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In Sickness and In Health Video

(Lauren) Brad's my knight in shining band uniform.

(Lauren) We're both band geeks from way back.

(Lauren) First night we met we told Band geek jokes for hours on end and they're such lame jokes but… (Brad) but she laughed at every single one of mine so I knew it there was…. (Lauren) Ya, when you can sit for hours and listen to those kind of jokes, it takes special kind of person… (*laughs*)

(Brad) I was… I was amazed I had heard the term cystic fibrosis before but I'd never really known what the disease was and I was like… "How could this horrible thing be happening to this to this wonderful person I have met"

(Lauren) I was afraid that I wouldn't find somebody that would love me that would be totally and completely turned off by CF because it is a big hairy deal.

(Brad) The whole process of marrying her you know that that symbolic gesture that happens in every wedding where the father brings the bride to be down the aisle and… and gives her hand to the groom that was more than symbolic you know I… prior to that time her parents had been her primary care givers in terms of cystic fibrosis.

(Brad) I became that person for her and … you know I got to be the one who… who took care of everything.

(Brad) CF is one th… one facet of our lives in which I am always there for her I've just never felt not like I didn't want to do that for her.

(Lauren) We've let each other see our frustrations with it, we've yelled at the walls about it and just taken things out on each other that I think were really directed at CF.

(Lauren) We always come all the way around with it and go ok well we're done with that hissy fit lets… lets have some dinner you know.

(Brad)We both play piano as well and I play Tenor Saxophone and so you know sometimes we will both be at the piano playing a duet or she will play piano and I will play Sax, I will play piano she will play horn we… we just we just enjoy having that to share together.

(Lauren) I think that when we look at other couples our age there… there are days we had some even this week. Where we went "How come we don't get to do that?" Why are we on the phone getting prescriptions refilled and our friends are off… you know doing any… any anything else.

(Brad) Every parent, when the when children are small think of what their child's life is going to be like and… you know my life, my marriage weren't going to be able to turn out the way that that my parents had imagined.

(Brad) There are things that happen in our lives that… just… you know you don't plan for you don't want in your life but you know there is a women I want in my life and you know if I … all that stuff is… is just you know in order to have Lauren I have to do that then you know that's that's fine that that works.

(Brad) We feel that we would not be effective as effective as we would like to be as parents. So we've decided not to have children.

(Brad) I've just learned to… to live in the moment and to enjoy what we have together each and every day.

(Lauren) We think that god said "Let there be Lauren and let there be Brad, let them find each other and it was good"… (Brad) it was… (Lauren) was and is.

In Sickness and In Health

The impact of CF is deep enough to color the daily live of both partners in a marriage. Hospital stays, morning and evening treatments and adult-onset health issues all dictate a lifestyle that is very different than that of most other couples.

Brad understood that his plans to marry Lauren, a 22-year-old CF patient diagnosed at birth, would lead him down a path rarely traveled; it was a journey he took seriously.

"That… gesture that happens in every wedding, where the father brings the bride-to-be down the aisle and gives her hand to the groom - that was more than symbolic," Brad acknowledges.

In taking over the role of primary caregiver, Brad now joins a growing number of marriage partners leading a life as part spouse, part nurse and part cheerleader for the CF patient they married.

An island of two

Flexibility seems to be key to weathering the sometime volatile healthscape of a marriage involving cystic fibrosis. An uncertain future together, unpredictable health issues and the question of whether or not to start a family can lead many couples to experience a deep sense of isolation.

Turn that coin over, however, to find the very elements that cement the bond for many couples sharing a life with the defective gene.

"We try to make the most of every day," says Isabel, a 36-year-old cystic fibrosis patient who underwent a double-lung transplant three years ago. She and her husband, Andrew, have been married for eight years.

Andrew was there when she reached end-stage cystic fibrosis, as well as when she recovered from her transplant. He nearly lost her, giving their marriage a bittersweet edge that adds enormous depth and meaning to the relationship.

"I do believe that as I reached end-stage CF, our love connected us and pulled me through, gave me the will to live to fight those last days," Isabel says.

Building support

While it may be difficult for anyone outside of the marriage to really appreciate the complexity of the cystic fibrosis lifestyle, garnering support from friends and family is paramount. This is true of any marriage, but particularly important when one of the partners has something that can be as disabling as cystic fibrosis.

Since 1984, Louis Harris & Associates has surveyed the relationships of people with disabilities for the National Organization on Disability. Their studies indicate that marriages in which one person is disabled experience a higher-than-average divorce rate, making good communication essential to success in a marriage embraced by cystic fibrosis.

Probably nowhere is this more important than in the discussion of whether or not to start a family. The physical limitations cystic fibrosis can create in regards to having children range from CF-induced male sterility, to women's bodies unable to withstand the physical demands of pregnancy.

Even in the case of adoption, most couples find themselves navigating the rough waters of prognosis, expected longevity and the effect a partner's early death may have on the family's sense of security and well being.

Plenty of adult cystic fibrosis patients are now having families of their own, however, proving that the disease doesn't have to act as a thief in the homes of people living with CF. New fertility technologies are opening the door to a new potential, giving couples the opportunity to experience a life they may never have imagined possible.

Indeed, it has only been in the last decade or so that medical advancements in the treatment of CF have caught up with the dreams of those living with the disease; dreams that were once only whispered on the most optimistic of days: Love, marriage, family.

Yesterday's dreams. Today's reality.