Just When You Think You Have It All Figured Out

I've been in a bit of a funk this week. It started with having to put down our sweet little girl kitty Squeek on Tuesday. She likely had some sort of cancer for which we'd tried various remedies over the last few weeks but on Tuesday she had a steep decline. We knew it was time.

Todd and I have been incredibly lucky that, with six pets together, this is the first one we have had to put down since we met. It was actually the first time I've ever had to put down one of my animals. So sad, but happy we could relieve her suffering.

Squeek on top of bookshelf circa 2006

The End of the First Week of Waiting

As the one week waiting mark approached for transplant (Thursday), I also started to feel a bit like maybe I need to start settling in for the long haul. I know that's crazy to all you non-Duke people out there. We are spoiled by our super short wait times compared to other places. I'm not complaining. It's just that in my head I was either going to have to wait a day or a month and for some reason I wasn't sure how I was going to handle the time in between. Let me tell you - it sucks!

So we lose a kitty, brain starts to try to shift into more of a "waiting" mode, I see someone I know at rehab come back from transplant and they are looking ROUGH and then yesterday I started missing beer.

Maybe it was in my subconscious...I was dreaming about drinking cold glasses of drought beer - I was outside somewhere with friends enjoying it. I woke up and thought, you know what? I miss drinking beer! And for whatever reason - or all the reasons of why the week wasn't going so great - I started questioning if I really did want to give up drinking forever. I am doing this to get "back to life" but that will have to be a different life than I had even when I was feeling healthy. It's kind of a bummer but I'm hoping that I will be so busy enjoying my new lungs that I won't have time to think about it. And fortunately I have discovered some really good non-alcoholic beers. :)

Moments of Weakness

Then all day yesterday I was hoping I wouldn't be called...Not today, I'm not ready today. Please don't call, I'm not up for taking the first step down a road that I know will be long and difficult.

And I woke up today feeling a little bit of the same way. Like transplant is something that is happening TO me rather than something I am choosing to do. That is a huge difference.

It's not that I've turned against transplant - if the phone rang right now it would be "game on." It's that I've needed to step back and remind myself all of the reasons that transplant needs to happen NOW: being on oxygen and antibiotics all the time, not having the energy to get through an entire day's worth of activities without a nap, not being able to work or play like I want to, etc.

Maybe it is because my health has stabilized recently but most likely it is that I have just become more accustomed to living this way - this way of only half-living. It's amazing what your body can get used to! And mine has done a very good job at adapting and trying to convince me things are still going along alright. I hope that once I am transplanted I will look back at this and have a good laugh.