For a few months every year we get to experience something resembling normality. Every second person hasn’t got a cold or cough, I stop seeing other children as walking biohazards and our Cystic Fibrosis routine stays at preventative. This still means nebulisers and chest physiotherapy at either end of every day, but we do this like we do teeth brushing – we’re just so used to it.

Clean teeth – check! Clear chest – check!

I see my daughter running around the garden and jumping on the trampoline without any kind of coughing fits. She’s able to keep up without coughing up. Her face shines like a thousand sunbeams. Her cheeks are full of colour, her eyes are full of mischief and her night is full of dreams not hacking. She sleeps, I sleep, we are all round happier and well-adjusted individuals.

We leave the house without the fear of what germs we might bring home with us and I am genuinely quite relaxed instead of just faking it like I do for the rest of the year. I don’t have the CF nurses on speed dial, we manage to catch up with friends without snotty nose cancellations and my shoulders drop a minimum of three inches. I even have some days when CF doesn’t majorly cross my mind, other than keeping on top of meds. This is spectacularly huge! Oh, to feel like that every day.

Summer is our happy place and I so wish we could bottle it. I sometimes wonder if I could train myself to be this positive for the rest of the year could I somehow affect how we experience the other seasons. Head in the sand moment? Completely. But I don’t care. I’m building myself up and a little positivity goes a long way from a mental health point of view. So this year, I’m making a vow to myself to think like it’s Summer even when Winter rolls in (you may need to remind me of this come November). I’m not naïve enough to think that a sunny disposition can somehow shine CF into the shadows, but wow, that’s a lovely thought. And we all need more lovely thoughts in our lives.

Speaking of loveliness – shine on my sunny little CF warrior. You are the light of my life, every single month of the year.

Bernie xx