More Thoughts on Waiting

Note: the below text is a talk I gave last night at a wonderful CF fundraiser organized and chaired by a remarkable CF woman (and CF mom!) from one of the forums. She was kind enough to invite me to her event, and then asked that I share a few words about my story. I thought it fitting to repost here, but I have removed her name just to protect privacy.

L has given you all some great information about CF, but what I'd like to do now is tell you a story. And, like so many of my personal stories, this one begins in a doctor's office.

It was, I imagined, going to be a pretty routine clinic appointment. As I settled myself on the familiar exam table to await my doctor, I went over the specifics of this particular visit in my mind: PFTs down a point or two, might mean an oral antibiotic or some other slight tweak in the medication routine; my weight was too low, as always, so we might have to discuss the dreaded feeding tube issue once again; and otherwise nothing too remarkable. I swung my legs and fidgeted in the tiny clinic room, gearing up for what I knew was coming: the inevitable conversation about my increased need for IV antibiotics to fight infections in my lungs, and the implications of my decision to work full-time at a large law firm following my graduation from law school the previous May. It was now January of 2008, and while I sensed that things were changing with my CF, I had no idea just how much this seemingly run-of-the-mill clinic visit would change my life.

Transplant. It's a word most CFers are all too familiar with, at least as a concept if not as an actual reality. Since my teenage years, I had understood that lung transplant surgery was a last-resort option for people with advanced cystic fibrosis lung disease. I knew people who had undergone a transplant and had emerged smiling, full of life and healthy, vibrant breath supplied by their new lungs. But I was completely unprepared to hear the word applied to me and my disease, despite my personal understanding that my CF was progressing. And so, when my doctor took my hand and told me that she was recommending a referral for lung transplant evaluation, my first thought was, quite honestly, "for whom?" Because certainly she didn't mean me, the lawyer, or me, the daughter, sister, girlfriend, and friend. She couldn't mean me, the girl who loved to travel and be active and who adored her job. And then it hit me that she did, in fact, mean me, the CF patient.

It's funny how jarring news can sometimes work strange and wonderful things in my life, and it turned out that my referral for transplant was no exception to this rule. Immediately after learning the news, I began to seek out other CFers, figuring that I should get as many perspectives and as much support as possible during an otherwise confusing and difficult time. The issue, of course, was that CFers are rarely allowed to meet face-to-face because of the dangers of cross infection. A room full of CF patients might have offered me the support and help that I needed, but it would also be putting my health (and the health of others) in danger. But a chat room full of CF patients? Well, that's an entirely different story. And so it was that I stumbled into the online CF community, where I was lucky enough to meet L and others like her -- members of a unique collective of 30,000 + people in this country living with this disease, dependent on the medical advancements and new treatments made possible through the CFF and lung transplantation, and surviving on hope for a cure that suddenly seems not so far fetched thanks to cutting edge research and truly remarkable science. These were the people who helped coach me through my evaluation for lung transplant, who continue to support me as I've gotten sicker with CF, and who will celebrate with me when I finally receive the oh-so-precious gift of life.

So how could I resist the chance to come and meet one of these remarkable women in person? And when L asked me to share a little bit about transplant and my personal CF story, I was both humbled and excited. Which is fitting, I guess, because right now is a time that truly is both humbling and exciting for all of us out there fighting so hard against cystic fibrosis. There are new drugs on the horizon that show amazing promise in correcting the ion transport at the heart of the CF defect, potentially offering CFers with less advanced lung damage the possibility of life beyond this disease as we've always known it. And advancements in lung transplant offer those of us whose lungs have suffered more damage the hope that we too may soon breathe without our current limitations. Neither option is a cure, in the true sense of the word, but both paths seem to lead to a world where CF might have a new and different meaning, and all of it thanks to the continued dedication of the scientists, the doctors, the donors and the fundraisers, and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

I guess the moral of the story is that all of us are, in a sense, waiting -- L and I, and the thousands of other CF patients and their families. We fight and we wait: for new lungs; for new treatments; for the chance to see our loved ones who have died of this disease once again; and, just as I waited that fateful day in the clinic office, for the news that will forever change our world.

I thought this was a fitting response to my own late-night rantings about CF and waiting, in a way. And I also understand that there are many people out there with CF who are walking an entirely different path -- those who will not receive transplants, or who are awaiting the next stage of a journey that is all their own. And I guess the question always remains:

What are we waiting for?