Starlight Run

In March I embarked on a huge goal; to run a 5K. I trained for 10 weeks. Starting out running 1 mile 3 times a week and adding .25 miles each week until I was able to run the 3 miles.

That sounds easy enough, right? Well, maybe for those of you who have nice pretty pink healthy lunge tissue. For me, my gosh it was a struggle. It's the kinda of struggle that pushed me to do more, to continue on with my goal and most importantly taught me I could do it if I worked hard and prepared enough.

The biggest struggle was coughing while running. I would be sure not to drink lots of water right before I went for a run, but I am telling you as soon as I coughed while running I would not be able to hold my pee. As you can imagine running while the mucus in your lungs is rattling (weezing) causing you to cough uncontrollably and peeing your pants is a ridiculously saddening feeling for a grow adult. However, as I continued to fight thru the embarrasment, pain of burning lungs, sore abs from coughing and of course sore legs from all the running I gained confidence. I also started to not care about peeing pants. Who was going to know? And if they did why did I care what they thought? They don't know me or my situation to appreciate the fact that I was still attempting to reach for the stars. But I did learn to run in black pants rather than bright colors or gray!

On June 4th I ran the 5K Starlight Fun run in Portland Oregon. On June 4th I dug deeper into my mental and physical depths of strength than ever before. On June 4th I crossed the finish line holding my husbands hand and greeted my mom on the other side.

~Doodlin'

Twenty-nine

This year's birthday was spent just how I wanted; in my pj's watching tv all day long with cheese pizza topped with a sliced tomato for dinner. Perfect.

For years I have been celebrating by going out to dinner to some other sort of event and each year I wonder why I do that to myself. Yes, it's fun. Yes, I enjoy getting all attention for one day. Yes, I love catching up with old friends and family. But.....

Each year gets harder and harder to process emotionally. Each year on or the day before my birthday I feel like my emotions are a mixed bag of nuts. Some emotions are tasty and sweet while others are salty (literally from tears). With each passing year I get closer and closer to the median survival age of 36. I think my gosh, 36 is only 7 years away, I have so much I want to accomplish before then. I feel like the timer for my life is running out on EVERYTHING. I think of what I have accomplished thus far and it simply is not acceptable to me. I want and need to put more footprints in this life. I start to make lists of things I need to do and things I want to do before the next years birthday. I think of sweet things to say to those I love so that I can be sure they know how I felt about them should 7 years go so fast that I forget to say them.

In between frantic thoughts of only having 7 years I think about all the amazing things I have gotten to do. All the great, and I do mean great, people I have encountered in just 29 years. The fact that I spend the last 5 years with a wonderful, caring, intellegent, hardworking, and compassionate husband. I am thankful that I have become an auntie two times over in the past few years. I think fondly on all the trips with all the different people I have been so blessed to travel with and all the people I have met during our travels. The list goes on and on.........

In my attempt to grab the good nuts yesterday I ended up grabing a few unfavorable ones. But the not-so-good-ones help me appreciate the goods ones soooo much more.

~Doodlin'

Thank you to all my peeps for the wonderful happy birthday wishes.

Love thru my diseased teenage eyes

Is love in our teen years really possible? I can pose this question now but in the moments of being 11-to-18 yrs old this question had a definite answer, yes! I sought out to find deep meaningful love from boys, not men or young men but boys. Of course that’s not how I saw it then, they were strapping young men ready to love so fiercely that I had to have their love in order to be someone. In order to be recognized as someone worth more than the disease my body harbored from both male and female peers. I simply thought that if I ‘became’ the person they wanted I could at least get a taste of what love was.  I suppressed so much of who I was, who I wanted to become that I actually became a person I hated.  I became a menace to society. I began dating boys whose hobbies included; stealing, drinking, drugs, sex, and where in and out of juvenile detention. This in my heart was not the road I wanted but the only road I thought would lead me to love.

The other aspect was that my dad had been a rebel of a teenager and I loved my dad. So I thought that if he is capable of love then so are these boys. The saying that little girls grow up to find partners like their fathers is true, unless, they have been raised in an environment that fosters self-esteem that will give them the confidence to reach higher, no matter how great their fathers were.

I went thru many boyfriends and after the end of each I truly felt like I would never find another. The cycle of dating and breaking up was crushing to my already invisible self-esteem. I was hiding so much of the true me and trying to fit a mold of someone I was not that it lead me to want to end my life.

In November 1999 was my first attempt to end my life. After having broken up with a boyfriend for infidelity (can that word even be used in teenage romance?). A boyfriend who was very close to my family, who had on a very basic level supported me thru some hard times in my illness along with my dad’s death, cheated on me. That experience was horrific for many reasons and it only etched deeper in my heart that I was damaged and was not worthy of truly being loved by a boy or man or anyone for that matter.

