I suffer from cystic fibrosis. It's a disease that, among other things, makes breathing

difficult. I was first diagnosed with it as a child after the first of many late-night

emergency room visits. Living with CF means that while I have the potential to live

a full and relatively decent life, it's nowhere near guaranteed. My parents are heartbroken

when they got the news. Although they'd never told me themselves, I'd learned that they

had a hard time conceiving before I came along. They had tried every trick in the book,

fatality drugs, dieting, specialist clinical treatment. You name it, they tried it.

Eight years with no luck, I only had to be delivered a sickly baby that wouldn't make it

to 20. To say, they did everything they could to keep me safe was an understatement.

I was like a figure in a snow globe, caged in a bubble for my own protection. I know

my parents loved me. They loved me so much, it swallowed them up and ate them whole.

Which is why I feel so guilty. Knowing that you're the root of every ounce

of pain, every bit of worry and fear in your loved ones' lives is a punishment I would

never wish upon my worst enemy. I remember our first visit. I remember feeling the tears

fall on my face as my father held me in his arms, brandically screaming at the nurse for

help. Even now, I remember how fast this heart was beating against my cheek. We already

knew the pastoral draining technique was practically second nature to us, but it had never been

this bad. My oxygen deprived brain was struggling to keep up as those hospitalites flooded my vision.

I was swimming in a fluorescent ocean as the doctors worked to clear my mucus coated airways.

Through the sea of white and the incoherent speech that my brain was working over time to

try and decipher, I heard my parents' subs as they stood in the hallway too horrified to

look at me. All the anesthesia in the world couldn't stop the hurt I felt in that moment.

...