Podcast: How to juggle friends, a social life and CF

Transcript

Voiceover: Welcome to the CFStrong Podcast. CFStrong covers the successes and challenges faced by those living with cystic fibrosis. You’ll hear first-person stories, conversations with health professionals, friends and partners. Just a heads up, guests may share their personal views about treatments and health management, but please remember, this is not medical advice and you should always follow the advice of your clinic team regarding your health. 

Brad: G’day everyone and welcome to this incredibly exciting new season of the CF Strong Podcast. I’m your host and fellow CF patient Bradley Dryburgh. And as a 20-something-year-old living with cystic fibrosis, I know that this decade of our life is not only challenging, but rather it comes with some big questions we ask of ourselves. I’ve taken the time to sit down with six guests who like me, are all in their twenties living with cystic fibrosis as they share their honest and unique perspectives on 10 big questions across 10 separate episodes. I’ll ask one question of all six of our guests in this particular order. You can expect to hear answers from Adam, Blake, Caitlin, Ellie, Sam, and Tayla. In the first episode of our series, we’ll hear from each of our six guests as they answer how they juggle friends and a social life alongside cystic fibrosis. 

Adam: Yeah, well, for me it hasn’t been overly difficult ’cause maybe I’m a little bit lucky where I’ve always had a few really close best friends. Um, you know, my best friends from when I was 12 are still my best friends now. So I’m lucky in the sense that they know me really well. Um, they know my cystic fibrosis. , I don’t really have to go through the phase of meeting. I mean, I do, but I don’t have to go through a huge phase of meeting new people and feeling anxious about that. ’cause I feel quite comfortable meeting people and making friends with people, CF or not. The thing I noticed, um, about meeting new friends with CF though, is that there is that hurdle, um, initially when they realize that you were, are sick and that you have a cough, or that, you know, I’m underweight or I take creon before I eat, or I take insulin before or after I eat, and I’m always checking my blood sugars. These are things that people aren’t typically used to. So there is a, there is usually a conversational hurdle to jump over, um, to get to that next level of friendship. And I’m always aware that sometimes it could be, for me, it’s quite, it could be quite, uh, what’s the word? I think it’s just, I can get quite anxious about it. Um, but in the most part, people have been really understanding, um, and very respectful and very compassionate whenever they hear about my cystic fibrosis. So if anything, it’s just given me a lot of social com, uh, social comfortability, um, around making friends. So CF and friendships, it’s, it’s not a big thing. Uh, it’s, it’s just normal for me. It’s like, it’s fine, you know? 

Blake: Yeah. Well, um, I mean, I, I guess I’ve been, I think that what’s probably gonna be a common thread through most of my answers is that I’ve been very lucky compared to I think of maybe a lot of other people with CF in terms of severity, I’ve sort of been very lucky to not have any, you know, long, like any major infections, never any long stays in hospital or anything like that. So, uh, in that regard, it’s been quite, I, it’s, I’ve been able to balance having friends and having CF quite well. Um, I think that also comes down to all of my friends pretty much. I don’t have a single person I can think of that isn’t supportive or understanding of when I do need to take a break in social situations or any sort of regard. Like even back in school, my mates were really, really good about everything CF related. I never felt embarrassed about it or anything like that. So they’ve been really good in terms of, you know, being a support system for me. So, uh, so yeah, in the times where I do need to maybe have a, have a night off the drinks or something like that, um, yeah, they’re, they’re totally understanding. So the balance has been really good, for me personally. 

Caitlin: So I am extremely lucky that my whole life I’ve had a really great social network around me and I have had really awesome friends from primary school up until high school. And even now in my young adult life, I’ve always had a really good social network around me. Um, I have had pretty much all my friends have been really good in trying to understand CF, learn about it, gain knowledge, and also visit me in hospital. Um, yeah, I’ve got a lot of fond memories in high school of my friends coming after school and staying with me till all hours of the night visiting, getting dinner, like watching movies, just having fun really, even through being in hospital in a weird way. So, um, I’ve been very lucky my whole life having a really good social network of friends. 

Ellie: Yeah. So I would probably say not too different than I guess quote unquote normal. Um, I definitely feel like I don’t have too much of a barrier around my CF. I really like to make sure that my friends are a massive priority in my life. They bring me a lot of joy and I’m moving to Canberra and having uni and work. I’ve found a really amazing group, and through connections of friends I already have and bringing new people into our group, I definitely feel like we’ve grown a really positive friend group that is really supportive. So I tend to try and make as much time for them as possible. I do think that sometimes, like with health, with CF and mental health as well, I can kind of hermit sometimes. And there have been periods where I haven’t been too involved with activities or social gatherings, or not necessarily having the energy to go out and see everyone, but definitely in the past, you know, year or year and a half, that’s something that I’ve really prioritized. 

Sam: Well. Uh, I think the main thing is, is learning how to be honest with your friends. And so they are aware of the things you can and can’t do when it comes to your health. Having your friends know about you, where you come from, and I guess what is important to you, which is my health, for example, they build a kind of trust in that friendship group. And then through there you can honestly do anything with them. If they know you, you know them, you trust them, they trust you, uh, they’ll never push you to do things you don’t wanna do, and you’ll, you’ll feel comfortable. And that’s, I think that’s the main thing, building the trust. 

Tayla: Oh, I mean, balancing friends social life, I can’t, I don’t, yeah, I don’t do it that well. I, um, I have a couple of friends that are really understanding and, um, really caring. I’m just crap at responding to messages if I’m completely honest. Sometimes I’ll just be too busy with my nose in a book, uh, or working or uni where I just, I completely figure I see the message, I just, I don’t respond. Um, but balancing it with CF, um, having understanding friends is really helpful, um, where they are like, okay, how are you? And if you crap, they’ll come see you. If you’re not feeling up for it, they’ll just send you a text or ring you or something. Um, but yeah, I think having the right people in your group kind of like surround you in the right way that you need is very essential to having success with friendships and balancing it with CF and a social life. I mean, I kind of don’t like going out anyway, bit of a hermit. Um, unless it includes a racetrack, then I’m like, yeah, let’s go. But otherwise, I’m like, no, I’m good.

Brad: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of our series. We thank you for taking the time to sit down and hear the value that each of our six guests provide. And we wanna thank them for taking the time to be a part of the series two. We hope that this has not only been informative, um, but refreshing to hear that there are many different perspectives to each of these questions and challenges we face as CF patients. Once again, I’m your host Bradley Dry. Thank you so much for tuning in to the CFStrong podcast. 

Voiceover: Thanks for listening to this episode of the CFStrong Podcast. Make sure you subscribe on your favourite podcast listening platform so you don’t miss the next episode. And if you enjoyed this podcast, we’d really appreciate if you could leave us a review. It helps other people find CF Strong or share us with your friends. Also, a quick reminder that the views expressed in the CFStrong Podcast may not be reflective of Cystic Fibrosis community care’s viewpoints. The podcasts are designed to share information and provide insight into the lives of those living with cystic fibrosis around Australia. This podcast was made possible thanks to support provided by the Australian government. Thanks for listening, and we’ll talk to you next time.