Mutations and Mom

--> Today I have an appointment at the cystic fibrosis clinic in the hospital where I had my lung transplant. I haven’t been to a CF clinic in at least ten years. And previous to transplant I only had one CF doctor my entire life, from my diagnosis to his death. Dr. Thomas Doland at Yale. He died shortly after my transplant. And I never saw a need to find anyone else. I belonged to my transplant team at that point. The interesting thing about having a lung transplant is that, for me at least, you sort of leave the CF camp and move to the transplant camp. Of course, I still have CF, and of course it still affects so many things, but my lungs no longer have CF, so it kind of eliminates the need to be followed continuously by a CF doctor I guess. Instead of seeing a CF doctor, I see my transplant doctor and a million other specialists—sinus ENT, ear ENT, cardiologist, several endocrinologist, kidney specialist, gastroenterologist, infectious disease and many more I can’t even think about. The roster is long—each doctor taking care of their specific organ.

But now my ear has really brought CF to the forefront again. There are several reasons I can’t get rid of this infection, but there is only one reason I got the infection to begin with, and that is cystic fibrosis. The pesky dumb aggressive little bacteria that is in my ear is pretty much a bacteria you can only grow if you have CF, a healthy person could lather in it; it wouldn’t do any harm. It’s the same bacteria that ate away at my CF lungs time and time again. And it’s the same bacteria that like to wreak havoc in my sinuses, and then found its way into my ear. But the point being CF has again found a way to rule my world, even though transplant is supposed to somewhat alleviate that from being the case, and trust me it did, I’ve been on IV medications, a rotation of three different antibiotics and one antifungal since December 19^th. I’m over it. And like all my ENTs like to say: we can’t transplant your _____ fill in the blank with ENT things. We have all done everything we can but we need a forever solution.

Since my transplant there have been a lot of advancement in medications that target the actual problem with CF—we can’t transport fluids and sodium properly in and out of our cells. This is something your body needs to do to be a normal functioning healthy person. There are two medications available now that try and correct the actual defect in the protein that causes the problem. My lungs don’t have CF so in essence I wouldn’t really benefit from a cure for CF, I now need a cure for transplant rejection—this is now my terminal disease. I hope this makes sense. So back to the ear problem that has led me here! These two medications Kalydeco and Orkambi COULD help my ear! So a few weeks ago my genius sinus surgeon told me he has seen big improvements in the sinuses of CF patients on these medications. I told him I didn’t even know what my mutations were.

So here I am a mixed jumble of emotions. I know I have a genetic disease. But it’s a different thing to actually find out specifically what mutations I have in my gene. I am entering back into a world that I haven’t been to in so long, even though I suppose it’s been there in the background the entire time. There are a lot of mutations and a big chance I don't have the right one, of course I’m scared of disappointment here. But this is the way medicine is headed and it’s thrilling to be honest, even if it doesn’t exactly mean a cure for my own lungs and me. The drug pipeline is exciting (https://www.cff.org/trials/pipeline)

There is more to it though and I’ve been trying to understand why I am SO emotional about this experience. And it’s because I got these CF mutations from my parents—neither of them alive anymore, neither of them with me. My mom should be with me for this. She should be sitting with me in the exam room like she always was before she died. I’ve never even seen a CF doctor without her and this is bringing it all back, everything we went through together my entire life. And it’s a visceral punch to my stomach. At the end of the day this loss is always circling me. The progression of life, these sorts of milestones, will always make the big losses slowly burn again, the ache roaring back. But I have to keep going and I have to keep facing these things and luckily I don't do it alone.  

loss and adapting

Prince William inspired me to write on this blog again. Please read this quote for context:

The prince, 34, who was 15 when his mother Princess Diana died in Paris, said: “The shock is the biggest thing, and I still feel it 20 years later about my mother.
“People think shock can’t last that long, but it does. It’s such an unbelievably big moment in your life and it never leaves you, you just learn to deal with it.”

I’ve written a few posts in the past few weeks but they are bone stabbing kind of deep. I don’t think they are ready for the Internet yet. But I think this is medium deep, haha! So it seems more appropriate. I watched this interview today with Prince William talking about the death of his mother—I bet we all remember this day. It made me realize more people experience the same losses as our own than we probably care to understand. It’s easy to think we are the only one that may have gone through a particular thing. But loss is universal, and the loss of a parent at a young age does actually happen to lots of other people. And it also does happen to other chronically ill people. I’m not the only person with CF to lose their mom to cancer. The thing is it’s all tragic of course, but it’s a punch in the gut on top of 100 other punches. What else can you do besides take it?

But the loss of a parent, especially a mother, is unlike anything else. It’s not like losing anyone else in your life. I came into this world attached to only one person, by an umbilical cord, by months together, by experiences in the past and promises of the future, and I felt it all violently ripped away from me when she wasn’t here anymore. (I am not diminishing people raised by someone other than their birth mom.)   

I think people assume I lost my mom so many years ago it must be behind me. And it's not. I don't talk about it with too many people but I'm still gutted by it every day. There are so many things that happen every day that compound her loss, from tiny to monumental, from crisis to joy. I've just learned to live my life with this gaping hole. And it's okay. You learn to adapt. That's what life is mostly about—adapting to anything that comes at you. The only real way to survive in almost any capacity is to adapt. And adapting doesn’t mean that things can go back to the way they used to be. It just means learning to move forward in a new way, in a new vehicle, or on a new path. And if you are lucky enough you have people that will follow along side of you.

To doing everything you want in 2016...

I was able to cross many things off of my "to do" list last year; I hope that you guys did too! But if not 2016 is a new year to do the things you want to do! A few months ago I saw an article about how you could go swimming with wild pigs in the Bahamas. I knew right away I needed to go do this! I love animals and any interaction I can get with them. This seemed so cool! I've been getting so much better as I get older at just doing things I really want to do. I don't really go back and forth about things like I used to. It's become a great habit to just say to myself: I want to do it, I am going to do it! And then actually do it! So I booked plane tickets, hotel accommodations, and the pig excursion, without any hesitation.

When the time came a few months later to actually go I was thrilled with my decision. The day with the pigs was awesome. It wasn't like some magical religious experience. It was just really truly an awesome experience. The pigs were amazing. We were brought out about 60 miles from our hotel to an island were only wild pigs exist. It was so cool to watch them swim. Pigs don't normally swim but out of necessity to get food a 400 lb pig can teach itself to swim. This is a lesson any of us can learn. When you need to survive, you will learn how to survive. Here is hoping you all do everything that your heart desires in 2016!