Bailee Meals has a genetic disorder know as Cystic Fibrosis.

Sophomore Bailee Meals’ morning routine takes longer than other students. Meals has a genetic disease called Cystic Fibrosis, also known as CF. Every morning she wakes up and does a daily treatment for her CF.

Meals, diagnosed with CF at five months old, continuously got misdiagnosed by doctors. A common symptom consists of having a lot of salt buildup when sweating. In order to help diagnose, the doctors put a watch-like object on Meals’ wrist and had her exercise. They then observed how much salt buildup she had. Meals got diagnosed at a very young age, so she couldn’t do any physical activities to make her perspire. In order to make her do so, the doctors laid blankets on her to help her body heat up and sweat.

“Kids look at me different in class if they don’t know me because I cough a lot, not because I’m sick,” Meals said. “It’s just part of my disease.”

The severity of Meals’ disease forces her to wear a vest connected to tubes that shake her to help get the mucus out of her lungs. She also uses a nebulizer that medicine goes into to help release and loosen the mucus buildup in her lungs.

“There are advantages to it because it makes me a stronger person,” Meals said. “But I sometimes can’t hangout with my friends because of my treatment.”

CF causes Meals to be on a high fat and high calorie diet. Since the disease causes a buildup of mucus in the lungs and intestines, this causes Meals to breathe more heavily and frequently, making her burn more calories. Before every meal she must take enzymes, not because her pancreas doesn’t produce them, but because it gets clogged with mucus and they are unable to travel throughout her body regularly.

“Trying to balance my school, sleep and health is hard,” Meals said. “I have to exercise a lot and it changes my life big time.”

Meals does a daily cardio workout because it helps her disease just as the treatment does. Meals normally does two treatments a day that help her go along with her cardio workout.

“I workout because it is basically the same as a treatment,” Meals said. “It helps loosen all the mucus in my chest.”

CF awareness month in May can be represented by a purple ribbon. Since young children cannot always pronounce big words, such as Cystic Fibrosis, they often call the disease 65 Roses, with the symbol for Cystic Fibrosis recognized as a rose.

“It makes me look at life with a different perspective,” Meals said. “I never know when my last day is.”