I didn’t choose the bronchiectasis life.
The bronchiectasis life chose me.

Bronchiectasis is an incurable chronic progressive lung disease characterized by flaccid, sagging airways that fail to clear mucus. This renders the sufferer vulnerable to all kinds of infections, including colonization by otherwise “friendly” bacteria.

Treatments may include months-long courses of multiple powerful antibiotics delivered intravenously; anti-inflammatories like steroids; surgery to remove destroyed lung tissue; and, in the very worst cases, lung transplant. Most of us bronchiectasis sufferers — or “bronchies” — keep these disasters at bay by inhaling aerosolized hypertonic saline with a nebulizer. In other words, we salt our lungs.

In addition to ingesting sodium chloride through various facial orifices at least twice a day, some of us also cope by designing T-shirts, which you may peruse below.