The ugly "T" word

I will never forget standing at St. Elizabeth's ambulance parking talking to my mom and hearing her say "Dr. Trapnell wants to discuss lung transplant with you. He's upset that you haven't had this conversation yet."

At the time he wasn't my doctor and my only thought was "How DARE he bring up such a horrible thing!" I knew my health had declined over the past few years, but as most thought I guess, that I would be OK still. I figured that if I needed a transplant that my doctor at the time would have brought it up by now. 1 month later, I switched doctors so that Dr. Trapnell was my CF doctor and have never regretted that decision once. In fact, once I knew that he would take me as a patient, I didn't even have to hesitate to have all of my stuff transferred to him.

He brought it up in the kindest way, saying that he doesn't think that I NEED it right now, but that he thinks I will in the future. That's the time when you need to undergo all of the evaluations and get on the list. So many people are on the list and wait and wait and wait... and end up that they waited too long to be placed on the list and don't make it to surgery. We talked about it again a few times after that (I see him on a fairly regular basis at this point) and finally in April, I decided I was willing to continue with the process. That decision was a tough one for me. Not because I don't want to live, but because I was afraid of dieing during surgery, or worse... soon after surgery from complications. I know all too many people who either didn't make it to transplant or died from complications. Each complication being unique.

June 17. That's the day that I made my first appearance at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio....