Four Year Lungiversary!

It's my four year lungiversary tomorrow! What else to say that I haven't already said other years? I'm so thankful for these extra years I've had because of my donor. The transplant changed my life and I could make an endless list of all the things I've done since transplant that I would have missed because I would have died. The gratitude I feel toward the donor and their family for these years and everything I've been able to do has not abated over the years.

Adorable card that Mom made for me.

I've been thinking about my actual transplant experience a lot lately as I work my way through the first set of book edits from my editor. There's no escaping thinking about my transplant when I'm looking at the document that talks about it for hours on end. 

Writing the book helped relieve a lot of my post-transplant anxiety but editing and rereading the play by play of my recovery is still hard. It's like reading an old diary at this point. I remember the major plot points but I've forgotten the emotion behind the event until I start reading it again. Four years out of transplant and three since my cancer diagnosis, and the whole experience sometimes feels like it happened to a different person. Maybe because I was drug induced most of the time and also because it's hard to remember what it was like to be so tired that I could barely walk to the bathroom. I promise the book won't be that intense to read as someone who is more apart from the story. But the experience was hard.
There's nothing easy about a lung transplant. 

The doctor at my four year check up in Toronto last week reminded me that living post-transplant is not an exact science and the doctors are still figuring it out. Because I'm off one of the major anti-rejection medications due to the cancer, he said he wanted to adjust my target levels for my immunosuppresent medication because he feels the risk of PTLD returning at this point is low. But then he said "I'll have to talk to another doctor about this, we don't know what the target should be for you. There's no guide for this type of thing." It's a reminder that no matter how good the medication is now, how good survival rates are, it's still a relatively new science and the researchers and doctors are still learning and exploring ways to make it easier.

I forget sometimes that I still don't have the stamina and energy of a healthy person. I was so tired getting back from Toronto and couldn't figure out why until Amy gently reminded me that I don't recover the way other people do. I think I'm normally healthy until I start going to bed at 9pm and sleeping for 11 hours straight to recover from a four day trip. I may have also picked something up on the plane due to my tendency to catch every infection that's going around.

Regardless, I'm doing fantastic. I made it four years with no signs of rejection *knock on wood* I didn't let myself imagine that I would be at this point while I was waiting for lungs. I never dreamed I would feel this good. That I would have started wilderness hiking with Mom, or been able to travel so much, or spent nights taking pictures under the stars with Amy. So many moments big and small that I appreciate.

Life is amazing. Never take it for granted.

Star gazing under the full moon.