Jerry's Journey - You Cannot Fail

I had three very athletic, active brothers and a father who loved sports, so I really didn't have a choice of whether I was going to play sports or not. Besides, deep down inside I was competitive, focused and determined, even at young age, so I had the mental fortitude for it. There was only one problem – because of my age, I was a lot smaller than my brothers and certainly didn't have the agility they possessed. But, this didn't stop my father from getting me to "play" football and baseball on their teams. He truly believed that "I could not fail" and more importantly, he wanted me to spend as much time with my brothers as possible.

Looking back at it, my father doing this was probably the best thing that happened to me; but at the time, I didn't see it that way, even though I truly believed that I could not fail – a mantra drilled into my head by my mom and dad after my CF diagnosis – there were a few times that challenged this belief.
There's this one time that stands out in my mind when I was on a football team with my brother Dennis. We were in the midst of a game and I guess we had big lead over the other team. I was happily standing at the other end of the sideline, as far away from the coach as possible so that he wouldn't even think about putting me in and then I look up the hill by the field and I see my dad. I'll never forget this – he motions to the coach to put me in. I'm thinking to myself, "Dad, let the coach do his job," which is to let me sit on the sidelines. Too late. Coach barks down the line at me, "Hey Cahill, get in the game!" I could've won an Oscar for my level of acting like I didn't hear the coach, but soon enough I was on the field. It was complete mayhem for me as I was running sideways and backwards trying to avoid any kind of contact at all. I wonder to this day how those poor people watching controlled their laughter at the site of me.

Oh, and then there was baseball. I'm not sure I fared much better there. I think the best way to describe my baseball talents, or lack thereof, is that I was the kid that never had to launder his uniform and I found sitting on the bench to be my best and most successful position. When I was up at bat, I didn't crowd the plate, instead I stood as far away as possible, and as you can imagine, this strategy didn't pan out well for my on base percentage. And as for playing the field, "playing" may be a bit of an exaggeration as I spent most of my time in the outfield praying for balls to go anywhere but to me! I had more fear about playing these darn sports than I did about having CF! Seriously – lung function wasn't even a thought!

Ok, so these probably weren't some of my finest moments, but I wasn't going to give up on sports. I truly believed I could not fail. These experiences were just pushing me into discovering my passion, cross country running, which eventually led to other track events like sprinting and then pole vaulting. This sport made perfect sense to me: although I was part of a team, the outcome of each event I participated in was solely determined by me and no one else.

I competed all through high school and college and somehow managed to keep my CF under wraps. If I was having a particularly rough day coughing or spitting or anything else to loosen up the mucus and catch my breath, and someone asked me if I was OK, I'd just respond with a "it's just a respiratory thing" and went on about my business, which was winning and competing.

At the time, I didn't realize how not only was my love for track and exercise in general helping to keep me healthy, but it would pave the way for me to be a role model in the CF community and beyond. More on that to come…