As you might have noticed, I’m a bit behind on reviews. Again. And trust me, I don’t feel good about it.

But this isn’t a review, or a commentary on books. It’s not an apology for being behind, either.

OneRepublic is a Colorado band. I’ve loved them for this reason for years. So when they released their most recent video, I cried. Because they feature a boy from Colorado who has cystic fibrosis.

I have cystic fibrosis and have been fighting against it for 24 years. I was diagnosed 10 weeks after I was born. I wasn’t gaining weight and my pediatrician referred my parents to the Colorado cystic fibrosis children’s clinic. That’s when they found out that despite the newborn screening test saying I did not have CF, I did have the disease.

Starting from that moment, my life has been a series of treatments, medications, and hospital stays. I was relatively healthy for 14 years. I played sports, did my treatments, and took the best care of myself that I could.

I was visiting family in Cincinnati when I was 13, almost 14. I was having an amazing time. I woke up at 2am one morning with a cough. Nothing new. But when the cough didn’t go away, and I continued to cough something up, I went to the bathroom to spit. And when I did, all I could see was the bright red blood staring back at me.

I spent a week in the hospital. I left the day before my 14th birthday. But my problems had only started because my sophomore year of high school I contracted pneumonia. It damaged my lungs enough that every three months, I would start coughing up a lot of blood. I can’t taste blood without having a panic attack now.

I had a portion of my lung removed when I was 18. I spent 28 days in the hospital and had to drop out of my first semester of college. My problems went away for a while and I started to get back to living as normal a life as I could.

Last year, I contracted Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, MRSA. I have spent the last 14 months fighting one of the worst infections I’ve ever had. I finally gave in and got a medical port. I’ve spent nearly as many days on IV antibiotics as off them.

Cystic Fibrosis is a horrible disease. It’s given me more problems than I can count. I search for a silver lining in every moment, though. I’ve gotten good at finding the good through the bad. That’s why OneRepublic’s video means so much to me.

Many people don’t know much about this disease. It doesn’t get the recognition as other illnesses. OneRepublic is shining a light into a dark place with this video.

Please take a few moments and watch this video. It would mean so much to me to get the word about.

I Lived – OneRepublic