Breathe

Sometimes it’s easier said than done you know… breathing that is. For the last several weeks I’ve felt rather out of sorts which has all lead up to last week’s start of a really bad lung infection. It started with me not being able to make it up the stairs at work two weeks ago… which lead to a phone call to the CF clinic by that Friday… which lead to oral antibiotics and some time off work… which lead to a clinic visit the following Wednesday… which lead to me realizing that my PFT’s were really shitty (see my “CF Dictionary” post if you don’t know what PFT’s are) and a bad chest x-ray … which lead to a PICC line insertion and IV antibiotics the very next day. It’s been just 3 days now since I’ve started the IV antibiotics and I’m still feeling shitty. Still having trouble making it up the stairs, still feeling sick all over, still feeling nauseous and tired all the time and still dealing with the realization that being on IV just once a year may be turning into twice a year which in my head may be that slippery slope. But hey, twice a year is better than 6 months out of the year right?  

So many things affect breathing. Or maybe it’s the other things that affect breathing so much. Either way, walking, cooking, taking the dog out, eating, talking, sleeping and even thinking are exhausting right now. Focusing on breathing is something that is actually not easy… despite what some of you yoga go’ers may say. As I try to keep calm, take as big a breath as I possibly can, I keep thinking about how much worse things are going to get. About how hard it’s going to be if we have a child if that’s actually ever going to happen. About how I may actually have to one day get used to being short of breath. Then of course this leads to tears and that just makes the breathing even more difficult to control. It’s constant sucking air in and forcing air out with coughs between every few breaths then choking on the over-flowing mucous that needs to come out then feeling like you’re going to throw up. Lovely I know. Actually it’s fucking disgusting is what it is. And strenuous and exhausting and fucking terrifying. Breathing is so complicated. So when they say, just breathe, why can’t it be that simple. Just breathe Kim... Just... breathe. Luckily I’ve had the support of my loving family to lean on. They’ve provided unconditional love through cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning, renting movies, bringing my niece over to brighten my spirits, taking my dog out for walks, getting me puke buckets, giving me pills and taking trips to the pharmacy for me. All while James and his family were on the island raising money for Cystic Fibrosis Canada by putting on the Green Mountain Music Festival which I wasn't able to attend this year because, you guessed it, I'm too sick.  So when’s this damn cure gonna be discovered anyway? I mean COME ON ALREADY!  I know things have come an unbelievably long way since I was diagnosed 28 years ago but it's just not come quite far enough. At moments like this you need to dig threw all the everyday shit and find that inner strength that hasn’t been needed in a while and tell it what’s been going on and that you could really use a boost of that inner strength because if it doesn’t pull through for you now, you just don’t know how you’ll get through another breath. At moments like this I need to go back to the day James and I first saw the great barrier reef and felt our first kangaroo and watched our first sunset on a sailboat in the Whitsunday Islands and saw our first rainbow on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and remember those great moments in life that make it all worth while. I realize I never finished writing about our Australia & Fiji trip. Maybe I will. But right now and for the past several weeks, I’ve just been too tired.