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There's No Place Like Hope Video

Hi I'm Brianna. I'm 18 years old and I graduated high school last year, I will be starting college this summer and for right now I have been very active in the FFA, Showing Horses, raising horses, and pigs and I love animals and I love hanging out with my family. I have cystic fibrosis.

Your child has CF, you're probably scared, and you probably worried, you have a right to be worried, but you don't have to be scared.

They said I would never graduate high school, I wouldn't live to graduate high school and I have goals for my entire life set out in front of me and…

I graduated high school last year and have a career goal in mine, I'd like to be ultimately a horse dentist getting my degree in veterinary medicine and then going on to horse dentistry school. Besides that career I'd also like to stay very active in rodeo, having my PRCA card and competing in barrel racing. Also staying active with the CF foundation, being a spokes person for it, raising awareness and money for it and meeting as many people as possible. I'm also planning on getting married next May so CF has not hindered any aspect of my life.

My CF has always been there but I have never used it as a crutch or an excuse sometimes I feel I have to go over and above what other people do just to prove that my CF is not going to hinder what I can do or how far I can go in life and I've always been very persistent in everything I do if I set my line to a goal I'm gonna get it done but I'm gonna get it done at a thousand percent not just a hundred percent.

I used to go into the hospital a lot, probably every 2 months up to 14 to 21 days. As I've gotten older for my case it has gotten better I go in the hospital maybe twice a year and I go in for checkups depending what the doctors say every 3 to 6 months. Um besides the actual hospitalization stays, there's always the upkeep and prevention of getting sick so you have to take enzymes depending on your case of CF, for me I take 8 enzymes with meals and 3 to 4 with snacks everyday for the rest of my life. And it did get hard for a while but as I've gotten older I defiantly realizing how important it is if I want to stay healthy and I want to feel better everyday just to take my enzymes.

There's a long time when I did not want to deal with any of my treatments at all and my parents and my family were so supportive and encouraging of me and they never let it stop them you know no matter how mad I got, how many times I would yell at my mom saying "I don't want to take any more medications I'm done with this the doctors do not understand how it feels when they put me on all these antibiotics and all these medications, what its like to live with that everyday" and they were always there supporting me you know and it got to point where my mom said "fine you know your old enough if you want to get sick then your going to get sick" and you know that made me realize "whoa" …(*laughs*)…. my mom is caring for me but shes letting me make the decisions on my own and letting me be responsible and it was at that time that I started realizing I need to start taking care of myself, my parents aren't always going to be there holding my hand through everything.

CF has always been something that we're very open about. My family and I are always willing to answer questions about it; we never tried to hide it. Without the support of my family and friends, I wouldn't be sitting here today, I would not have lived nearly as long as I have and I wouldn't be continuing to live everyday… because CF is not a disease I could live with by myself.

I see my future with my fiancé, soon-to-be husband Chris, as absolutely incredible. We have talked about so many things we want to do, so many places we want to go, places we want to live, Rodeos we want to attend.

When I think about my future and having kids you know I have talked with my fiance about this… and if we can't have kids of our own thats ok its not meant to be but that doesn't mean that we can't have have a family of our own and adopt and make you know a incredible life for ourselves not matter what.

Ya, I have CF I live with it everyday and your child is going to live with CF everyday and your family is going to live with CF everyday but you have to look past that and keep hoping for tomorrow and hoping for the future that they will find a cure for CF.

Nothing could replace all the memories that I have from Children's hospital and the team of doctors and nurses and research scientist that I have worked with.

Everyone of them has a different personality but they all have one common goal and that's to see your child live a long and happy life and make sure that you know everything that's going on with CF that they know and that you're right there with them.

I don't just consider them doctors and nurses they're part of my family and they will always will part of my family even after moving on to an adult clinic

I have been serving as the state secretary for the FFA and the FFA is the Future Farmers of America, an agricultural organization.

We got to do so much with leadership; we got to travel to other states other conventions, done a lot of training with other state officers and it has been amazing and my CF has not stopped me at all.

Sometimes I did get sick throughout the year and I would take my medications on the road with me, my team was very understanding if I did get sick that I needed to come home and do medications but my CF did not stop me from having the year of my life and I loved it.