Battling my fears

Everyone has a fear of something. Here are my top 10 fears in life.

10. Not being good enough. I have a fear of waking up one day and thinking I could have done more. I learned how to fight this. Every day before I do something that I know is significant, I picture myself at 80 years old and how that 80 year old would look back and would want to take chances in life and not regret anything. Fortunately I feel like I can go back in time and make changes.

9. I fear not giving my family the life and love that they deserve. I want to treat Andrea, Avery and Ethan the way they should be treated. I want to be a great husband and father. I've had my moments where I feel that I have failed. But I have learned from those failures and will continue to work hard.

8. I have a fear of getting old and sick and dying from CF. I have this fear of a tube in my nose and an oxygen tank by my side. I fear that there may never be a cure. I try to remain positive but I'd be lying if I said that these thoughts don't populate my head from time to time.

7. Having social encounters - While I am not afraid to speak in public, I still get very nervous before any 1-on-1 encounter. I always have this fear of not knowing what to say or a level of discomfort. It reminds me of my college days and being afraid to leave my room.

6. Dealing with babysitters - since I was a kid and was beaten up by a babysitter and messed around with by a family friend, I've had a lot of insecurities about people and now having 2 kids of my own, I'm very worried with any new person we hire to watch them. I struggle with this quite a bit.

5. I'm scared of fire. I'm afraid to light candles but I've learned to do so with my kids wanting to light the menorah on Hanukkah. I burned my finger lighting a candle when I was a kid and it made it very difficult to light anything again. I've since worked on getting past it but I still have trouble even lighting matches. Good thing I don't smoke. Well, also a good thing I don't smoke since I have CF. Ha Ha!

4. Traveling. I'm not afraid to fly but I'm afraid that I will forget medicine or won't have the right adapter for my machine when I go overseas. I'm finally learning to get over the fear and am planning many out of the country trips this year.

3. Pulmonary Function Tests. While every person with CF has to give a PFT at least once a year, it's very scary for me. I know that the doctor can determine from that one test how my health is. It doesn't matter how much I'm running or working out, this is how I am judged.

2. Losing my fire. I'm afraid to lose my competitive fire because I know how much it has meant towards my fight against CF. When I lose at the smallest thing, I still want to win so badly the next time. I'm ok with that. I'm more than ok with it. I love it!

1. My sobriety. It's so important that I keep on the path of taking care of my depression and my addiction to social networking. I am more than two years sober but I have to continue to fight my issues.

Thanks for listening. I hope everyone is doing well.

Andy