I don't get angry when my mom smokes pot, hits the bottle then goes right to the rock

Yes, I'm drinking. Fuck yes, I am drinking. It's been that kind of day. I want to bitch about the whole damn day, most of all how my lungs actually hurt from this cold, even though it isn't actually in my lungs yet but hovering about causing trouble in my sinuses - I guess maybe it is my bronchial tubes that hurt from dripping snot...something effing hurts. But, I am going to stick to my original agenda.

Classes started yesterday. About 99% of the grad classes I have taken have been in the same room, on the third floor of the building that houses the English department.

For whatever the reason, elevators are eschewed on college campuses. I've been to three different colleges, so I can attest this to be pretty true across the country. Not being one to stand out, I take the stairs like everyone else (except the very old, the very fat, the wheelchair ridden and, well, probably some of the other lungers).

When I started my master's in 2005, which I think was the beginning of the decline that led me to the place that I am now with my Cf (since about 1996, I hadn't been doing much besides smoking pot and hanging out in bars), I had a very hard time with the stairs. It wasn't that I couldn't make it up them, but only that I was left at the top - sometimes even at the second floor, in the midst of a serious coughing fit. Generally, once I made it to the top, I could dip into the bathroom, cough cough cough and get to class with no one the wiser....that is, of course, unless I got caught going up the stairs with someone from class at the same time. This was a horrid thing and one I often tried to avoid. So I developed a way of breathing that would help me to not have a coughing fit (in through the nose, out through the mouth, blowing softly and doing this very slowly)or at least hold one off until I got into the safety of the bathroom.

The lovely part of this story is that since I have started doing the Vest and other treatments, I no long have coughing fits while I do the stairs. It is an amazing thing. I can talk to people while we walk up and not be afriad at all. I do get a bit short of breath at the top, but I have noticed so do a lot of people. So chalk one up for compliance.

The second item on my mind deals with feet. Or the lack thereof.

My son has a little boy on his football team who has no feet. He wears prosthesis (prostheses?)that attach to his shins and go into his shoes. Because of this, he isn't very fast and really isn't that great of a football player - understandably. When the kids have to run, he is always the last one.

Often, a few boys will go back for him and run in with him - and when he finishes, the team - and some of the parents - will clap. I remember this from when I was a swimmer as well. If some poor girl...perhaps she was handicapped in some way, sometimes she was just a reeeaaaly slow swimmer...if that girl was very far behind in a race, the spectators would clap her into her finish and cheer like mad when she touched the wall. I always used to give thanks that I was never that girl. And I wondered how this boy felt about the attention.

As a person who thwarted all CF-related attention, I actually felt sorry for him for that, not for his loss of feet, but for the fact that maybe, just maybe, he'd like people to forget he hasn't any feet. To just be treated like a normal, albeit slow, boy. So I didn't clap. I relaize that I can't project my own fears and desires as a Cf patient onto a little Indian boy with no feet, maybe he soaks up the attention and will go on to become a spokesman for the footless, but I do think I can empathize in a way that maybe not all of the clappers can.