Walter Van Praag

CF Blogger and Activist

I was born to Dutch parents in Holland in 1965. Although initially healthy, it soon became apparent that I was not. Over the first 10 years of my life I was taken from one Doctor to the next Doctor, but they all said that I was just a sickly child with a cough and diarrhoea. By the time I was 10 and my parents had moved house to Noordwijk on the sea, which was supposed to be good for my lungs, I was taken to a doctor who was a good friend’s brother. He finally discovered that I had cystic fibrosis. By this stage I weighed in at 25 kg for the past three years, and I was the smallest kid in my class for years.

Knowing what was wrong helped a great deal. With the right diet, the right vitamin supplements, appropriate Medical Care and lots of physiotherapy my life improved dramatically. Were very grateful to finally have the correct diagnosis. The last two years (when I was 12 and 13 y/o) in Holland I rode a pushbike to and from school 10 kms away through rain and shine with a huge smile on my face, keeping me healthy!

Three years after my diagnosis my family moved to Canberra, which compared to Holland was a tropical paradise to us. Knowing how important exercise was we acquired a family dog, requiring lots of exercise. It took me a year to learn enough English to get by. In Holland I had flunked year seven, but now with better health, and having learned to speak English, I caught up to year eight again.

Always the last to be picked for team sports, getting coughing fits when doing sprints and others strenuous activities, I decided I liked individual sports. And so I started running. My neighbour would wake me up at 6.30 AM for a jog, I got a milk run, rode my bicycle everywhere, and joined Little Athletics, and the Canberra Family Bushwalkers club. I soon discovered downhill skiing thanks to a mate in school whose family took me to Perisher.

When the dams were being built in Tasmania, and they were planning to dam the Lower Gordon and the Franklin Rivers, I got into action by joining the ride for wilderness at the tender age of 15. A year later when my family went back to Holland for my grandmother’s birthday, I went skiing in Switzerland with my grandmother’s bridge club. The travel bug had bitten.

After college, when I was 17, I was unstoppable and took a year off to travel the world. I backpacked and hitched my way around Europe, did many amazing odd jobs along the way, and came back on the Siberian railway a year later. In Hong Kong I worked on a movie set for a few months to earn money for the final flight home.

I started university life with an economic lecture where I was told that if the person on my left looked smarter than me, and the person on my right looked smarter too, then I would certainly fail I the course as the failure rate was 65%. I failed economics that year. In the end I graduated with a bachelor of science in mathematics, but that was six years later. During those six years I worked in the Uni bar, drove taxis, worked in kitchens there, and had an enormous amount of fun. Volunteered at a radio station and was a zone leader for Neighbourhood Watch. Occasionally I skipped a year for travel, or worked part time to earn money. I managed to travel to many exciting places, and somehow managed to get myself into heaps of trouble everywhere I went.

Half a point of philosophy stopped me from getting my degree, but I went to Hong Kong to look for a job nonetheless. Although Hong Kong did not turn out the way I intended, I did find the hash house harriers there, a drinking club with a running problem, and I have run with them ever since. They emphasize the social aspect of running, and completely eliminate the competitive side of the sport.

A year later I returned to Australia in the middle of a recession. I bought myself an old truck and obtained government funding to start a business. The business was called Moonlight Express, and I did after hours deliveries around Canberra. During the day I studied, which led me to the officially finish my bachelor of science, and gained a bachelor of arts in philosophy as well. That was a good way to spend the recession that we had to have according to Paul Keating. At university I regularly wrote travel stories for the university paper, which everybody thought were fantasy. Unfortunately they were all true, including travelling to Russia without visas and climbing into a Greek jail.

Because I was regularly sick I could not get a permanent job, but there was lots of temporary work for me in the public service. I worked for a dozen or so different departments,3 to 6 months at a time and then concentrate on my health for a few months before getting the next contract. I somehow managed to become a computer technician by accident in the end. This led me to work in Papua New Guinea for three years, followed by three years in the U.S., working for various employers along the way including volunteering for Save The Children. Every employer along the way were personal friends who choose to employ me, and this always allowed me the flexibility to work around my cystic fibrosis lifestyle. This included working from home at times, not being at work in the mornings, and more holidays than usual so that I could partake in hikes and other energetic activities to keep my lungs moving and clean.

I was doing a lot of travel, did a lot of running and cycling. Cycled cross country from Canberra to Mount Kosciusko, ran marathons, duathlons. Swimming was not one of my favourites as I would cough in the pools (say no more), but I did become a scuba diver amazingly. In fact I did close to a couple of hundred dives in my time, before realizing that I was taking extreme risks by doing so. I have passed my medical by telling the certifying doctor that I was a heavy smoker, explaining my poor lungs. I had also convinced the reserve army that I had a bad cold, and got into an officer training unit in infantry, where I pretty much failed miserably and not even lasted for two years. Coughing in muddy trenches at 4.00 AM is not a good pastime for a person with cystic fibrosis.

Whilst working in the U.S. I got married, and in the end took my wife Katherine to Tasmania to live. I decided to cycle almost 5000 kms across Europe with her which turned into the Great ‘Cough’ for Cystic Fibrosis, and Katherine did not end up coming on it. It turned into a book and a documentary and Katherine made a children’s book out of it. As I was now also getting older and older people started to take note of what I was doing and my adventures became inspiring to the CF community. CNN even took notice of me, and I was very honoured to be awarded with an Order of Australia Medal for my contribution to CF. I continue raising awareness and trying to get people to donate to CF Tasmania (as they are the ones that directly help me with everything I need).

Since the big bicycle ride I have kept a blog, www.coughing4cf.com where I document my adventures, and I also keep friends posted on FaceBook. The latest adventures have included turning 45 (almost) on top of Mount Kinabalu in Borneo, cycling from Sydney to Melbourne on a Dutch city bike, racing in a sailing regatta (as a novice in the National Championships…), and hopefully many more to come!

I try to get people to sign up as organ donors as I know there is a great shortage of organs and everyone with CF is likely to need lungs at some point in time! My lungs are well below 50% of what they ought to be, and I consciously live life to the fullest each day. I work 2 hours per day at the TransTrain office in Devonport, I do some extra internet work via my own made up Centre of the Universe IT consultancy, and get Disability Support from the government. I am a Lion member in Devonport, work with the Friends of Lillico Penguins, kayak regularly on the local rivers and bays, walk and hike, cycle and run (well, jog slowly with a lot of coughing!). I am very much loved by a beautiful woman who has her own share of medical issues, and we both try to live fun and active lives together. Together we continue to entertain visitors to Tasmania and take them on small adventures around the state whenever we can.

My future plans include doing the El Camino trail in Spain next year (6 weeks of walking across Spain), and one day hope to cross the melting ice cap in Greenland on skis. But any big or small challenge on the way is always accepted.

www.coughing4cf.com
www.facebook.com/vanpraag