Sharing My Friend’s Cystic Fibrosis Story As She Prepares to Say Goodbye
My friend Erica was born with a chronic terminal illness known as cystic fibrosis. Currently, as I’m writing this, she’s been in hospice care for a little over a month. Erica is just 32. Her hospice nurse told her that she is the oldest CF patient she had ever met. Many CF patients do not make it into adulthood, and the ones that do have an average life expectancy of about 44 years.
(Learn more about this chronic terminal lung illness on CFF.org) https://www.cff.org/What-is-CF/About-Cystic-Fibrosis/
I’ve known Erica since I was 10 years old. We bonded over our shared struggle of being born with damaged lungs and our resilience to survive. Our parents had each been told that they shouldn’t expect their babies to make it to the next morning. I was born three months early and spent a year in the hospital, defying many odds before my parents were able to bring me home. I was born with BPD, Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia, and I still have breathing issues to this day. When I met Erica, and she told me about her cystic fibrosis, I didn’t know…
