*5 years*

I feel awful that I haven’t written in a year!  But on another hand, I guess it’s a great thing because nothing too dramatic has been going on.  I hit FIVE YEARS with my double lung transplant in June!  I still can’t believe it.  I really can’t.  Never did I think the day would come when I would say five years.  I have always been even-keeled about my situation, wondering if I could defy odds and still be around a year later…much less 5 years later…yet here I am.  Thanks be to God!  Unbelievable.

These five years have been just amazing.  I still have my health issues and my struggles.  My lungs themselves are not causing any real issues.  I am still at about 75% lung function.  That’s great for me compared to where I have been.  But, I still struggle with my auto-immune disease.  Sometimes I feel great and sometimes not.  I still struggle with anxiety and PTSD.  Side effects of my medications.  Heart troubles at times.  Still proving that this double lung transplant was definitely trading one set of problems for another.  But through all of it, I am still here.  I am breathing, and I am here.  I could not feel happier or more blessed for that.

As I am sure I have stated in so many of my blogs, we are HUGE Christmas buffs in our house.  We were all decorated up a week before Thanksgiving.  We have been enjoying our tree and home decor and have done all types of Christmas things already!  I love it.  As easy as it is to feel resentful for the hand I have been dealt with all of my health issues, I know that the passion and gratefulness for life that I have now would not have been the case had it not been for my circumstances.  So, I guess it is true that God knew what he was doing.  Feeling the gratitude that I do now for my life, I would never want to live any other way.

Now, being honest, I have had multiple emotional moments this past month thinking about Christmas.  With every moment I am enjoying with my family, I find myself thinking about the sadness of what if it is my last?  What if it is the last time I put up the tree with the kids?  What if this is the last Christmas program I get to see at school?  What if this is the last season of making Christmas lists with the kids?

I have tortured myself in the past year also with sports as well.  We are a huge sports family.  There is almost nothing in the world that I love more than watching my boys play sports.  The boys play travel baseball and play other sports as well.  I am BY FAR their biggest fan.  Never missing a game.  Always being their cheerleader.  I am there to get their Gatorades.  There to support them and love them.  There to wet their cooling towels between innings.  But what if this is my last season with them?  What happens when they have their first games without me and look out into the crowd and I am not there?  I can’t stand the thoughts.  I can’t stand the idea of missing anything.  I am not a crier, but this gets me crying.  A lot.

I quickly get reigned in by my amazing hubby.  My feelings are valid, and they will never go away.  All I can do is make every moment count…and I do.  I most certainly do.  I plan on living every day of this Christmas season like it’s my last!  Whether it is or it’s not.  And I hope all of my friends and family do as well.

Merry Christmas!  As always, thank you for all of the love and support.