On my last hospital admission a few
weeks ago the floor doctor told me that I needed to quit making plans of traveling
because my health wasn’t stable enough for it. I was told that all plans needed
to be put on hold until I had a lung transplant and I was healthier. For a
reasonably healthy person this is probably reasonable advice, but for someone
in my position it’s detrimental. The reality of having a chronic progressive
disease like Cystic Fibrosis is that I have no guarantee of being healthier in
the future; in fact I am guaranteed just the opposite.
I thought long and hard while I was
in the hospital about how my life would be if I canceled all my travel plans,
and quit my job and stayed home full time. There are a lot of things to
consider when you are in this position because decisions like this don’t affect
just you, but also everyone around you. I lay in bed and I seriously considered
what the doctor had said, but the more I thought about it the more depressed I
became. What is life without the things you enjoy? If I could live a hundred
more years by doing nothing was it really worth it? I couldn’t justify giving
up my life, especially for a healthier future that may never happen. I called
and spoke to my primary CF physician about it and he told me he wouldn’t tell
me what to do but he highly advised against my travel plans. He also took the
opportunity to remind me that my health is a full time job by itself.
I go in on the 30th for
my first clinical checkup in months, I’ve been admitted more times this year
than I have actually been in the clinic. I am hopeful that my lung function and
weight has increased, but if neither of those things have happened I may have
to face the consequences of continuing on with a lung transplant evaluation. I’ve
decided that if I have come to a point where my years are numbered that I will
not spend it biding my time and waiting, I am going to make the commitment to
live my life in the loudest most joyous ways that I can. I refuse to sacrifice
happiness for time. This blog will be my journal through what could be the rest
of my life.
Eventually we all have to handle the idea of our own mortality, this is the promise I am making to myself.
I promise that today I will live a life I have never lived before, I will go on an adventure and explore places and ideas I have never before. This time I have will be used to make memories for a time when memories will be all that is left of me.
No comments:
Post a Comment