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My Name is Brian McCandless and I am a Physical Education major
in my second year at Slippery Rock University. I am a very
active person that loves to be outdoors. I am
employed by the SRU Outdoor Adventures program. I work as
a cycle aerobics instructor and a belayer at SRU's Student
Recreation Center. I am very ambitious person that will
always fight for anything that I believe in.
I was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at the early age of two
months. I have always been asked many questions about my
disease since I was very young. Up until last year, I would
never let anyone know that I had CF. When friends or other
classmates would find found out about my secret, I would be
forced to answer every question in the world that didn’t make
sense (like- is it contagious?). I now embrace that. Since
CF is not very well-known like Cancer or MS, I enjoy talking to
people about CF and educating them on this fairly unknown
disease. I have come to accept that CF is a part of me but
does not define me. Instead of fighting to keep my secret
hidden, I have learned to battle CF by raising awareness and
funds for the CF foundation that will ultimately result in
finding a cure for this life-threatening disease.
CF is something that forces you to take care of you body.
Because of this, I feel that CF has only made me stronger.
People do horrible things to their body like: smoking and eating
unhealthy food. These are things that normal people shouldn’t
be doing anyways and it is just especially important that a
person with CF doesn’t engage in these types of things.
I think that I have been able to lead a close to normal life
thanks to my health habits and treatments that I could not
function without. The only thing that that sometimes limits me
is that I have to strive to earn respect from people who don’t
understand what CF is. I don’t mind this because everyone has
something they have to overcome in their life. I feel that I’m
very fortunate to have the opportunities I have and be where I
am. Other than closely watching what I eat, cycling like crazy
and completely flipping out on people who are smoking anywhere
near me, I think that I lead "normal" life. Due
to the fact that most of the treatments for CF are time
consuming and easy to put off, it is the CF patient
themselves who must decide how hard they will work to fight this
disease. It is them who must make the choice to be healthy
and make the commitment to doing the extra work to save
themselves.
Thank
You for reading ,
-Brian McCandless
cycleforcystic@gmail.com
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