Jim's Story
Hi I’m Jim, I’m 42 years old and I have Cystic Fibrosis. I’m heading off to Japan next week for my annual skiing holiday! If you’d asked me as a teenager whether I’d be fit enough and healthy enough to be off skiing when I was 42, I would have avoided the question, but with a deep sense of ‘probably not!’ My CF journey is not unique, like everyone, I’ve taken various forms of medications all my life, and like all Cf-er’s I have spent my fair share of time hanging around hospitals.
I was born in 1967. I am the fifth of seven children and the only one with CF! Mum and Dad were told ‘all things being well, he’ll make it to 20 years of age’! Being part of a large family however meant that I had to develop a competitive streak, or go hungry. Boy was that a dinner table! The competition was tough but fair, and the only advantage I received over the rest of my siblings was the nightly round of physiotherapy! This was truly an advantage over my brothers and sisters, because as you can imagine it got me out of doing the dishes! On a serious note though, the emphasis on physical activity and competitive sport has served me well throughout my life.
At the age of 8, I took on the City to Surf fun run (for those not familiar a 14 km run from the city to Bondi). The moment of insanity that inspired this decision was a challenge from my 12 year old sister. Not one to turn down a challenge, we set off and completed the race in a respectable 70 something minutes. Although a great achievement, I still choke on these words as I type them, “She beat me”. Along with these occasional moments of insanity, I played rugby until I was twenty and dallied in numerous other sports.
It was my summer time sports, however, that may have played a more vital role in my well-being, My summers were spent racing sail boats. Now I can imagine most readers of this imagining me drinking champagne on some luxury yacht, and wondering how that had anything to do with staying well. On the contrary however, I sailed skiffs which have an amazing turn of speed, where your mind spends half it’s time being exhilarated by the speed and the other half considering the actual possibility that you may drown in the barrage of salt water spray. Ah, the penny drops, that’s right I had been naturally nebulising hypertonic saline well before It was ever suggested by the medical fraternity. Having a sense of how good this treatment was for me, I decided to try it for an extended period. Yep, the Sydney to Hobart yacht race; four and a half days of non stop hypertonic saline, not to mention being sleep deprived and covered in other people’s vomit while fearing for your life in 100km/hr winds and waves too large to even estimate.
Although I am extolling the virtues of a physically active life for us Cfers, the onward march of this debilitating genetic malfunction is such that I eventually had to succumb to a double lung transplant. I received my transplant at St Vinnies in March, 2002, and although not everyone’s choice, or for that matter, good fortune, I am eternally grateful for the second wind this has given me.
I competed in both a national and world Transplant Games in the first year after transplant and have a host of medals for my trouble, my most satisfying being a bronze in squash at the World Games. More satisfying, however, is the fact that I can now surf regularly. I am still competing ferociously in my sailing and I am about to head off to Japan again to submerse myself in bottomless powder snow.
Hopefully reading this will inspire each of you to get back up when life slaps you down and give life a good old slap back. Well the deep powder runs of Japan beckon.
See ya!
Best wishes to all of you
Jim