The idea that I was damaged goods was so powerful, mostly because no one every said to me that I wasn’t. No one of influence in my life ever spoke to me about my self-worth; that I was worth everything the world had to offer. Just a short year after my first attempt to take my life I tried to take it again. Looking back the first attempt really was a plea for help, a cry for attention. The attention needed was NOT my CF but rather my worth as a young impressionable female. The second attempt really was a true wholehearted desire to leave this world. I wanted to be free of discrimination, free of societies idea of value, free of the pain that accompanied CF. All of these things I could not or did not have maturity to express in verbal format.

During the second attempt my mother worked with healthcare professionals to help get me the best care. Their recommendation was an inpatient stay at Emanuel Hospital’s psychiatric ward. In preparation for this stay, I was taken directly from the psych ward at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend, Oregon to Emanuel in Portland, Oregon by security car without my mom or anyone. Just a locked police car of sorts that way I couldn’t escape with my bags that my mother had pack for me. All the clothing she packed had to meet certain requirements; like no drawstrings, as I could use the strings to hang myself. This was and is a very serious side of illness or depression. Upon arrival and after check-in I was in my barren room that consisted of a bare mattress on the floor and toilet whose flushing system was controlled outside my locked room, to my surprise I found a note that my mother had written while packing my bags….. “ I will go the ends of the earth for you.” Writing that makes me cry to this day. That statement was so powerful and still is powerful. I realized that I could push my mother, who loved me more than anyone else on earth, to a point of breaking and she would still write something like that. She, no matter whom else, would love me thru my darkest days. These boys would come and go. I would love and hate. I would find happiness only to have it taken. Yet my mother will always be there, to go to the ends of the earth with and for me!

I never did find that one and only during my teenage years. He never came along. I did find my strength and started to uncover my self-worth, but just a glimpse.

~Doodlin'

Wrapping it up

As we begin closing the books on May 2011, I want to conclude CF Awareness Month by saying this....

CF is horrible, not matter what side of the coin we look at.
CF has taken many things away from me and others with CF.
CF is painful; emotionally and physically.

... BUT...

CF has taught me many lessons for which I am SO grateful for.
CF has made me compassionate.
CF has made me fiercely independent.
CF has made me wise beyond my years.
CF has made me see what a blessing every breath we ALL take is.
CF has allowed me to be vulnerable.
CF has shown me love beyond measures.

... AND...

We might find a cure in my lifetime, but either way I have GOD on my side trumping EVERYTHING.
My life is fantastic because I have chosen mind over body; not every moment, but a good chunk of it.
We all will die, no pill or cure or potion or lotion will change this.

... THEREFORE...

I promise to be passionate about life until I take my last breath.
I promise to attempt to make the world better while I am here or at least make a difference.
I promise to never loose hope in life and justice for our out of control world.

Thank you for taking the time to read this months posts about Cystic Fibrosis. Knowledge is power!

Life is rich and messy. I hope I have enriched it.

~Doodlin'

Face of Flexibilty

My plan to introduce a new face of CF weekly was rudely interupted by Blogger not working last week. Which is so interesting because this weeks new face of CF presents that being flexible is vital to fighting CF with positive energy. Being able to take the challenges with some degree of flexibilty will allow you to live the best life you can.

Jerry Cahill has/is doing just that. He hasn't given up doing what he wants to do or enjoys doing but rather he has remained flexible as CF continues to throw rocks in his path. It's Not About CF gracioulsy introduces us into Jerry's CF journey and how he has handled this every changing disease.

~Doodlin'

Faces of Inspiration

CF has many faces. All have different journey's, different perspectives on CF and life and each have different symptoms from CF. Not every CF journey is devastatingly sad nor hopeful. But....but....some are. A CF journey that I find hopeful and inspirational is the one of a set of twins, Click Here to see their journey.

For me, I need both the hopeful and sad stories to gleam perspective from. For me, CF has given me things in life that I would not have had the opportunity for without it. It has given me insight where my eyes would been closed.

Don't be mistaken, I want need a cure.

So today I want you to see that hope can come from devastation and something beautiful from such ugliness, by reading about The Power of Two (please click the "Click Here" words).

~Doodlin'

A Face to CF

May is National CF Awareness Month.... not sure how I feel about this. I mean it's great that enough "Big" people (government) are aware of CF and the devastation it brings but it also deeply saddens me to think that we need a month because of how prevalent it really is, you know, sort of like National Adoption Month (November) there are so many orphans in the world that we need a month designated to making people aware of such crisis against humanity.

Well, the primary reason for dedicating an entire month is to focus on fundraising. Another sad, reality, money. But a secondary, which should be primary in my mind, is about getting those with CF's stories out to the world in hopes to put a face with CF. You all have seen my face, but take a look at this sweet boy, Conner.

This is why May is National CF Awareness Month. If you feel have the resources I encourage you to donate here or if you don't then please take sometime to educate yourself about CF.

~Doodlin'