**Warning: Dangerous Roads Ahead**

I’m about to say something depressing. Be warned. This is not something I would even let myself think, much less say, on most days. It is definitely not the type of thing I would mention to my support system or my friends or any of the other wonderful people who work so hard to keep me healthy (both physically and mentally) every day of my life. This might not be the type of thing that parents of younger CFers want to read, or anyone for that matter, and so I want to give everyone the chance to get out now, before things get heavy. This is raw CF, pure and simple, and it isn’t pretty.

I honestly think my body is giving up.

No, wait, before anyone misreads that, I think my body as it stands now is starting to fail. I have NOT given up hope that things might be better in the future, I just honestly do not think my body is going to fully heal in its current state. This doesn’t mean that I think I’m a goner tomorrow, or in 6 months, or even in 6 years. It just means that I think my body has come as far as it can in actually fighting off this raging sea that is CF and that what I’m facing now is just a last-ditch effort to keep the flood down low enough to stay above water.

I feel as though mediocrity, even “bad”, has become my normal.

Today, for example, I wheezed my way through work. It hurt to stand, it hurt to breathe, and please don’t even ask about walking. I sat at my desk trying desperately not to need to go to the bathroom, just to avoid the pain associated with a short trek down the hallway. Don’t ask me why I feel this way, especially since I just got off IVs about a week ago. I think part of it, at least, is viral – a simple cold spiraled out of control in the way these things do for cystics – but I also feel legitimately like the past year has been a lesson in accepting defeat.

My health has become a comedy of errors.

I got some bad/weird medical news today, which is probably fueling some of this post. No, not CFRD-related, because I actually used the time between the two hours to see another doctor who conveniently works in the same building (gotta love the hospital network system). Anyway, I won’t go into details, and it’s probably going to turn out to be nothing, but the point is that when he told me a possibility that might have pierced my world a year ago, I can honestly say I felt very little. Actually, it was more than that: I felt slightly amused. Not really “funny” style amused, but more just roll your eyes style amused. My first thought was "wow, I can't tell anyone this, because it's just too crazy to even believe. People would start to think I was actually going insane." And then I did kind of chuckle, because with all the hubbabaloo out there about "cystic posers", I'm begining to think that most of us have stories that would make all of theirs sound downright believable.

I’m not beaten down, but I am in a corner.

Please don’t read this post as anything more than it is: the nighttime musings of a slightly overworked cystic. I’m tired, and I just wish more than anything that myself and everyone else who has this disease could catch a short break from the drama. I mean, in what playbook of life does it say that transplants and collapsed lungs and oxygen therapy should be de rigueur? THESE ARE HUGE DEALS! They are life-altering phenomena, and yet for me and some other people I know, they’re not. They’re run of the mill, casual topics for a lunchtime chat, nothing to get all that worked up about. It’s all so absurd when you take a step back from it: how much we put up with on a daily basis without even thinking it’s anything but ordinary.

I promise next time I write won’t be this much of a downer. To be honest, I’m already feeling like this post might come back to bite me in the ass – an embarrassing reminder of the things that sometimes run through my head when I’m really down and out. But it’s all real, it’s the skeleton in my closet, and that skeleton right now is wondering how she came to be as far gone as she is.