life, lungs, and transplant;

Oh, I have long abandoned this blog for the colorful world of tumblr and the instant gratification that is facebook. Yet here I am, slowly coming back around to this baby o' mine, the original platform for spilling my thoughts out onto the internet.

 Life has been... up and down and all over the place. My lung function had maintained itself in the 25-28% range for the past year. Then, last month, it took a tumble down to the low 20's, and I found myself sitting on my couch on two liters of oxygen, barely breaking 90% even at rest. I'm not sure why my declining health continues to take me by surprise, but it does, and I was pure anxiety; I couldn't walk without being extremely breathless, I couldn't bathe, my dishes were piling up, I didn't have the energy to cook, and the thought of driving to get food exhausted me, so I did what any other twenty-five year old in this situation would do - I called my mom.

 She and my dad hopped on a plane, and in the meantime, this wonderful young man with whom I am rather smitten was by my side, bringing me delicious meals and making me laugh my way through my fear. He's amazing, and I am grateful. Their support keeps me going, whether they realize it or not. I'm not terribly strong all the time, I have days where I ask what the point of it all is, but then I see how much love they pour into my life, and I remember that they're worth every single hospital trip. Every nebulizer treatment. Every half-hour on the treadmill.

 Then came the admission, and the IVs, and the steroids, and the benadryl, and the drug reactions, and the late night blown IVs, and the tunneled small bore cathether, and the second tunneled small bore catheter... Sigh. Life is never simple, is it?

 With that said, I'm recovering nicely, and will be going home just in time for Christmas.  I've got a physical therapist who I can not sing praise for enough, she is probably the reason this admission is only two weeks and not three, and has given me more motivation to get back to the gym than I'll ever actually admit. ;]

But as with any disease that causes organ failure, eventually the conversation of transplant becomes more frequent, and as of yesterday, I am officially on the lung transplant list for the New England region.

Yikes.

I am overwhelmed. I felt an equal mixture of gratitude and relief, fear and anxiety. There was a little bit of laughter, a little bit of tears, a sadness at realizing that my lungs can't keep my body going any longer, and a firm belief that my life post-transplant will be the greatest gift I'll ever receive. So from here, it's just a waiting game.

But with the day of discharge in sight, I can now focus on the enormous list of tasks I have yet to even start for Christmas! Friday evening will be a baking night, I believe, and Saturday, a trip to the shops to attempt to find last minute gifts. And as always, quality time with my mom, my dad, and my love, because isn't that what this life is all about?

-R xx