So. I’m 35.
This is another day, since I have been so very lucky to have had many, that I could have never imagined. My 35th birthday. 35 years of fighting the symptoms of the same disease and it’s many, many side effects. 35 years of living like tomorrow may never come. 35 times I thought it would be my last birthday because I was so extremely sick or my prognosis was not so good. 35 celebrations to commemorate the fact that I made it yet another year on earth when I wasn’t suppose to. I was in the “elite few,” an improbable case. Even before the addition of someone else’s lungs that was said to give me maybe 5 additional years on earth. Which was really just trading some of my problems for other problems, all while keeping some. Not to mention I’d still have CF everywhere else.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all the medical stuff I’ve been through and continue to go through in my life. It seems never ending. The less than ideal circumstances I have been given yet I make the best of it. The life I have to squeeze out of what is a pretty dry lemon already. I wasn’t given a lot of hope but I had a lot inside.
Simply said. I love living. Doing life. Being a human and sharing time and space with other humans, dogs, technology, cars, etc. I love things. Flannels, challenges, seasons, fun jobs, family, dogs. I can’t imagine not being here but sometimes I joke that I am indeed trapped here, since I keep defying all odds. I’ve been knocked down thousands of times and yet I persist. That’s me, I persist.
I do wonder when my time will come though. I want to see my grandma again. But I’m in no hurry. Point being, I’ve spent 35 years thinking everyday that I might wake up to my health not allowing me another. Today, I wonder if I shouldn’t have done that. If I should’ve planned for these 35 years. Because I know I would’ve lived a little different, if there had been ANY possibility that I would get THIRTY FIVE FREAKIN YEARS to be alive. Who would’ve ever thought?! But given the circumstance I was so grateful for my birthday for 35 years, every. Single. Year. And just for life, that I wouldn’t have felt if I had no clue I might die before then. I love the life I’ve gotten and the way I’ve lived. It’s been a grand adventure, a mystery, a thriller, and it continues to be. And I wouldn’t want to live any other way.
I was told I would die before age 13. Yet I made it to 21, got new lungs, that were suppose to last 5 years, that’s 26 now. But 35?! Really?!
That said. I am astounded. I feel like I’ve done SO MUCH. Accomplished. Experienced. Loved. Shared. Fought. I’ve had hope. Faith. Belief beyond what I imagine many can comprehend. Belief that THIS is MY ONE LIFE. And I am not about to give in. Not then, not now.
Not when I was dying of lung failure and panicking that I was going to die at 21 years of age, with less than 10% lung capacity. Not when I was in the most excruciating pain from kidney stones or pancreatitis that I couldn’t even sit still in the ER, many times. That I’ve had my port-a-cath accessed with a needle thousands of times and had even more IV’s and blood draws than that. Not when I lost my hearing and had to have surgery so they could put an electrode in my cochlea. Not after 4 serious sinus surgeries just to attempt to correct the side effects of CF that have still not worked to this day. Not then. Not now.
I’ve given it my best. My 110%. And I am winning, everyday.
If I was ever asked if it was worth it, trying so hard to stay alive and fighting these shitty odds that were stacked against me since birth, I think I know the answer. And in the end times, which I have caught myself thinking about a lot lately, I know I will have open arms. Because whatever sliver I was given of life among all hardship, I made it a LIFE. And for that I am proud of myself. For the people who have fought beside me, believed in me, and sometimes carried me to right here where I am today, thank you for that. And I’m thankful for that sliver of life that I was able to find and latch onto to make this last 35 years of hardship and illness, pain and loss, dare I say suffering, something I could have only dreamed of. It’s been incredible. I truly cannot wait to see what else I am blessed with while I am still on this planet – to do, to see – because honestly, the past 35 years will be hard to top.