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Guest Post by Katie Broekema
Hello everyone! My name is Katie Broekema, I am a 22 year-old
from Michigan who has Cystic Fibrosis. I am going to share a little bit of my Cystic
Fibrosis story with you over a two-part guest blog, so after this post stay
tuned to see the role Cystic Fibrosis plays in my life currently.
I was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis as a young child, but I
never really knew what that meant until I was in high school. I was very
healthy as a child; I did not even have a nebulizer until I was 16. My parents
have always made a special effort to let me live a normal life, including
forcing me to run cross country and track for my high school. I did not realize
it at the time, but this was the best thing they have ever done for me. It has
shaped the rest of my life, and the teams I have been on are the largest
influences in my life. It is because of these sports that I have met my best
friends, and it was with their help that I am the person I am today. The life
lessons and friendships I have gained through this are unparalleled. I ran
cross country and track in high school and in college, and this experience has
been life-changing. I have had the most amazing support team, and they helped
me become the athlete that I am today, with a 5k PR of 19:47 and 10k PR of
42:36. During this time, I have learned a couple lessons that I want to share
with you because of their direct application to life with Cystic Fibrosis.
The first lesson is that you need to be willing to put in
the work. Just like with running, handling your Cystic Fibrosis takes a lot of
time and effort. There are definitely days in college that I did not want to
get up and go to 6:00 a.m. practice, but I needed to. Doing the extra work is what
made me be a better runner and a real competitor. Similarly, taking that extra
time to do ALL your medication and treatments is necessary in order to be at
your peak of healthiness. Just like with running, when you put in the extra effort
you give yourself the opportunity to succeed. When you do not put in the
effort, you rob yourself of the chance to see what can happen. I am not trying
to sound pious, preaching this from the point of view that I always do my
medicine, because that is not true. In fact, I didn’t do my medicine all the
time during my freshman year of college and I got what I deserved; a 2-week
hospital stay over Christmas. I have made it my goal to never be in there again
because of something that I can control. I know that I will most likely need to
go into the hospital again, but I also know that it will NOT be because I was
not doing what I needed to in order to stay healthy. Unfortunately there is not
a magical formula you can follow to run giant PR’s or to keep yourself super
healthy, but doing what you are supposed to at least gives you a fighting
chance.
Along with the lesson about work follows the idea of
trusting those who are in charge of you. For running, this is the coaches. Too
often I have seen athletes who think that the coach is full of crap, and that
they know better so they will do their own thing or not do all of what the
coach asks of them. NO! If you are in a position where you do not trust your
coach and believe in the running strategies, you need to seriously consider
your position on that team; it may not be the right place for you. Similarly,
in the healthcare setting doctors and the medical staff are your “coaches”. If
you do not agree with the treatments and medications that are being prescribed,
then you need to consider finding another place to go. It is not good for
anyone if you do not do your treatments, for you or your medical staff. When
you say you are doing a specific treatment, but really you are not, you are
hurting yourself and the Cystic Fibrosis community as a whole. Medical
professionals rely on us to tell them what does and does not help. When they
see no change in you and the doctors think that you are doing a treatment but
really you are not, it can cause them to doubt the treatment. That treatment can make a difference is
someone else’s life, or even yours, but you were unwilling to give it a chance.
This leads me to the next lesson that I have learned, which
is to always believe in yourself. This is YOU we are talking about, who knows
you better than yourself? Therefore you should ALWAYS make the final decision
about your medical treatment or coaching regimen. This was a running lesson
that I needed to learn the hard way. I struggled during my college career
running because I did not listen to my body. I spent so much time trying to
keep up with the rest of my team that I was not able to compete well during the
races. An injury finally forced this rest time upon me, and it paid off when I
ran my best time in both the 5k and the 10k during my senior track season. With
running, this was something that was my fault. I was in a situation where my
coach did not know what was going on with my body. How could he? He does not
have Cystic Fibrosis; all he knows is what I tell him. Now apply this to your
health in the doctor’s office. The doctors do have an idea about Cystic
Fibrosis in general, but they do not know what is going on with you; what would
work best for your lifestyle and for you personally. They can only learn this
through a discussion with you. As an example, my doctors wanted me to be on
Tobi every other month while I was in college to help keep my lungs clear. That
is what the medication is supposed to do, in theory it seemed like that would
be a good idea but it just did not work with my schedule. I was too busy to
commit to that much treatment; and making the commitment actually made me
sicker rather than healthier because I needed to sacrifice sleep to do the
medication. After having a conversation with my doctor, we decided together
that the best plan would be for me not to do the treatment. Without them
knowing my schedule and how it made me feel, my incompliance would have seemed
like an act of defiance when in reality it was a recognition on my part of what
I was able to do at the time.
This leads to my final lesson, find a group of people who
believe in you and are willing to be your support group. For me, my running
support group and my Cystic Fibrosis support group are one and the same. This
is actually very emotional for me to write this now, because they are some
people who have been so significant in my life that I know I will never able to
thank them enough for what they do for me. I challenge you all to find a group
of people like this in your life. Find those people who push you, and make you
better than you are now. They are the ones who will help make you strong and
able to push past the difficult parts of this disease. This group wants you to
succeed, and you want to succeed for them. Because I know once you find a group
of people like this, you will be able to grow to your full potential in
whatever you do.
These lessons have been instrumental in my life. Although
some lessons may have taken me longer than others to learn, I know I am where I
am today because I learned how to put in the extra work, I began to trust in my
doctors and my coaches, I believed in myself and my abilities to discern what
is best for me and I had an amazing support team. I firmly believe having these
four things can also help you succeed in whatever you choose to do, like it
helped me with my running and taking care of my Cystic Fibrosis. These lessons
have also been helping me out with my schooling, which is something I am going
to talk about in my next guest blog. Are these lessons something that you feel
you have a firm grip on, or do you struggle with some of them?
BIO:
Katie is 22 years old and has lived in Michigan her whole life. She graduated
from Albion College with a double major in computer science and communication,
and she is currently working on a Master’s degree from Central Michigan
University in communication; with a focus on health communication. In her spare
time, Katie enjoys finding new research topics, preparing to teach her COM 101
classes, helping coach the local high school cross country and track teams,
running, cooking and convincing various family members that they should get her
a Pomsky puppy. (Look them up, they are adorable!) She would love to hear back
from people who have read her posts, her email is Broekema.ka@gmail.com
