HOW TIME FLIES OR NOT!

Milestones. We all mark various milestones in our lives: birthdays, anniversaries, and so on. These days my milestones all revolve around one thing. Getting a Lung Transplant.

It's been 9 months since I got sick. I cannot believe it was last November that I woke up one morning with a cough and thought, darn, I've caught a cold. If only.

It's been 6 months since I went to Mayo Clinic and was finally given the correct diagnosis for what was wrong with me.  Idiopathic Bronchiolitis Obliterans. Six months since they said those words followed up by "and you need a lung transplant". Say what? Shock doesn't begin to describe my reaction to this news on that day.

It's been 3 months since I was discharged from Loyola Medical Center after spending a week there being evaluated to see if they would accept me for a Lung Transplant and being stepped down on my Prednisone dosage in a medically controlled environment. What a long week that was.

It's been 2 months since I got the call that I had been accepted as a Transplant Candidate at Loyola and listed in the UNOS http://www.unos.org/ system. That date will stick with me forever. 

There have been many dates along the way that I will never forget. I know exactly the date I woke up coughing and my life changed forever. I know exactly the date the doctor at Mayo said I needed a transplant. I know exactly the date I got listed with UNOS. 

And yet, I cannot believe how time has flown by. Some days it feels like it's dragging as I do what the Transplant Team said would be this hard - wait. Wait for the call to come that they have a lung for me. And then I cannot believe it's been 9 months (moving in on 10 rapidly) since I got sick.

Time really does fly. Especially when you are fighting for your life. Every day seems at once an eternity and yet also seems to whiz by in the blink of an eye.

I'm as ready as I'll ever be. I want to get on with this. It's a scary prospect having a lung transplant but it's what I need and what I want. I want more time, so I want a transplant.

I am hoping time continues to seemingly fly by and the call will come that they have my new lung. In the meantime, I wait. Anxiously waiting, going to Rehab, taking my meds, coughing, struggling to breathe. I wait. Tick tock, tick tock. Let's get me that lung please!