When is When to Let Others Know You Have Cystic Fibrosis – Part 2

I concluded my first part with our move to Florida, which happened to be on my 16th birthday and school was already out for the year in FL. My first day of school here, at Land O’Lakes High Skooo (we had a very southern principal) was to be the first day of the rest of my life. Sitting alone at my table for lunch, I realized that I could be whatever I wanted to be, well… except a tall, handsome jock.

I was determined to be “normal” at all costs. It was no longer necessary to leave a class early to go down to the school nurse to get my meds for lunch or have classmates with long-held childhood memories of all of my stays in the hospital. I did my best to not have a coughing spasm in class and confine those to the hall where there were hundreds of people to drown out the sound or hide my red or purple face. I was suddenly a very small fish in a very small pond. My sophomore class was larger than my entire high school in Ohio and the school (having only 4 grades) was just a little smaller than my entire K-12 school in Ohio.

I decided that the regular classes were a good way to get into drugs, trouble, and waste away while the honors classes were markedly better quality people in general – and they were. I don’t think I told more than 10-30 classmates that I had CF because I didn’t need to. I was generally healthy and played on the golf team and had a very small circle of friends in my honors classes and that was all I needed.

On to college I doubt more than 2 people over 13 years of courses knew, other than professors who needed to know on the rare occasion that I missed a class directly related to CF. As far as anyone on campus of 40,000 mostly commuter students knows, I’m just a seriously short dude who walks around with a Gatorade bottle in his hand most of the time to stifle spaz coughs while walking between classes, but they don’t know why I have the drink.

Coming onto the business scene pretty early after high school, I had some occasions where I had to be under some sort of special treatment by my employer due to a sinus surgery or home IV meds that required 3-4 doses per day that interfered with my work schedule. Those were few and far between, though.

My last corporate job is a good example of how I handle telling people. There is no way I can hide my cough from people within earshot 8 hours per day in Cubicleville. It’s not going to happen. Of those people, probably 50% of them were told by me or one of my closer co-workers whom I entrusted with the knowledge and gave them permission to tell if asked if I was okay. I had dozens of people across the building who respected my work but had no idea anything was wrong with me. If I coughed, they thought I was getting over something or blamed it on the pollen count for me.

Then there are the VERY strange interactions. I was in Ohio visiting family and met up with Chris Johnson in Columbus and we were discussing our businesses, which led to talking about insurance. Shortly after that, I coughed and he directly asked, for the first time in my life, “do you have CF?” I was shocked! He had a friend growing up who had, and thankfully still has by virtue of still being alive today, CF. The cough was familiar and we had an instant bond there.

Now, the question is: does that create more respect, more pity, or is it indifferent?

I lean towards “more respect” if there is already respect and “more pity” if there is nothing there yet. If I’ve delivered product(s) before at or above satisfaction and then skip a beat, e-mail to notify of some health difficulties due to my disease, clients are more than happy to give me a few extra days. I never play it as a “get out of trouble free” card, but there are times I need some more time, like going into the hospital for 30 hours after my birthday dinner. I had stuff due that next day and church to go to on Sunday, but I missed it all sitting in an ER and hospital room. I was off my game for a week after that, but everything got done and caught up.

I got a heart-warming e-mail from Darren Hoyt, a good friend in the industry, after New Years that really made my day. With his permission, I’m putting it here to show what is so great about him and what really works for encouragement and opening lines of communication.

Hey Jesse,

I feel kind of stupid – I did not actually know you had cystic fibrosis until I gleaned it on Facebook. I had read you had been in and out of the hospital, but didn’t know the full extent. I know it’s a major ordeal and a battle and presumably takes up a lot of time & frustration in life. Hope you are getting through the holidays okay despite it all.

I’ve had new clients since who are still in the dark about my CF. That’s how it works.

You’re on a need to know basis.

That said, and you obviously know now, I’m walking for the CF Foundation’s Great Strides walk on May 15th and I’ve set a fundraising goal of $25,000 to go towards CF research for a cure. There are many new treatments in the process of receiving FDA approval, and a cure is close. Please consider helping out by clicking the image.

I did some calculating:

If I get a 10% response from my Twitter network to donate $25 for the Great Strides walk for CF and then those people got a 10% response from their estimated 400 followers each, that’s over $80,000 raised for CF research. “Many hands makes light work.”