I’m not saying this to get sympathy. I’m not saying it because I’m angry. It’s just the facts. I’m Emma Decody, and I have CF.

One of the hospital counselors told me to write a journal, “your place to just talk about the thoughts in your life that just happen.” I figure that it’s the future and I should just use a blog rather than hand write in some book. The counselor told me that my journal could be used as a tool to help other girls my age with my same chronic illness.

For those of you who don’t know what it is, it’s cystic fibrosis. Basically my lungs fill up with this gooey mucus until I can’t breath and die. There’s no magic pill, there is no miracle cure. The only way to beat out this disease is by getting a transplant, a double lung transplant. I’m on a transplant list, but I’m not holding my breath (no pun intended). The doctors have prepared me for the worst and have told me that there really isn’t much time left. I’m seventeen, and it seems I’ve already passed the halfway point.

The school advisors try to sit me down and give me guidance about where to go to college or how to plan for the future, but what do they know, they’ve never had to go through what I have. I walk the halls everyday looking at the faces of my peers who get to look forward to college, careers, weddings and families. I want those same things, I just can’t…

There is no sense planning for a future. Why plan for a future when I don’t have one. I have to live in the HERE, and the NOW. Wake up each day with a positive attitude because this day may be my last. Rather than wallow in pity, I’ve trained myself to be BIGGER than death. I DON’T FEAR DEATH. (Sometimes yelling out loud hurts my chest, but SHOUTING IN ALL CAPS IS PAIN FREE!) I have accepted my fate. Life is more about being happy and getting all of the things done that I want (need) to get done before whenever the big man up stairs tells me it’s my time to go. I have to live my life in fast forward.