Honor Your Path

Day number 20, waiting for the call for Anna's double lung transplant.

Yesterday started off different than it ended for two women on the Stanford transplant list. Anna awoke with tell tale signs of an intestinal blockage. These nasty events haunt CFers and arise with little warning. Her abdomen was in pain and there were no bowel sounds up high. Uh oh, we thought it may be time for the hospital. And of course it was a Saturday and the way you are supposed to enter the hospital on the weekend is through the ER. Been there, done that, no thank you!

After communicating with the CF team, Anna began to gently cleanse and hopefully release this developing concrete wall in her colon, at home. In the past we have experienced disaster when these symptoms arose. As early afternoon came around it seemed that perhaps she was safe for the day as the hard abdominal knot seemed a bit softer. We resumed our plans and Anna continued her regimen. By early evening things were moving. Thank the goddess of poop! No, really, we all must thank the goddess of poop, where would any one of us be if that function was not functioning. Another thing we all take for granted but well understood in the CF world.

Doug, Sara, Lou and I went to my brother's house for a party. Yay, our plans did not have to change to an excursion into the bowels of the hospital, praying to the goddess of poop to come to Anna's rescue with all that that entails. Instead, we got to have a fun time at a lovely place with lovely people. Except for our dear Anna who made the best of it with her wonderful Linda.

While at the party we found out that Anna's friend, also on the transplant list at Stanford was called! Rhea has been waiting for about 5 1/2 months. Her day began as same old, same old, and then she got the call. In an instant it became the time. Wow. They had to travel from Sacramento to Stanford. But after a few hours the promise of new lungs on the 14th of August was dashed. It was what is called, a dry run. Before the evening was out the surgeons decided the lungs were not good enough. What a let down. All of the heroic souls that wait on the list know this may happen, but when it does, such a let down, heart breaking. Hopefully, next time.

This story is about a very specific life path with events that occur in the day to day of a person with CF and their family. But, we all have stories and paths equally capable of providing major challenge, disappointments and just what each of us need. We all have days when we wake up to one reality and it quickly changes into another. We do learn from observing each other's lives and knowing their stories but do we only compare ourselves or do we honor our own as we should? Would it make a difference if we truly honored our own with rituals of embrace?

Our path is our path. Simple but true. But can we do better in honoring our path? Do we compare ours with our friends and loved ones? "Yours is better than mine." "So glad that is not mine." "Can I change mine? I want to go another direction." Some people seem to have an easier path than others. But, it is really about what we do with ours that counts. It is about our personal relationship with our path that is our story. We can not write that story for others we can only write our own.

We must travel our own heroes journey filled with our own mistakes, life's gifts of challenge, surrounding sorrows, and our own self made triumphs. We must see what is in our personal path that is offering us an opportunity for success, learning and growth. We must honor our own path so much that we embrace what ever arises and use our experience and our foundation of self understanding to take each step with awareness and be proud of how we walk.

I am hoping that Rhea will embrace this disheartening part of her journey with transplant as just part of it, proud of herself and what she is doing and that she will rise out of her disappointment with new hope and readiness for the next call.

And for all of us, can we light a candle in our hearts in honor of our path? It is ours, the only thing that is truly ours, forever...... may we all walk with self respect and in beauty.