Our newest fundraiser is underway! It’s a May/Mother’s Day Flower Sale to benefit COTA in honor of Team Heidi For a $10 donation, we will package and ship a carnation to someone of your choosing. Please visit Tinyurl.com/TeamHeidiFlowerSale to make your donation and send a flower! My boyfriend’s dad is sponsoring this fundraiser and I really want it to be a huge success, it’ll mean a lot to both of us! We will be running the flower sale for the whole month of May.
Long time, no talk followers!…(we have followers, right?!) It’s been a busy couple of months, filled with lots of nothing special days, some really awesome days (I went to Cuba for a week with my parents, which was amazing!), a super successful Team Heidi bowling event, and currently, to celebrate Cystic Fibrosis awareness month and National Nurses week, I figured I’d do it up big and check into the hospital for some of the “good stuff” (ie; IV antibiotics). It’s been seven months since I’ve been hospitalized, which is the longest stretch in FIVE years. I reaallllyy had my sights set on one year hospital free, but, here we are.
Five weeks ago, I was feeling better than I’ve felt in a looonnnggg time. But, in typical CF fashion, BAM!, I’m winded walking up the stairs and it’s hospital time. One of the things I struggle with the most in dealing with CF is balance. CF patients are trained our whole lives to fight it; do your treatments, exercise, take oral antibiotics, do extra treatments, get more rest, exercise more, try different antibiotics- this list could go on and on, so after all that, when a hospital stay is necessary, in a big way it’s always felt like failing and admitting defeat. However, as someone putting in the work and fighting the good fight every day, I’m declaring it’s not failing; it’s just using a “different tool in your toolbox” to quote one of my doctors.
It’s been an emotional, rollercoaster of a year for me. Perhaps I’m just feeling nostalgic sitting in my hospital bed reflecting, but really, it’s been quite the year. Last May, I met with Mass General for the first time to talk about a lung transplant. Since then, I’ve gone through the full evaluation, been declared “too healthy” three times, and continue to be watched closely. In January we started fundraising and were completely blown away by the amount of support we have received. It’s been so much more than I ever imagined it could be and appreciate each and everyone one of you. It makes my whole family feel so supported- it’s been, and continues to be, a surreal experience.
It’s really easy to feel like my whole life right now is encompassed by this looming (hopefully far off in the distance) transplant. I feel a little bit in limbo, but really, life, in every aspect, just keeps going, and we keep going with it. In addition to transplant/fundraising/CF stuff, this year I’ve travelled, a lot. I made my annual trek to Nashville for CMAfest and more importantly Jacki time!; visited South Carolina for work (and play); made several trips to my favorite place in the world, PEI; spent a carefree week in Punta Cana; and toured Cuba and came home with such a recalibrated view of how lucky I really am in life. I also got to watch people I love get married, have babies, get promotions, and continue to learn and grow in the lessons that life teaches us all. Oh, and I turned 30!! I’m so incredibly grateful to be healthy enough to enjoy all these things and go all these places. Sitting here, tethered to an IV pole and spending the weekend in the hospital, I find myself feeling overwhelmingly hopefully that there’s an even better year ahead.