My exchange year with Cystic Fibrosis

This Blogpost is a particularly important one to me and I hope many people who are fighting similarly battles will worship this. Because in this Blogpost I am going to talk about my chronic illness called "Cystic Fibrosis" and the struggles it  brings along. Travelling with my illness isn't that easy and I with this blog I want to help everyone who dreams about travelling with an illness. 

Cystic Fibrosis is a chronic illness, which you get born with. It causes thick mucus to built up everywhere in the body and damage many different organs. 

The lung, the pancreas and the digestive system are highly affected. The life expectancy improved massively over the past years. Nowadays people suffering from Cf can reach adulthood and can live up to an average age of 40, and that's pretty long compared to not growing older that preschool age! 

So that basically means that I have this thick mucus everywhere and bacteria is expanding there very quickly. 

I get a lot of lung infections and I have problems with breathing. That also means that I get lots of colds even in summer.

In the pancreas, insulin and a enzyme for digestion are produced. The enzyme called "Lipase" is responsible for digesting, but as the production is not working you can't digest the food you eat. 

I have to take meds to every meal I eat to help me digest, but I still have massive problems with that which involves pain, cramps and I pretty much feel nauseous all the time. On some days I can't even get up because of my stomach ache.

I also have to take about 15-20 pills everyday like Vitamins and digestion pills. 

But the most time consuming thing are my treatments: 3 hours treatments and another hour breathing exercises every day. 

Every two months I have to get a checkup in the hospital, and if there's a problem, I have to stay there for two weeks. 

All of that is hard work, with the pain and the treatments and doing all of that in a different country is going to be a whole new challenge. 

My personal story with Cf is a very positive one, as the condition of my lungs is not bad at all. Of course, I have to work very hard for that, but I am very proud how far I have come. 

My pancreas is the most affected organ in my body, and digesting is not entirely possible even with all the medications I take. That bears lots of dieting plans (not for loosing weight but to spare my organs) and calculating my calorie income because I need to eat more than an adult.

But the real problems that my illness causes regarding to my exchange year, besides the treatments and absences, is the insurance during my exchange. 

The normal health insurance that most programs offer don't cover "preexisting illnesses". So if I break my leg they would pay, but if I get a lung infection I would have to pay that myself and that would be immensely expensive. 
But that is basically what is going to happen: my insurance from Austria would pay the price a treatment or a hospital room would cost in Austria, but my parents would have to pay  for the rest. That's a massive risk and all I can do is hope that I won't be needing any expensive treatments. 

I will have to visit a responsible hospital once and get a big checkup, and we will have to pay for that myself. 

Most of the medication I will be needing doesn't need to be cooled, so I can take as many tablets as possible with me when I fly to America. Maybe I can add a free excess luggage for meds, I will give you an update if that is possible or not. 

Today I have 70 days until my flight departs and my journey will start. If you want to stay updated you can submit your email address in the bar on the right. If you ave any questions, feel free to ask. 
Thank you for spending your time on me,
Leonie

Orientation Days 5.5-6.5.2017

Orientation Days 5.5-6.5.2017 

Friday the 5th may 2017. That means 94 days until America. But that's also the day my orientation days startet. 

I flew from Vienna to Frankfurt to attend them. 

The flight departured early morning and i landed in Frankfurt one and a half hours later. 

My first way was to Urban Outfitters (there's no Urban Outfitters in Vienna which is absolutely horrible) where I literally stayed the entire time until I had to leave. 

At 1:15 all future exchange students had to meet up at the youth hostel which was right next to the Main, a big river in the middle of the city, which was really beautiful. The weather was amazing and everyone was really happy. 

That afternoon our parents were attending the seminar with us: in a seminary room in the groundfloor with 22 future exchange students and their parents, 6 Returnees and one lecturer from my organisation.

He handed out a program with different checkpoints such as: Money, the flight or insurances during the year. 

The lecturer talked about one checkpoint e.g Host Family and then he asked the retournees for their experience. It was really interesting because they all had a similar yet completely different experience with most things. The checkpoint "High school" is a good example for that. One of the retournees changed highschool during their year, one went to an Indian high school, one went to a methodistic school and one went to an catholic private high school. 

The lecture knew a lot from experience,  he organised many exchanges as an english teacher himself and knew stories to every question we/our parents had. 

All in all it took pretty long, and they said lots of things we already knew from the application talk. 

But i enjoyed hearing them again to remember each one of them:

• Area Reps - in America you will have an Area Rep whom you can contact if you have problems or questions. Your Rep has to contact you once a month. Some of the Returnees said that their Area Rep organized meetings with their exchange students every three months.
• Visum - i will write a separate post about that and tell you how it went!
• the flight - my organization has escorted flights to big Airports and single feeder flights.
• Host family - different religions, ethnical cultures and issues with some of that 
• Money - the big question is if you get a prepaid card or a secondary card. I don't know what I'm going to do yet. The average amount of "pocket money" is 250-400$ per month.
• High school - I will definitely make a post about this topic when I can talk about my personal experience.

• Do's:                a) be open minded

                                 b) clear your profile

                                 c) keep your grades up

                                 d) do your chores

             

                                 e) join clubs and activities 

• Dont's:             a) Drink & smoke

                                 b) drive
                                   
                                 c) leave the states
   
                                 d) sex

                                 e) discuss politics

After that our parents left and we ate dinner, afterwards the rooms were announced. I was in a room with 3 really nice girls, one of them is Lillian: http://lilliangoesusa.blogspot.co.at 

(if you speak German you should totally head over to her blog!) It was a  funny evening and we talked a lot with the returnees which was really helpful. 

The next morning we had to get up really early and then we spend the day speaking English, playing games in English and doing sketches in English. It was an amazing time and I am really looking forward to finally starting my exchange. The experience of the returnees increased my excitement even more. 

This was my first blogpost, I will update whenever something interesting happens and in America a small update every week. If you want to follow me and my journey you can insert your email address in the bar on the right side, so you will never miss an update. Or you can follow me on my social media and tell me what you want to hear about.

Thank you for spending your time on this, it's highly appreciated. 

Leonie Pohl                                                                                                        14th may 2017