The new school was an all girls school in Denver, centered around athletics and empowerment. They paid a lot of attention to mental and physical health. In fact, the mental and physical health of the students came first, rather than actual school. Actual school was still very important, but the school knew that only healthy kids could make it through.

When I went to that school the first day, I had no idea how to react. Suddenly, everyone was incredibly nice to me, and couldn’t wait to get to know me. At the same time, they were confused as to why I was so quiet, and why I only had basic answers to their questions. A few of them were even a little offended when I denied their hugs. Most of the girls assumed I was just shy, which I was, and I’d warm up. But for the most part, I was just terrified. Once again, I was the new kid, and I worried about what would happen if my differences came to light. The school definitely had its fair share of quirky students, but I brought a lot more than just a few quirks.

I spent the first month simply observing everyone else. Over time, I felt myself relaxing quite a lot. I still didn’t tell anyone about my condition, and made sure to use the back door in the classrooms when I left to get my medication before lunch. Most classrooms were large and had two different doors. I also refused to use the bathroom at that school, which brought a new set of problems, but I adapted.

I also started taking Tae Kwon Do classes at my local dojo twice a week. I didn’t want to be helpless in case someone wanted to pick on me again. I wanted to be able to protect myself in case anything happened. At the time, I saw Tae Kwon Do as a chore, but it was a chore I was willing to do. It gave me some confidence, though I hated how strict and repetitive it was.

I thought I was doing pretty well when it came to hiding Cystic Fibrosis from everyone else. No one asked why I left for lunch five minutes early, or why I had such a bad cough. No one actually seemed to notice. They just wanted to be my friend. I pushed people away though, because I had no trust. I offered to just be friends at school, but no one was allowed at my house. I was afraid of what they might think if they saw the pills and treatments I did to keep myself alive.

Because I was still sick, I went to the doctors’ for a routine check-up, and found that my lung function had dipped over a dozen percent, and I tested positive for a severe MRSA lung infection. So, in January, less than two months after I transferred schools, I was in the hospital for two weeks.

It was a traumatic experience, to say the very least. I had an IV that needed to be replaced every couple of days, which pumped toxic antibiotics directly into my bloodstream. I had some nasty reactions to those antibiotics, including Red Man’s syndrome, which is where my entire body turned bright red and itched so badly I felt like I was literally on fire. Other antibiotics just made me really cold and tired, which still sucked, but was much better than Red Man's syndrome.

By day three, I was literally as white as snow, with dark, sunken eyes. My cheekbones were visible, and my lips were blue, but my veins were neither of those things, which made replacing IVs that much harder. Eventually, my doctors ran out of places to put IVs, and in a last attempt to get one in me, they found a vein just above my elbow. They missed the vein, and ended up jabbing the needle into my elbow where several bones and tendons are. It took six doctors and my parents to hold me still, while I kicked and bawled in pain. Eventually, they stopped trying, and I was left in a fetal position in my bed, nursing my elbow for almost an hour, which was wrapped in gauze and felt like I had just slammed it against a table.

In reality, hospitals aren’t where you go to play video games and watch movies everyday for a few weeks. I would much rather spend two weeks at my first middle school, than spend another week in the hospital.

There was a silver lining to all of this. My classmates contributed to a large gift basket for me, which included chocolates and cards wishing for a quick recovery. Also, my math teacher got my mom’s phone number from the school and called her, asking if he could pay me a visit one evening to make sure I had an easy transition back into his class. He knew I hated math, and struggled to understand the conventional ways of learning math. At the same time, he knew that if I just understood the core concepts, I could teach myself the rest.

For two hours one Friday evening, my 7th grade math teacher patiently taught me two weeks worth in material. I couldn’t hold a pencil because my right arm had an IV right next to my wrist, which made it painfully stiff and cold, but I tried my best to write down a few numbers with my left hand. I also used my iPad to type down a few notes. At that moment, I realized that not every teacher and student was against me. There were some damn good people in this world, and I wish I did more than just say a timid, “Thank you”, to my teacher as he disappeared down the long hospital hallway. Both my mom and I cried for a good hour that night, but not from pain or sadness.

A week later, I was out of the hospital, and a few days later, I was back at school. I was welcomed back with literal open arms. The girls there couldn’t wait to see me again. However, they also wanted to know why I was in the hospital for so long if I hadn’t been injured. They could tell my cough was gone, and connected the dots. I was sick with something, and after I assured them I wasn’t contagious, I finally found the courage to give them a brief rundown of Cystic Fibrosis. A lot of the girls were confused, but they understood the words “Chronic Illness” easy enough. But a few girls wanted to know more. They were genuinely curious. I didn’t tell them very much though. I just told them I need medication to digest my food, and I got sicker easier.

