out of the “ugly duckling”  XXXX stage, getting braces and entering high school.  I had to figure how to mesh into a school with 2500 students without being TOO different, pick and choose my circle of “in friends” and hope that my secret wasn’t revealed.  ‘He expressed, he was feeling the exact same pressures.  I thought I was different.  But I know now, we who live with CF, face many of the same challenges.

I hope that Joe can find himself, balance his health and lifestyle and figure how to “mesh” without too much stress. 

More than anything I was so happy to see and hear from a young man who was living life, facing the challenges and not letting the world hold him down. 

Keep running Joe!