My Double Lung Transplant

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Confessions Part II

1) I hate you lungs.

2) I am no longer afraid of dying.

3) I am afraid to get on with my life. Does that make any sense? It's such a contradictory, eh? For so long, lung disease has allowed me to stay in the background, to move forward in life at a slow pace, but still be dependent on other people. Once i'm better, it means i'll actually have to leave the nest, I will have to find a real job, provide for myself (at some point) and the like. The thought is absolutely frightening and terrifying.

Now I know that i'm not the only one afraid of this, I'm pretty sure everyone my age is afraid of this thing, even older people who are settled probably fear this. I don't think it's a thing that can ever leave an individual, even if you have a lot of money, have a house, and don't need to worry about how you'll get on. I'm sure Oprah even worries that she'll end up on the street living in a box behind KFC.

As bizarre as it sounds, lung disease has cushioned me for so long that it's all i know. I really cannot comprehend a life without it. I look at normal people and wonder how they do things day to day, not stopping to think about their breathing, not stopping or slowing down to pace themselves. Just doing fuckall into the wind and getting on with it. Lung disease has sheltered me, has kept me from being a total asshole, from doing rediculously stupid things and the like. In an odd way, I am utterly afraid and sad to leave it, to be without it, my safe, phlegmy cushion.

I look at the things normal people do, and wonder how they've done it, and how they stay that way. And when I throw myself into the mix, I am utterly terrified.

How will I manage??

I know I will, and that I can, that's not a huge concern, it's the getting there and staying there. I wonder how many good things can people have happen to them? Getting a lung tx, being able to breathe, getting my LIFE back, AND having a job that makes enough money and allows me to live normal.

Is there too much of a good thing?? I'm afraid that if I get all that, something will be taken away, again, and I won't know how to cope again. What will I have done to deserve such greatness?

Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I've been subjected to too much madness from the get-go that I automatically expect something good to be taken away from me because somehow I'll fuck it all up.

I hate thinking.

4 comments:

Kira said...

Thinking sick is like thinking drunk. I know exactly how your feeling as I am doing it right now but I have had surgery that was supposed to fix it (low successrate anyway) and it didn't, does that mean I have to do all that now even though its not different etc etc...it does get easier and a lot of times you can sneak back into life quitely enough not scare the living bejesus out of you. Good luck - I throughly enjoy reading your blogs in a I wish she wasn't sick and all but her blogs are great regardless and I hope she gets her lungs soon.
Kira

My Diabetic Sweet Life said...

Praying that you get your lungs soon - and so sorry that you even have to think about any of this stuff.

Alice Vogt said...

Know what you mean chick... but once youre out there out of your phlemy cushion, you'll see it's easier than you think, and having heaps of energy helps too!!!

Marjolein said...

I know it's really difficult.

You know there is an actual word for this feeling. Being 'hospitalized', at least that what I get when I translate it from Dutch to English. I don't know if it's the right term in English. It's not really being in the hospital. But having a special mind-set. That you can when feeling poorly all the time.
I still struggle with that. It's hard to get away from...

Thinking of you
Really big hug and talk soon!