Time to Get to Work.

Sometimes, late at night, I can't sleep.  All kinds of thoughts dance through my head.  School, science, politics, friends, love.  Only rarely does my own health emerge among this spinning collage of topics.  Given that I have cystic fibrosis (CF), I suppose I'm quite fortunate in this regard.  The small proportion of time spent with this on the brain is reflective of the fact that up to this point in my life, I've managed the disease well. A commitment to therapeutic consistency, a healthy lifestyle (albeit occurring in the adult-onset form), and a little optimism have played no small part in this. But it would be dishonest to suggest that I don't worry about having CF.  Quite simply, its worrying.  And increasingly so as one looks beyond the youth-eviscerating number of thirty.  I wish I could control the production of the CFTR protein in my own body, thereby regulating the flow of ions across cell membranes in places where it mattered most, namely my lungs and pancreas.  Then I wouldn't cough so much.  Or have to remember to take so many pills with every meal.  Or have to spend so much time talking to health insurance people over the phone.  But one of the first hard lessons learned somewhere around the metamorphosis from adolescence to adulthood is that you can only control what you can control.  Enter exercise.

There are ceilings to how rigid I can be about adherence to medicine, maintaining state of mind, and living a healthy lifestyle. And while I've certainly left room for improvement with respect to the first two, I think I'm furthest from reaching the ceiling of the last item - lifestyle. Particularly when it comes to exercise.  I've always been active - I grew up playing sports in youth and through high school. And much to my parents credit I was never held back from participating in general childhood raucousness. This has helped me, I think, evolve into a person who likes to maintain a certain level of physical activity. Over the years since organized sports ended I've spent lots of hours running, surfing, hiking, biking, kayaking, Jiu-Jitsuing, and lifting weights, among other sweat-inducing things. There's no doubt that these have contributed significantly to maintaining the trajectory of the curve of my health over time. But that curve inevitably gets heavier over time, increasing the likelihood of a one way ticket south to Cough City. Greater effort is needed to maintain what has become the norm. That's the bad news. The good news is that exercise is an enormous factor for an individual with CF in controlling their own destiny. Thus, it is with both excitement and a sense of purpose that I hereby declare to the world my intent to raise the bar of personal physical activity.  This in the name of health, happiness, and a good old fashion challenge.

But I can't lie... from where I sit today, 26.2 seems like a really big number.  Time to get to work.             

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