From the Blog
I was looking for some inspirational CF videos and was coming up pretty blank in comparison to the last one I posted. Looks like I’m going to have to create my own after I get an HD webcam for this baby. I did, however, find this 2008 CBS Nightly News story about a CF marathon runner. My thought after the jump…
In my new family by marriage, we like to preface a good story with, “this is a story about…” Thus the title of this article. I plan on this being a new series, so I’m not diving in too deeply into any particular aspect that I am touching on tonight. Let’s call this an overview.
I may have come across harshly with a couple of Twitter folks last week when the topic of being disability came up, so I want to discuss the topic a bit. Explore the water. Clear the air. Join in and let’s see how the community feels. I really hope this isn’t too disjointed, because it ended up in four separate articles by the time I was done.
Upon reading this, some of you may love me more or hate me and never come back. Who I am, though, is a very cut-and-dry, black and white person. I see very little gray in the world, though I’ve been through enough of those muckety-muck college courses to hear about how the world is painted in monochrome, but I don’t buy it for a nickel.
I guess I’m saying, “you’ve been warned if you want to just keep thinking of me a nice, positive guy who thinks the best of everyone and wants to help people;” because I am, but I’m also an onion with many layers. I chose these two photos for this piece because they capture my attitude pretty well. I only listen to those who have my ear through earning my respect from friendship, past experience, or academia that isn’t useless academia. I will go up that hill. I will gain this weight. I will live a long and healthy life with Beautiful. I will not accept anything less than the best for us.
In Tampa, there was/is this program called Abilities that I used their assistance around 1998 because I was a poor college student who wanted to lessen the burden from my parents’ budget for all of my extra food and some medical supplies. I had a job working at the cancer lab on campus for $5.15/hr that year, which basically paid for my gas and let me go to a movie per week, which I went to early to study in the big, quiet theater. Abilities needed all of my food and medical receipts and pay stubs to process everything, then I got a reimbursement check. Isn’t it nice that they didn’t bother to help me with budgeting or making sure I was making the money I was earning work for me? They didn’t teach me to fish, they just gave me as little fish as possible to live on “better.”
The Fox by *J-C
The Fox – a.k.a John the Unknown Cystic out West (@UnknownCystic) had been down lateley. He’s been kicking himself for not handling an ER visit the right way and letting frustration get the best of him. He HATES having cystic fibrosis, but let’s step back and take things in perspective. John, I’m beginning to value as a friend up on the upper tiers of friends whom I’ve never met by now. We are transparent, and you can read a LOT into the soul of the person writing when we have dialogue like this going back and forth.
I am here to uplift and edify you today, if you don’t mind, because I feel like it’s what needs to be done today… at 1:30am EST on vacation, in bed, trying to keep Beautiful asleep. Okay, you know how serious I am now.
I don’t know about your religion, politics, or even your exact profession.
You have my respect.
There she is. The woman who saved me from myself. Words cannot express how she has changed my life, however, as a degree-bearing professional writer, I will give it a shot.
I’d known of Beautiful for a couple of years. Their family started going to our church when she was 16. The oldest of their children, she moved from one end of the country (California) to Tampa at the same age as I did. She didn’t have eyes for me, though.ย To shorten the weirdness portion of our history, I was laid off in February, 2002 and got a great new job working outside in May. I had money again, and over the summer, she decided to hitch her trailer to mine. To this day, I’m still amazed.
So were her parents. She was just 18 and the whole dating thing hadn’t been discussed and came as a surprise. Eight years later, we can look back and make fun of some of it, and others we let be water under the bridge. All is good now. Gooder than fine, actually. Holidays, no problem. Family vacations, easy. We all like each other like family – like family should.
But, you can see why there were some problems when you look back at the Unfortunate Years. I was not well. I knew my potential, but that wasn’t what I was showing the world. I was showing the world: loser. Loser of epic proportions. Putting oneself in her dad’s shoes, I must have been a creep. She was lots of fun to hang out with, but we all know that can’t last forever. It goes somewhere or it goes away. It went somewhere. To this day, I’m still amazed.
CF Fatboy resides in FL. He and Beautiful have been married for 10 years, have two adopted sons, and are loving their choice to change the course of the boys' lives from their previous trajectory.