Frail, Sponge-Like Creatures

"Do elementals fly?" "No, but we glide pretty well."

When we began this long, strange healing journey, my eldest son and I (who both have atypical CF) were insubstantial. Sadly, it did not help us glide.

The clearest example of what I mean is that it used to cause us cuts to try to pull a tag off a newly bought item with our bare hands. We routinely needed to use some means to cut it off if we didn't want to end up bleeding because we removed a tag.

We also soaked up water like a freaking sponge.

As noted previously, this is a known issue with people with CF. It's called aquagenic wrinkling. You might not know the term. Colloquially, it's called getting very pruney in the bath.

That issue ran the other direction as well: I had trouble staying hydrated. I was constantly drinking something and constantly thirsty.

I'm pretty sure a big part of this is that people with CF misprocess fats. Kind of like how you can oil something to help it hold water. We lack adequate fats in our tissues and we neither keep water out nor keep it in, I think.

We likely lack adequate bile production. Bile helps process fats and also helps kill bacteria. This would be another significant impairment to the immune system.

We no longer get very pruney and we no longer get cut from pulling a tag off a newly bought item. We are more substantial than we used to be. We are no longer these frail sponge-like creatures.