Thank You's to all of you that didn't take this post the wrong way, as I didn't really mean to offend anyone, just bring things to the light. Don't get me wrong about how I stated things, like the whole "don't let your kids think they are special" thing. Everyone is special, but the way I meant it I was meaning don't let your kids think they are better than anyone else
I realize that as a parent, you feel you need to protect your child by any means necessary. There's a difference between letting them know they shouldn't be in a smoke-filled room, and not letting them play in the grass though. There are just some things that you shouldn't be so protective about. You need to be strong and brave for your child so they too, can learn from you and take after that attitude. They learn what they know because of you.
I applaud you people that have CF and are putting work into bettering yourselves. We know how hard it is on us, but the result is better quality of life..we're working for something. To the parents that know what I'm trying to say with all of this and do the same with their children, thank you and keep up the good work.
To Ms. Tanner's mom (MYBOY), I think that is awesome how you do with your boy. -- "I am probably harder on my son when it comes to exercise and compliance doing his treatments. If he whines about his vest and wants a break from it - I tell him only if he goes out and runs. We sometimes go run the track and stairs as a family." You gotta be a little hard on him when it comes to the treatments, because that is what teaches them when they're young that they have to do all they can to maintain themselves. After they grow up and leave your house, the direction they take Health-Wise is their choice, but they can't say you didn't give them the tools they needed to build their fort.
I DID try to suggest a few things parents could try to do differently, when I said things like..."They (my parents) would tell me, 'Look, you have Cystic Fibrosis. You'll go through this and that, you'll have to do this and that. Realize that this does not make you ANY BETTER than anybody, and it makes you NO LESS than anybody. Live like you're a normal kid, just know what you have to do to maintain yourself, because one day, we might not be here to look after you and the world is mostly cold", and "What you should be telling them is, 'Son(or daughter), what you see all these other kids doing, running, jumping, all of that, if you think you can do it, try it. If you try it and don't think you took it very well or need to take it a little easy, its ok for you to sit out if you need to, but atleast you tried it. Don't ever let anyone tell you what you can or can't do, prove it to YOURSELF." So if you don't understand the purpose of this post, I don't know what to say. I was just trying to let off some feelings I had.
To Ms. Tammy, (tammykrumey), I definitely agree with the things you try to keep your kids away from. If they are things that are known to cause something so big, always keep them away from that sort of thing. I'm not going to take my kid to my brother's house if his kid has Cepacia, either. Like I said before, and I think you can feel exactly what I mean when I said, you gotta draw the line on what you protect them from somewhere. I hope I didn't make my own parents come off as non-caring, they just knew where to draw the line by talking to me about how I felt about our situation. What you do here with your own children, Ms. Tammy, sounds like something my parents would've done for me too.
Ms. Joanne, (mousesmom), I really feel your last little section in your post about life and your opinion. Exactly right, we all die sometime, great people before our time have told us and showed us not to be afraid. Jenna (jennastroitzel), thank you for understanding what I meant to send out with my original post. I didn't mean to come out and attack any parents, just let them know that a few things that they do are not right, nor are they good for their children with CF. Hopefully their kids are still young enough that they can make a few changes to how they treat them.
Ms. Liza (Ratatosk), Lol at the rodeo clown thing. Oh no, I didn't mean shatter your kids' dreams and be cruel to them(lol), what I meant was do what you can to make them feel as normal as any other child their age. Who knows, maybe he can keep himself healthy enough to do what he ultimately wants to do in life...and hopefully that WILL be the turnout.
I took the time to read all of the posts and I'm glad you all took the time to read mine as well. Once again, to the parents and CF'ers that can feel what I'm saying and get my point,BIG THANKS and keep doing what you do. To the people who might've read my post and thought, "Wow, maybe there ARE a few things that I could change about my ways...", that's awesome, and what I really wanted to achieve here. To those who didn't take it the wrong way, BIG THANKS. If you don't understand what I'm trying to send out here, either my thoughts and writing style aren't too clear, or....I don't know. Just look at other people's posts and maybe you can draw something from that. Once again, I didn't mean to offend you parents of kids with CF, after all, MY parents are parents of a CF patient too.
