139 ~ I Wrote My Own Eulogy at 26: Bradley Dryburgh on Cystic Fibrosis & Living Fully

wouldn't say it gave me any real eye-opening realizations i think i've always been a pretty introspective and reflective person and you know and at that time of my life probably something i should get back to i was journaling quite a lot and and writing a lot about the life i was living i'd made some drastic decisions in years of past to cut things out of my life that didn't feel like they served me anymore i'd made some pretty significant changes that had you know very much benefited my health and put me on a really exciting path where i was you know running the marathons and doing a lot of charity stuff so i felt You know, the eulogy was just another opportunity to reflect on a lot of changes that I was really proud of.

But I guess it was this reminder that there are so many things that we can control in our life, but there are a million things that we can't.

And, you know, the one thing we can't control is our time.

A question that's asked of me quite a lot.

is how do you come to terms with the fact that life expectancy is typically on average a little bit lower for people with cystic fibrosis? And the answer is always, well, there's no such thing as life expectancy.

There's just averages and means.

And maybe the average person with cystic fibrosis, when I was born, used to live to 31.

Now it's a little bit more like 50.

But the truth is none of us enter life with cystic fibrosis or not.

with a guaranteed ticket to check in and check out in 80 years time.

And so it was just this incredible reminder that life is very fragile and that whilst we have the blessing of today, we should do something about it.

And so for me, it wasn't really, um there weren't any major realizations about okay i'm living my life this way and i need to change that it was almost just a reminder to keep going keep leading with the heart and you know it's something to come back to i think there are going to be times where i probably look up and go far out the last six months have been a whirlwind and i've and i've missed out on some of the things that mean something to me and maybe i have been a little bit distracted and life has pulled me in a direction that i don't really want to go you know we're all human and imperfect and so for me it's almost coming back to that and you know the blessing is i get to do things like this and have conversations with people like yourself and and be pulled back into that world now because the book And so it's this constant reminder to make sure my priorities are in check, make sure that the values that I have, I'm actually living by and make sure that the life I am living every day is a life that I'm proud of and feel I get a sense of fulfillment out of.

Yeah, I love that so much.

It's so grounding to have something to come back to like that.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

You've obviously lived with cystic fibrosis your entire life, and I know both yourself and your beautiful family are so positive and you've grown up with so much hope around you, which is absolutely amazing.

Can you take us into what your experience with cystic fibrosis actually looked like for you day to day as you've grown up?

Yeah, absolutely.

It's funny because cystic fibrosis is one of those things that it can at times be an invisible disease because there are things happening under the surface that don't always reflect on the surface.

Despite the fact that a lot of people with cystic fibrosis struggle with malnutrition because of the malabsorption of fats and proteins because of the pancreatic deficiencies.

So for some people, it is less invisible.

But there are a lot of people in my life outside of my immediate friends that I sort of stepped into corporate world and adult life at 18.

And people just were shocked to hear that I had cystic fibrosis and didn't really understand what that meant.

And, you know, to answer your question.