Thirty-five Percent...

Do you ever get news that just sort of Rocks ya?

Not really in a good or a bad way...it just throws you for a loop?

Like, you were rolling along and all of a sudden you find something out and you're like, "Huh? Really? I never would've guessed that?"

I'm talking about news about yourself, by the way.

I feel like I once wrote a blog post that started very similar to this.  That time it was news about stuff you had lived your life thinking could never happen, and then all of sudden you were told something was a possibility.  That time I was talking about Dr. Eigen telling me that it may be possible for Chris and I to have a baby biologically. 

This time, it's about my lung function...


At church on Sunday, we were ripping our tape measures, and mine started at 38.5, and ended with the normal life expectancy for a woman, of 81.  This was supposed to show us how much "time" we potentially have left on this earth.  We were to be thinking about what impact we want to have with the time we have left. How will we make the time we have left meaningful?

I sat there and looked at that tape measure and I paused...


Thirty-five percent


Maybe because I'm approaching 39 this year...

Maybe because I know that the median life expectancy for someone with CF is now 44 years old...

Maybe because that number is the lowest I've seen and I pray it was just a fluke...

Maybe because in some ways I feel like I'm in denial about that number and I tell myself I don't function there...

Something had to be wrong with that machine in December, right?

Maybe they didn't calibrate it that day?

I mean, do people with a lung function at that number work full time?  Do they "test" in to the advanced workout group?  Do they have 98% SpO2 saturations when checked, on room air oxygen?  Do they go over a year without an exacerbation that lands them in the hospital or on Home IV? Do they work full time while they're on Home IV?

Do they?

I've always been somewhat of an exception to the rule when it comes to my CF.

If it works for others, a lot of times it doesn't for me.

I pride myself in not letting CF hold me back. I like that I can proudly and boldly say, "I have CF, it does NOT have me!"


I've been thinking about my life, or rather, my mortality, since that appointment in December. 

The quality of it vs the quantity...

The meaningfulness of it all...

The changes I am facing so that I can have both quantity and quality...

I paused and I thought, am I looking at the right measure? Should I have ripped this sucker way further down than where I did?

Then I added 5 more centimeters because I remembered Chris and I are going together at 86 of Euthanasia.

Because thirty-five is just a number on a computer.