Moira Q.'s Essay

Living with Cystic Fibrosis and being a gymnast has taught me to persevere and never give up. I was a gymnast for sixteen years, ten of which were competitive. During my competitive years as a gymnast, I was hospitalized three times for CF related illnesses. In gymnastics, there is a saying, “for every one week you are sick, it takes two to come back.” Meaning that every hospitalization would set me back close to nine weeks, three spent in the hospital and six spent regaining what I had lost. The six weeks after each illness were focused on relearning much of the gymnastics that I had worked for months to learn, and rebuilding all the muscles and all the cardiovascular endurance that I had lost. In the two-year span when the three hospitalizations took place, I was constantly discouraged and disappointed as I watched all the girls around me advance while I was stuck two years behind. Not wanting my illness to keep me from participating in the sport I loved, I never lost sight of my goal to be a competitive level nine gymnast. I achieved this goal in my last year of high school. Living with CF has been, and will continue to be a challenge, but it is a challenge that I will not let stand in the way of me and how I live my life. Today, I row for myself and my teammates as a member of the varsity crew team at Simmons College and I love it.