Hello my name is cheryl dester i am 31 years old and i have cystic fibrosis. Having been diagnosed at 6 months of age i have spent my life in and out of hospital with chest infections after chest infection. My parents never wrapped me in cotton wool growing up and made sure i was active to keep my lungs strong when i was younger which has definitley caused me to still be here today! They have never stopped me or discouraged me doing anything and gave me my thurst for having an amazing life and enjoying every second which i still do.

I have always two types of bugs in my chest at all times that i will now never be able to get rid of called psudomonais. I am on specific medications that i need to take daily and lung clearance that i have to do in order for me to be able to go about doing “normal” activities. However i catch things easily that flares up my condition that needs further stronger medications and care.

In 2015 i was beyond shocked to find out i was pregnant. I honestly never thought i would ever have children as i never thought that i was able to.

After the initial shock of realising i was pregnant the panic set in wondering what if the baby has cystic fibrosis, i would/could never knowingly pass this onto my child. Thankfully after being refered straight away to the genetics department after tests it was confirmed my husband isnt a carrier but our child would be due to myself having the condition but the child wouldnt have any cystic fibrosis traits, so i was able to start being excited about my miracle pregnacy.

It was the hardest time of my life with it being mostly spent in hospital but i wouldnt change it for the world as our beautiful miracle princess Darcey was born just under 8 weeks early by c-section as i couldnt continue with the pregnancy any longer.

I had to come off nearly all of my medications during the pregnamcy and my body hated me for it. I spent nearly all my pregnamcy in hospital and as my miracle was growing inside me my health worsened. I managed to last 3 weeks after she was born to give her the best start in life until i had to give that up and go onto formula so i could get back onto my medications so i could get better to become the best mum i could be to a newborn.

Our amazingly clever, fun loving daughter Darcey turned 2 in August and shes full of life and such a joy. We feel very blessed and i love watching her grow into this mini diva. We honestly couldnt imagine life without her and I want to watch her grow up into an amzing mother herself one day.

In all honesty it took my body 18 months to recover from having my daughter and at one point i thought i would have to give up my beloved career as a staff nurse as i was just not physically able to keep going due to the never ending chest infections taking a hold of me. I was determined not to let cystic fibrosis take that away from me as i had fought hard to prove everyone wrong to become a nurse against everyones advise telling me not to do it. Realistically the hospital and being looked after by an amazing team of nurses and medical staff is all i ever knew. Their compassion and care was all i ever felt and knew. I thought of the nurses as super heroes and i wanted to be just like them. I still think of my cystic fibrosis team as superheroes and i know i always will.

I decided i wasnt going to let cystic fibrosis get the better of me so i asked to get put onto the NHS grampian re-deployment register and found my dream job. I cut my part time hours down even more and started working in an amazing workplace where my colleques have been amazing from the start and are now more like family. I am now in an environment free from infections and due to it being a clinical setting i am not physically exhausted after each shift. I get more days off to recover and recooperate and soend quality time with my family.

I cannot do things with my daughter that most parents take for granted like going for nice walks or running about and playing with her, i am just physically not able. I try my hardest to but this results in me over doing things and my health suffering. It is soo very frustrating that i cannot do these things and i feel my daughter is missing out.

I still catch the old cold that leads to a nasty infection which needs intra-venous antibiotics via my portacath devise. The latest infection being over the festives and resulted in me being hospitalised with a collapsed lung, pnumonia and having to spend time in the medical high dependency unit due to my kidneys and heart playing up with a result of the medications i was on to help fight the infection.

It was awful being away from my daughter as i didnt want her to come into hospital to vosit me due to all the bugs that was going about during that time. Thankfully though i managed to use a piece of equipment called “THE VEST” that i had not been able to use before. Whenever i had been a patient in the past i had never been able to try the machine as other patients were using it and due to the high cross- infection with patients with cystic fibrosis i couldnt use them during that admissions.

This amazing piece of equipment is a vest that you wear that is attatched to a machine that literally shakes your chest at a certain compression and speed to seperate the mucus that is stuck to my lungs and full of infections that i can then cough up.I used this machine 3 times a day alongside my physiotherapists and other medications to thin the mucus and I truely believe this combination got me better quicker. My lung function went from 28% to 51 % during this admission which is amazing.

The dream would be to have my own machine at home that i can use daily to help keep my lungs as clear as i can for as long as i can to hopefully limit chest infections and ultimitally be around for longer to see my daughter grow up and to give her a mum that can be able to do more with her Which would honestly be better than winning the lottery for us as a family. This equipment does not work for everyone but i 100% felt the dofference in adding it into my daily cystic fibrosis routine.

My amazing work collegues started brain storming how they can get me my own machine and have planned events for fundraising. My amazing friends and family have also planned events to put towards the fundraising. I feel sooo very lucky to have the amazing support around us that we do but we need help to raise the funds to meet the cost.

My amazing boss has contacted a man called craig a rep from rom medical the company that we will hopefully be buying the equipment from and they are sending me out a reconditioned machine to use meantime with the hope that we can buy this. What an amzing thing to allow me to use the machine and benefit whilst im still trying to fight to get back to health from this latest infection.

Please help us raise the funds needed so i can watch my amazing daughter grow up and make more amazing memories with our friends and family.

Thank you very much x