In order to understand the significance of this, you have to understand what Cystic Fibrosis usually means when someone is diagnosed with it. Cystic Fibrosis means death in a lot of ways. Most CFers my age are dead or close to death. Most CFers younger than me are dead or close to death. And only 5% of the world's CFers, which is only a few thousand people worldwide, are older than 40 years old, which is the current life expectancy for those with CF. My great uncle died as a toddler from the same exact gene of CF that I have, and I've met people who've lost loved ones to the disease. I've become a hero to a lot of those who've been affected by CF, since I don't give up and don't back down.
People with CF, including me, have medication lists that are often a few pages long, and spend a lot of time doing treatments as well. I spend about an hour in the mornings treating my CF. This includes using a machine called the vest, which is an inflatable vest I wear that attaches to a machine, and that machine pumps air into the vest to shake my lungs. The shaking breaks up the gross stuff in my lungs so I can cough it out easier.
While I'm doing the vest, I've also got a nebulizer, which just vaporizes liquid medication for me to breathe in. I have a few different medications in that including saline, which moisturizes my lungs to make breathing easier, Pulmozyme, which breaks down any and all infections in my lungs, and the Pseudomonas killing stuff (which is just called Tobi) that coats my lungs in a thick layer of antibiotic that kills mainly Pseudomonas infections, and prevents further infections. Only that makes breathing kinda hard and gross while I'm on it.
These don't even scratch the surface. I take another 50 pills a day, which 20 of those are digestive medication so I can digest my food, two of those are the pills that attack the root of the CF issue, and the rest of them are vitamins and supplements. A few of those pills are chewable, which makes things a little bit easier, but not a lot.
People often ask me how I keep track of everything. I honestly don't know. I just do. I hardly remember the names of my pills, but know them when I see them. Most of the time I just know my pills by the look. I memorize their colors, their shapes, their functions, and whether or not they have a taste. I especially remember them if they have some sort of effect, such as what happens if I forget to take them, or what happens when I take them.
