34 and counting...

Last week I turned the big 3-4.  This birthday was a very memorable one.  I decided to celebrate the entire week and I had so much fun.  Lots of friends, food, and drink.  I can't think of a better way to bring in my 34th year here on this planet.  I also found myself doing a lot of reflecting.  I spent the entire week plugged into my ipod blasting old 80s and 90s music.  It brought back so many memories.  Was I ever the girl who thought Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows was the most profound songwriter in the world?  I guess at 16 I was.  Hearing 'Round Here' takes me back to the morning of my SATs and wishing I had the capacity to write such soulful lyrics.  Pretending I was the girl to whom he was singing.  Terrible, I know.  Hungry Like the Wolf by Duran Duran will always take me back to playing  in my room with Barbies; wondering my Simon LeBon was so hungry like a wolf and why oh why was the lady in the song howling like she was in pain?  Years and years later I finally got it.   Time passes so fast and memories just flood your brain as the years tick away.  I think of my little brothers and their long ago small faces and high-pitched voices screaming, "Happy Birthday, sister!".  These boys are now expecting their own little girls and I think, "When did they grow up and where was I?".  I was growing up right along with them.  It has to be so strange for a parent to watch their baby grow up into an adult.  My parents visited this weekend and they talk about my brothers and myself as if we were only children yesterday.  The age I am now is the age I will always imagine my parents as.  My mom with the long brown hair wearing shorts and watching my softball game.  My dad with ALL of his hair telling me to turn down my stereo or I will be deaf by the time I am 30!  I kind of long for those days sometimes.  Everyone does, I think.  So, this birthday brings lots of thought and happiness and nostalgia.  I'm excited to grow just as I was as an 8 year old and 16 year old.  Every new year brings more wisdom and God willing I will someday look back on 34 and feel the nostalgia of this birthday, too.

Has anyone tried meditation? Really?

After the worry last week  and reading Eat, Pray, Love and seeing my lovely therapist today I have decided to give it a try.  A real try.  I have been interested in meditation for some time.  Casey and I even participated in a Duke study about meditation.  The study, I found, was boring.  I think mainly because we had to write very descriptive logs about our experience.  I know this was a study and they had to gather data but it just really ruined the whole process for me.  The actual practice was calming and I always felt a bit lighter afterwards.  However, I could never meditate for too long.  Thoughts start to creep up in my head like gnats creep up in your face.  I tried my best to push them out but, usually, that was very hard.  So, the process ended.  After the study I didn't try again.  However, now something is pushing me toward trying again.  Maybe it's a lot of things:  my worry that seems to cripple me at times, the book I am reading, my therapist's admission that meditation and 'giving up the thought' is a practice she uses to stay balanced, maybe it's my age, or maybe it's just a fad-ish thing I want to try.  I think it's a combo of all of those things to be very honest.  I did practice some today and found I could only stay focused for about 5 minutes, but hey, that's was 5 minutes of complete mind silence without any distractions.  After a few minutes it seemed like the silence enveloped me and I could hear nothing around me except my breathing.  Oh, and the breathing slowed down tremendously.  The sound and rhythm of my breath helped keep me in a meditative state.  Just the in and out, in and out.  I felt calm afterwards.  It seemed like it had worked some.  I was happy to feel the lightness.  So my question to my on so many followers is:  What's your thought on meditation?  Hmmm?

CT scan results are in....

