"Mom, why does she have that thing on her face?"

I am attempting to get out of the house more.  This means, of course, that the o2 comes with me.  This is a very new experience for me.  I have always been successful at “hiding” when I am not feeling well.  In fact, one of the tough things about CF is that most of the symptoms are internal.  CFers often look great on the outside.  Thus I had the benefit of often not looking sick.

However, this has changed with the fact that I now wear a nasal cannula for oxygen.  Internally, this has been a harder adjustment.  Many people in my life have been very gracious and insist that it hasn’t changed anything.  It’s hard to explain, but sometimes I feel like I need to over-compensate so that people see past the plastic tubing on my face.  I am trying to get rid of that “barrier.” When walking out of a store recently I overheard a daughter ask her mom, “Mom, why does she have that on her face?”  Or, at children’s choir rehearsal getting asked “are you okay....what is that on your face?”  It is almost easier to get the blunt honesty of children rather than the imagined questions of a look.

This has been a great reminder though that this tubing does not define me.  My CF does not define me. My circumstances do not define me.  My identity as His child is now firmly in His hands, defined and maintained by Him made possible through His grace.