I was a baby. I was diagnosed by chance more than anything. The doctor had seen it before and told my mum to get a sweat test on me and I was diagnosed but before that I was having problems digesting what I was given. I was anaemic. I had had I think a pint of blood transfusion so things weren't looking well until they had diagnosed the CF. It was a bit of a shock to my mum finding out, well not a bit of a shock - a lot of a shock and to my mum and my dad.

I remember as a child feeling a bit kind of like I was causing trouble, like a burden in a way because they were always worrying, you could always pick it up when I was a kid that they were worrying about this, that, or me taking my drugs, my medication. I have a sister, who doesn't have CF, and there's problems with her as well because she thought I was getting too much attention - all this attention that I didn't want. But I think it was a lot for my parents to deal with because originally they were told I would live till I was seven, then it was twelve, then it was twenty five, then it was thirty five and now people are talking about fifty, maybe sixty, so... because the improvements of the drugs. I think during my childhood I could do most things anybody else could, I wasn't that physically impaired but I think maybe I was a bit too wrapped in cotton wool when I was a kid maybe, well... I wish I could have done more.

I had a physiotherapist come round every week just to reassure me and show me how to do physio and show mum how to do it as well and make sure we were doing it right every week until I was sixteen I think and that was mostly percussion on the chest which was kind of hand claps on the chest. It looks on videos and stuff like it's abuse but it's actually to loosen up the phlegm on the chest and bring it up more effectively. Yes, I had that in the morning before I went to school and after, after school, tea time or at night time.

In those days it took like 20 minutes / half an hour, but these days it takes half an hour to an hour. If I've got a chest infection and I'm producing a lot of phlegm I generally cough up enough to make me feel comfortable which can take up to an hour depending on how productive it is, the cough.

But now I'm taught postural drainage and active cycle breathing which means that no hand claps are needed.