The following was written for the Blog by Cindy....read on, if your stomach can handle it!

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I know Walter through Hash House Harrier – a local running group we both attend. On our first meeting, I could see that Walter had something I didn’t have: a bright smile, acceptance of everyone and always a joke. I wanted to find out why he loved life so much.

After our first run together, I noticed Walter coughing a lot. I suggested, ‘I would be home in bed with a cough like that.’ Walter said, ‘I’m living with Cystic Fibrosis’ and told me a little to satisfy my curiosity.

He asked me to come on the COFE trip as I was travelling Europe at the same time.

One day, I followed Walter out of Budapest after a rest day. The effects the polluted city had on his lungs was very obvious to me as I watched Walter struggling in front of me. Physically, he juggled balancing his bike in traffic between consistent coughing, blowing his nose, vomiting and just getting enough air in his lungs. This was a bad day for him.

I estimate the coughing/vomiting bouts were about every twenty turns of the pedal - even more if the terrain was uphill. Gradually, the coughing lessened, but what I hadn’t seen before was his breakfast coming up - masses of it over several coughing bouts.

As always, he soldiers on and continues riding. I ask if he’s alright and he says, ‘This is normal.’ It’s definitely not for me. If I had to cope with all this, I would be crying and home in bed.

Being on this trip has awakened my senses to Walter’s plight and made me aware of his daily routine: using the nebuliser at night and in the morning to cleanse his lungs and make them user friendly for the day. It reminds me of my worst experience with influenza, when you keep coughing until you vomit, and your whole body aches, just from coughing. I feel totally worn out from listening to Walter and have to leave the room because of the extremeness of the lung clearing he has to do to survive.

I now know how lucky I am to be supporting him in his efforts towards creating a positive awareness about CF. The next time you hear someone clearing their lungs, just think it may be a Cystic Fibrosis victim trying to live with CF.