Note: The story is all true, but some names have been changed, though I may change the fake names to real ones depending on who's comfortable with their real names being used, which I'll find out sometime. But for now, most of the names are fake except for a few. Also, this topic is very near and dear to my heart, and is very hard to find the right words to explain, so I apologize in advance if it doesn't come out exactly as I meant it, or it sounds repetitive. 

A lot of things in life can trigger my lung disease, especially when I walk by perfume stands at the mall or someone lights a cigarette near the outside corner of a store, and the smoke is carried by the wind just as I walk outside. People look at me weird, almost as if I just killed their pet dog, because they think it's contagious. I always reassure them that I'm not contagious, and that I just have a condition called Cystic Fibrosis. 

Everyone has a reaction to this, and the three common reactions are just a simple nod and a smile, or someone has to say their friend's cousin's dad's neighbor's uncle's nephew has it, or they immediately start showering me with "I'm so sorry" and "I can't imagine what it must be like" and "How do you stay alive". 

Truth is, Cystic Fibrosis is more than the basic medical facts I've known since I was four. It's so much worse and deeper than that, because it's a disease that I think affects the mental far more than it affects the physical. At least for me.