I have been in a holding position since Tuesday when I heard the news of a possible nodule in my lung.  See my previous post.  I was anxious, then calm, then anxious, then calm.  Well, yesterday I had the CT scan to determine what this 'nodule' was exactly.  I picked up the hubby and we drove to our nearest CT scan stand, which happens to be the mightly Duke University Medical Center.  The place I can navigate with a blindfold on and hands tied behind my back.  I was sent to the place of so many other CT scans.  Now, for those you have never had a CT (CAT) Scan it's interesting.  Basically, you lie on a table within a circle and that huge circle 'scans' a certain area of your body.  Think of the way a copier scans a piece of paper; it's kind of like that.  It's a pretty quick procedure, about 5 minutes.  As I lie on the table thinking of course, I notice the tiles on the ceilings.  Why do all medical facilities have the same ceiling tiles?  Waiting in examination rooms for a good portion of my life has brought me to notice the ceiling tiles, floor tiles, lighting, mirrors, you get the picture.  Yesterday I did my usual, take notice of the ceiling tiles and I counted them.  For some reason this relaxs me.  Before I knew it the scan was over.  Back to putting on my clothes and back to waiting.  I hate waiting.  My mother and my husband would say I am the most impatient person.  I am.  I was hoping for the results later that afternoon but I realized it was late afternoon already and most likely I wouldn't hear anything.  So, I did the best I could not to think about it.  I slept very well and got up for work this morning almost forgetting that I had something looming.  Of  course, at about 9:30am I was anxious.  I was ready to hear.  "Surely, they know something now", I thought.  I got impatient and emailed my doc.  He and I work together with a non-profit he founded (you may have heard of it, the Lung Transplant Foundation!) and I on certain occasions I have emailed him directly to find an answer to a medical question.  Normally, though, I don't bypass my coordinator because I don't like keeping her out of the loop.  Besides, I knew he was not in clinic today and he responds very fast.  He's an awesome doc in all the ways that count, but that's another blog post!  The first sentence of his email already had me at ease.  "Don't worry it looked normal."  The 'nodule' that I had been so frantic about was nothing more than a shadow of bone or blood vessels and that my "lungs looked great on CT".  Whew!  So I fretted over something that never was.  I felt relief but also very silly.  I have so many friends that are going through serious issues right now and they keep such grace and composure.  Why do I freak out so easily and what am I going to do the next time this is not a drill?  I wish I was the kind of girl that can just 'take each day as it comes' but I'm not and I've come to terms with that.  I will never be her.  I worry, probably a little too much, but that is who I have always been.  I worry about the future because it's uncertain.  Certainty is like my sneaky little best friend.  He's not always there when I need him.  I guess he's not there for anyone, really.  I will try to take a note from my happy go lucky, live each day like it's your last, take it step by step handbook and just be thankful for today and happy for the good results of a scary thought.  Oh, and thankful for the people that get me through the, "today could be my last day, where do I go from here?, what if the news is terrible!" thought. 

You don't have a fractured rib, but...

Last Friday I finally decided to ask for an x-ray of my chest after falling off of the bed two weeks ago.  See previous blog posts.  I knew all along it was just muscular because every time I worked out at the gym and stretched it didn't hurt, but I thought; better safe than sorry.  So, I got the call today from my lung transplant coordinator that indeed I didn't have any breaks or fractures but they the radiologist saw a small nodule in my right lung.  What?!  I was assured that they see this all of the time and it's most likely a pocket of some kind of fungal or bacterial infection.  Of course, being the freak that I am I immediately thought, C-A-N-C-E-R!  Then my thoughts went to "Calm down!".  My coordinator said I need a CT scan to check it out.  That's being scheduled sometime this week.  This is a new thing for me and I must admit that I went online and checked it all out.  Of course, that never helps because it's such a slippery slope.  You going from typing pulmonary nodule to, "OH MY GOD, I have that! And, it's fatal if not treated in 2 months, and it's a painful death.  OH DEAR LORD!".  So, I stopped put down my laptop and took a deep breath.  I'm over it now.  It is what it is and until I know more there is no use worrying.  I just have to remind myself as I go along day after day and all is good and all is fine that I still do have a chronic illness and a set of donated lungs.  This was a reminder.  Not the news I would have liked to end my day with but it's my life.  I will post about the CT scan and the results but until then I have a dishwasher full of dishes to unload because that's my life right now, too.