Just sitting here drinking coffee, my treat for finishing all the things I wanted to complete this beautiful morning. One thing which was a really hard run. Without much thought I realized it was that particular run that changed my life. But it wasn’t what I thought it was. It was just an interval run with longer running intervals than I had been able to complete in recent months, as I attempted to gain fitness yet again after another setback.
The fact that I thought this particular run changed my life reminded me that every time I’m able to run even if just for 30 seconds is a feeling of astonishment, freedom, and health, but also a feeling of beating the odds that have been stacked against me since birth. So many odds. I got new lungs when my old ones failed. I regained my ability to hear with the help of an implanted device. I regained my mobility and life, speech and functioning after weeks on life support. I got the ability to work, to use my brain, and wonder what’s next; to feel real emotion and new thought processes; to come to terms with the past.
I longed for many things in my mythical post transplant life, namely the ability to run, before my lungs were even swapped out, and now I’ve found that ability and it is everything I hoped for and more. Although I realized that I have let a lot of feelings and emotions fall to the wayside over the years, ignoring them almost completely for the fact that I have all of these newfound abilities, such as running and breathing, working and living a relatively healthy life. Yet at some point I knew I needed to process these things that weren’t so great, all the trauma, the loss, the feelings of defeat and despair. The suffering I endured day in and day out of living with a terminal illness. I needed to process the bad.
Throughout this almost 14 years of my new life I have yearned for a lot of things I didn’t even contemplate pre-transplant, and today I finally feel like I have experienced everything I was wishing and hoping so much for in this what felt like a make believe second chance at life. But it took over 10 years, years I wasn’t promised. For one, I’ve been gifted with taking care of my little sidekick, my dog, for over 8 years. Amazed for the extra time I’ve been able to spend on earth with her and my family.
Secondly, but not less important, I met my awesome partner, who has supported me in ways I never imagined, bringing me joy and new life experiences everyday while being gracious with my downfalls. We’ve had so much fun, and have enjoyed so much life together while working on understanding one another. They’re loving me fully and attempting to understand the copious amount of hardship I have endured, and just being great and accepting of me throughout everything I bring to the relationship. Good and bad. And with that I have been able to confront long held beliefs about myself, my disease, life and love, that had only been buried deep within me for a consecutive 35 years. I have came about with a deeper respect for life, love, pain and suffering and have processed many why’s – mainly why certain things happened and how to move forward. Largely with the help of my loving partner, friends, family (and therapist). In short I’m learning how to love my whole self in order to love better, it’s a process but I’m definitely making progress as the days go by. Each day that is a new and welcomed gift.
The fact that I never imagined outliving my CF lungs, and definitely not for almost 14 years, to raise a puppy into adulthood, to love another human being so much, and truly experience the joys and pains of just being alive for 35 years, it’s been incredible to say the least. Yet everyday I seem to have a new found understanding of what life is and how to truly live it with the best intentions and how to grow and be better while loving those around me. Even though sometimes the past seems insurmountable to understand, as does the future, and the desire to change certain aspects is something that is in the forefront of my mind.
I can’t be grateful enough for this chance to just be enveloped in life for this moment. Loving and laughing, crying and feeling, gratefully accepting hopes and fears, new problems, new possibilities, suffering and thriving. It’s all life, I never actually realized how fully and truly I could live while still feeling and experiencing everything so deeply. No matter what, I now feel less like I need to be 100% grateful all the time just because I’m worried about letting people down. Namely my donor. I’m allowed to have bad days, but no, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad life. And with that change I feel a million times healthier in mind, body, and soul, by just accepting the fact that’s it’s not always gonna be perfect, and that’s okay.