I tend not to be a big rule breaker. If my professor tells me to write a 5 page paper, I do it to a T… sometimes I write 6 pages! I like to get A’s… I’m that nerd who gets disappointed when I get a B. I don’t want to be average. I know that if I don’t do my work to the best of my ability, I won’t get the best grade I can. I know that I could get injured if I don’t wear my seatbelt, so I wear it. I know that I could injure my brain when I’m skiing, so I wear a helmet. I know that I could get hit by a car crossing the street, so I wait for the walk signal. I don’t run red lights (except for that one time I had low potassium and my brain wasn’t working too well). I don’t speed (that much), and I’ve never called in sick when I’m not.
In the same way, when my doctor tells me to do 3 different nebulized medications, take 10 different pills, and do a half hour of airway clearance… I do it. I know that if I don’t, I’ll be sick. Instead of getting by on B’s, I go for the A. I give 110%. Though all of the aforementioned things seem like second nature, my compliance wasn’t always something that seemed obvious to me. I wasn’t fully compliant for about 16 years of my life. When my doctor told me to do my nebulizers, I thought it was optional. When I had lots of pills to take, I “forgot” about them. I couldn’t be bothered with taking time out of my morning to get my therapy done. I told myself I would never be able to run. I had CF, and back then, to me, there was nothing I could do about it but wait to get sick, and go in the hospital.
It absolutely kills me when someone tells me they know someone who has CF who doesn’t take care of his or herself. I know what thats like. I’ve been there. If I could go back and slap myself, I would. And it would be so easy to write a blog and preach about how important it is to do your treatments, to take your pills, to get exercise. To state the obvious that, if you do those things, you will feel better. But it isn’t my authority to do that. It is that person’s responsibility. I had tons of people telling me I had to do my treatments when I was younger whether it was my mom, my dad, my doctor, nurses, friends. But that didn’t work. The only way I was able to realize the importance of my treatments was the hard way. It took multiple hospitalizations, lots of sinus surgeries, a collapsed lung, bleeding lungs, nights in the hospital sucking in oxygen, and a visit to the ICU for me to finally say “enough is enough.” Though I can’t tell anyone how to live their life, I hope that I can at least inspire them by how mine has turned out.
Now, I wish I didn’t have to learn the hard way, but, to be honest, I think that is the only way that hit home. I just hope, by writing this blog, and by others seeing my success, that other CFers don’t have to learn the hard way. All of those difficult moments in the hospital weren’t just bad luck. I wasn’t doing the best I could at taking care of myself. (That is not to say that there are not some people who unfortunately get sick no matter what they do). I wasn’t compliant. Back then, if you told me I could run 8 miles I would have said “yeah right.” Back then, I believed that my twice a year hospitalizations would only increase. Back then, I thought it was IMPOSSIBLE to do all of the recommended therapies, nebulizers, and pills. No one would have enough hours in a day. But I proved myself wrong.
Just like wearing my seatbelt, my compliance has become second nature. It wasn’t as easy as someone telling me thats what I should do though. It took years of struggling and then some more years of seeing results from my intense exercise. Now, through cause and effect, I am able to recognize that all those treatments our doctors tell us to do WORK (at least for me). If I don’t do them, I’ll end up sick. Easy as that. If I don’t run or exercise, my lungs won’t be strong enough to fight off infection. I’d rather feel healthy, so I run. Now, there are no excuses. There are 24 hours in my day, so taking an hour or two to fit in treatments and a workout is nothing. I don’t think that avoiding a hospitalization for 2 years was sheer good luck after thinking I could avoid them by skipping treatments. For me, the secret to good health was getting a perfect 4.0 in compliance. I got to this point by going above and beyond the recommendations, by running, by staying hydrated, by getting enough sleep, by never missing a day of treatments. Though everything I do might not work for everyone, I hardly think that it will be harmful. If I can inspire one person to be 110% compliant, then I have done my job.
