What it's Like Being a Friend to Someone with CF (GP)

How & When We Met:

I met Shannon in comprehensive school, we were in the same form class, so met in year 7. We didn't really interact until year 8, this is when we started becoming friends, I questioned why sometimes she was in the little meeting room in form and why she got to stay inside some days and she explained that she had cf. Of course, I'd never heard of this so when I got home that day I did a little research on what that was.

Becoming Friends:

We started off as mutual friends with Amy, I'd known Amy from primary then Shannon and Amy became friendly and of course, we became friends too. We had sleepovers and went out. As me and Shannon became closer Amy became more distant. We were all still friendly with each other and still are. Shannon and I seemed to share more interests.

My Understanding of CF:

To my understanding, CF is a genetic disease that 1 in 25 people are carriers of and don't even know it. It is described as an "invisible illness" as you can't really notice it with a glance, 10,000 people in the UK are affected by this. Usually, there are some additional factors that come with it, Shannon has type 1 diabetes too, so it's an added difficulty in her life, not that these stop her, she's so strong it's unbelievable. To my understanding breathing for a CFer is like breathing through a straw, there is a build up of mucus in the lungs which makes it difficult to breathe.

What it's Like Being Her Friend:

Sometimes I feel a little useless being Shannon's friend. I want to help her but there is no way I can, the only way I can sort of help is to be there whenever possible and help her live her life the way she wants. I wish I had a spare pair of lungs I could give her, but I don't. I just want to help in the best way I can. I wish I could understand fully how she feels so I knew what to do to help when she feels a certain way. I love spending time with her because (sorry for this sudden sadness) we never know when she's going to go. Yes, that is true for everyone, but if I had a healthy life & didn't get into any accidents, my life expectancy would be about 80-90 but for someone with CF their life expectancy is about 30-50 and that is upsetting, we need to live life in the way we want, cause god knows when our time will be, being Shannon's friend has made me realize this, we need to live like there's no tomorrow, have fun!! Because we never know who won't be there tomorrow.

Me and Shannon love to go to the cinema together, especially to watch marvel or Disney films, I introduced Marvel to Shannon, and now she's a huge fan! She introduced musicals to me and I'm slowly getting through them, but have loved every one so far. Yes, she cancels plans sometimes because she's ill, but I understand why because when a CFer is ill, they feel 10 times worse, even simple tasks can tire them out, tidying the house even tires them out for the rest off the day. 

Thanks for reading,

Amelia