Eventually, people stopped asking questions, and I was able to get on with life. I attended therapy once a week to try and solve my anxiety issues. In hindsight, I don’t think therapy really helped. They tried a lot of different EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) techniques to deal with my PTSD, but I wasn’t responsive to any of it. For the most part, just getting in shape and learning how to fight gave me back some confidence, and I slowly got over my fears I had since childhood. I realized I wasn’t a helpless little girl anymore. I was tough, and the more I went to Tae Kwon Do, the stronger I got. The process was long, and the classes were strict, but I did it anyway for the sake of my health.

Around the same time, I got into weekend horse riding lessons, and occasionally volunteered at horse rescues to feed and clean up after the horses. The riding lessons took most of my Saturdays though. They were English riding lessons, and therefore a lot more disciplined than the western riding I was used to. But, I needed to be around horses, and more importantly, I had to work with and on them. It was healing, and there’s not much that’s more empowering than holding the reins of a 1,500 pound prey animal.

I learned a lot of valuable lessons just from working with and on horses. I learned how to lift things such as bales and shovels with my legs, rather than my back. I learned how to pick gravel out of horses’ hooves, how to brush out burs and pick out cactus needles without hurting the horses, and just how to interact with horses in a calm way, even if the situation itself was stressful. There’s nothing more dangerous than a scared and cornered horse, and I had to learn how to read the body language of horses, as well as control my own anxiety and body language, so I wouldn’t find myself at the receiving end of a horse’s hoof.

Overall, working with horses gave me more physical strength, and taught me with experience how to stay calm even if I didn’t feel like it. And I carried those lessons with me back to school every weekday.

Eventually, I selected a few people I knew in school who I thought were more trustworthy than the others. Out of them, Fiona stuck out to me. Fiona had Dyslexia, which made it easier for her to understand my challenges. While CF and Dyslexia have almost nothing in common symptom-wise, Fiona still needed special accommodations at school, such as special glasses and blue tinted paper, so she could read.

Fiona was also a hardcore tomboy like me. She was into hockey, and was also not afraid to break a few bones along the way. She often invited me to the skating rink, but I admitted that I couldn’t skate to save my life, and I was afraid of hurting myself. She then suggested skiing, arguing that the snow was as soft as a down feather mattress, and there was no way I could hurt myself while skiing. I told her my dad taught me how to ski when I was younger, but then my grandpa broke his leg after colliding with a snowboarder a few years later, and scared me out of skiing.

My friend was slightly disappointed in me, until I told her I did Tae Kwon Do, and I could spar once I got to the senior belts. After that, we found some more common ground. Tae Kwon Do and Hockey are two different sports, but they’re both combat sports. The difference was, one was a team sport that didn’t always encourage fighting, and the other was a fighting combat sport, that required you to fight later on to get through the senior belts. I’ve never been good at team sports or ball sports, but I could break a few boards in Tae Kwon Do.

I was never as physically fit as Fiona or the other elite athletes in the school, but I did my best. At least I started to get a little muscular, and my run times got shorter. I still sucked at ball sports, but I eventually accepted that I just wasn’t meant to do those sports. I was a fighter. I didn’t need to be able to protect a basketball to have dignity in sports. If anything, I did one of the most honorable and respected sports in the world. I didn’t get my belts with just my fists alone. I had to prove to my masters that I was worthy enough to have my belts, by completing written tests and essays before getting a new belt, so that I fully understood the consequences if I ever decided to dishonorably use my skills outside of the dojo.

Getting into a smaller group of friends helped with my socially anxiety, however I still didn’t fit in too well. Unlike Fiona and the others, I really didn’t enjoy my chosen sport. Tae Kwon Do was way too strict for me to do with a passion and a smile on my face. I did it just to keep my lungs strong and learn how to fight against anyone if I ever needed to. But deep down inside, I didn’t want to fight. I didn’t want to become a lethal weapon. I just wanted to settle down and relax, but I couldn’t do it. I had an opportunity to become my own hero for once, and I took it.

While my friends always talked my ears off about how awesome their sports were, and how much fun they had, I rarely talked about Tae Kwon Do, or any sport for that matter. I hadn’t found any sports that set my soul on fire. In fact, I didn’t find anything that I was passionate about at the time. I was just in survival mode. I decided that with time, I’d eventually find something to obsess over. But the first step was getting out into the world, and at that time, I was too much of a coward to take my dog for a walk around the block.

I knew the only way to really cure my cowardice was to learn how to fight. The world was never butterflies and rainbows. It will never be butterflies and rainbows. Sometimes fighting is the only way to solve a problem, because a hug isn’t gonna change a criminal’s mind. I learned, the hard way, that the best way to stand up for myself was to become much more dangerous than my bullies. The only way to do that was to build muscle and teach that muscle how to react to certain things without the brain consciously telling it what to do. Tae Kwon Do had to become instinct, so if I ever had to stop a fight, I could.