Having cystic fibrosis means my world is different from other kids'—but having a best friend with CF makes it feel a little less lonely. There's a kind of understanding between us that no one else could ever get. It's not something we talk about all the time—it's just there, woven into the fabric of our friendship.
It's in the way we don't have to explain why we're tired, or why we need to sit down for a bit, or why we need to do our treatments before anything else can happen. We just know. We met when we were both still too young to understand the full weight of CF, but old enough to feel the little inconveniences it brings every day—the long mornings filled with breathing treatments and pills, the constant hospital visits, the fact that we can't just run and play like other kids without having to think about how it might affect our lungs. But what we didn't know was how we'd become a lifeline for each other. It's like a secret code only we understand. I remember when I had to stay in the hospital for a week last year. I was hooked up to IVs and my room felt like a tiny, sterile world where everything outside seemed so far away. The walls felt thick, like they were closing in on me. But then, I got a message from my best friend. She was in her own hospital room, not far from mine, doing the same treatments I was. And just like that, the walls didn't feel so thick. She asked if I wanted to do a "virtual sleepover" with her—basically texting and sending funny pictures of our IVs or the snacks we were eating, like it was a normal night.
It's funny how we can be stuck in the same situation—both fighting to breathe, both struggling with the same kind of tired—but the moment we connect, everything else fades. She gets it. She knows what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep because your lungs are rattling. She knows what it's like to do your vest therapy, feeling like your chest is being squeezed and not being able to breathe deeply enough. She's been there too. And that's a bond I never realized I needed so badly. Our treatments are a big part of our friendship. It's not like we can just hang out without it being a whole thing.
When we get together, we don't do it like other kids do. While other friends might be swapping stories about school or hanging out at the park, we're swapping tips for making our breathing treatments less boring or how we've learned to adjust the settings on our nebulizers to get them to work faster. Sometimes we race to see who can get through their vest therapy the fastest, just to make the whole thing feel like less of a chore. It's kind of silly, but we do it to make each other laugh.
We both know the exhaustion that comes with CF. It's not just the physical fatigue, but the mental weight, too. It's the constant, unspoken worry that comes with every cough, every missed dose of medicine, every hospital stay. We've both seen the hard parts—the days when one of us is too sick to hang out, or when we're in the hospital with tubes in our arms, unable to even get out of bed to talk. But even then, we know that no matter what, we'll always have each other. We'll always have that unspoken agreement that no matter what happens with CF, we're not alone in it. And yet, there's a part of me that sometimes wishes things were different.
I hate that we're forced to think about our health all the time, that our days don't look like those of other kids. I wish we could spend a Saturday afternoon playing outside without needing to worry about whether we're overexerting ourselves, or if we've done all our treatments for the day. It's not fair. It's not fair that we have to plan our lives around our medicine and our breathing treatments instead of just living freely like everyone else.
But the thing about having a best friend with CF is that, somehow, it makes all the hard parts easier. We don't need to explain the frustration when we get out of breath too quickly, or when we're feeling sick and have to miss a fun event. We both get it.
There's a quiet comfort in knowing that no matter what, we've got each other's backs. She's the one who knows exactly what to say when I'm feeling overwhelmed by my treatments or discouraged by another hospital stay. And I'm the same for her. We're a team in this fight. Even on the hardest days, we can text each other stupid jokes or share memes about the things we're going through that no one else would understand.
Sometimes, when I'm doing my treatments or sitting in a hospital room, I think about what it would be like to have a "normal" childhood—one without pills, without the constant doctor visits, without the nagging fear that the next cough could be something worse. But then I remember my best friend, and I realize that maybe, just maybe, the life I have is a little less lonely because she's in it.
We might not be able to escape CF, but at least we can face it together. And in a world where everything feels out of our control, that's the one thing that feels truly certain. We don't always have the same answers or solutions to the things we face, but we always have each other. And that's something I'll hold on to for as long as I need to. Because in the end, it's not about what CF takes from us. It's about what we're able to give each other—strength, understanding, and the kind of friendship that makes everything else feel just a little more bearable.
