Home sweet mother fuckin' home!

I am being discharged tomorrow.  That is the good news.  The bad news is I have to return Wednesday of next week for another several weeks of treatment.  I am going to spend the next couple of days snuggling tight with my dogs, dyeing my hair, listening to rock and roll music so loud it's going to make my ears bleed, eating real food... screaming, laughing and dancing best to the ability of my shitty lung capacity.

I spoke to the lung transplant team today.  I am not a candidate for transplant.  My file has been given a huge red DENIED stamp.  I sort of knew that's what I would be told, full well knowing my kidneys are too poor to endure the transplant and the ensuing medications (the little fuckers).  Though it was half expected it still stung like a million bee stings and I still sobbed hysterically.  

So now the question is if I don't have a miraculous transplant recovery from this disease to look forward to, what now?  My lungs are rotting away at an alarming rate.  I've wrapped up three weeks of antibiotics and aggressive therapy with even cloudier chest films and more pain.  I cough up blood every day.   I tried escaping the cannula to shower earlier this week and found my sats on room air to be 73% afterward.  This was so fucking disheartening.  

How am I going to do this?  Two days ago I had an epiphany while riding the elevator to the ground floor.  The transplant scenario played out in my head and for the first time in months I had a glimmer of hope regarding my breath.  I thought, I can tough this out with the hope of transplant.  The hope of that elusive and deliciously indulgent "first breath" I've heard so many post-transplant talk about.  The hope of replacing these calcified airbags with lungs stolen from an accident prone nonmutant.  Just as fast as I came to not only accept, but get excited about,the idea of completely foreign lungs in my body, it was whisked away by a nurse I'd never met before who awkwardly patted my forearm while I cried.  Then she had the audacity to as if I wanted the notebook full of transplant information.  Needless to say it's in the trash.  I asked her to throw it away on her way out.  

The next couple of days will be a welcome break.  I am going to assess my current situation and try to realistically figure out what I want to do.  I can take this.  I know I can.  It's all in how I choose to react to the situation.  Today I hid under the covers and played dead but something tells me I'm not going to continue to live my cystic life with the coarse wool hospital issue blanket over my eyes.  

"When we breathe, we hope."  --Barack Obama, November 5th, 2008