I don’t really understand many things in life. Sometimes I think I do, and then I don’t.

A very good friend of mine, during one and many of our discussions talk about how the best place is to start is by saying, “I don’t know anything.”

Therefore, your ego is checked and the learning can begin.

There are often times that I wish I was never born with CF. Not that I wish that I wasn’t born, but that I wish I never knew the name. There is no one in my family that has it, that is known. I just happen to have it.

I am not taking away from all the life lessons and ways it has brought goodness to my life. I just sometimes wish I never knew the name.

Every day I put forth the energy for today’s tasks. I am also always reaching to gather my strength like gathering strawberries or blueberries, picking them off the branch and stacking them high in my basket.

Then ever-so-often, someone hands you things they have learned or resources they have fallen upon. They reach over and dropped a few strawberries in your basket.

I am often in shock or in disbelief when given such gifts, as this happens often. My coping mechanism, as the shock can come in good or bad forms, can take me days, weeks, months, sometimes years to take footing. I believe part of that is life is extremely close and real. I have exact and direct tasks I must do today, each day, no matter what is going on in the world. I have to focus and put my head in the right space and energy to do so.

I was given such gifts yesterday from my social worker. She had multiple resources to help with the medication costs and how things have and are changing better for the patient. How competition is benefiting the patient. “One company does it, why don’t you have this program for your patients.”

She gave me a very detailed chart of the high-cost meds and the programs for them. Before I left, I filled-out this form that took some time and they made sure it was dotted correctly before I left.

We discussed all sorts of long-term goals for health and financial health and resources to contact for CF patients, and how I must plan for retirement if I am not already.

There are so many thank yous that I could say to people that pretty much the only word I would be saying from here on out would be “thank you.”

There are countless tiny kindnesses and kindnesses in larger forms that are never, and I mean never lost on me. I take note, and I place them in my basket as I go along too.