Its September and it seems like time is flying.
Laila started school as a first grader, and I wish I could time freeze everything. She is just a funny, artistic, energetic, dramatic, stubborn, beautiful, too smart for her own good, little girl. She gives me reasons to laugh ALL the time. Her sense of humor in not missing. Her patience maybe, but not her sense of humor. She is in piano and ballet this year, and loving both. It goes with her artistic and dramatic side. She loves dresses, glitter, hair pretties, riding her bike (which she just learned to do before school started), horses, crayons, singing, cooking, Yahtzee, baseball, and just being a free spirit.
Jeremy is working hard, whether it be at his office and church, or his temporary office on our new patio. He also started the fall routine, of teaching classes, and classes, and meetings, with a side of meetings. He has been enjoying listening to the Tigers, having people over on the weekend, sweating this summer since it will be chilly out soon, getting caught up on Dr. Who (which he and Laila both really like, I just think it looks like Power Rangers for adults. Those 2 are just crazy) and peace and quiet while Laila is at school! Right now he is working on the service for Christ the King...and singing hymns while he does it (and getting a tad upset because his computer just closed his program!)
I have been feeling very good lately! My lungs feel great, and all tests I do at home are high...good lung function. My energy comes and goes, as well as my shakes, but I have been pretty good about just listening to what my body tells me. Hence the 8 hours of bing watching Greys Anatomy on the couch yesterday. But other days, I don't stop until I hit the pillow. I actually have really been enjoying this normal life. I have been meal planning, cleaning (TONS), sitting on the new patio reading, cooking, enjoying the company we have, and always trying to plan the next month out.
I am still learning that my body is different. YAY, I can breathe! But, man, it was a long road to get here. I am often reminded of that road when I see my scars, hear the stories, or when my hand rubs against the wire in my chest. YAY, I can breathe! But man, again, that road was hard. I was close to death. And even though, like I have said before, I didn't see it at the time, but yes...I was in fact dying.
I just said to Jeremy the other day, its weird to think if I would not have been blessed with those lungs at that time, I wouldn't be here right now. And I know what you are thinking..."you don't know that, Cassie!"...but let me tell you I do know that. I understand that everything is/was in God's hands, so if he wanted me to live on 18% lung function for years, that I could have. But I remember that feeling of not breathing. I remember the feeling of dying.
The transplant, the dry run, the almost dying. They have all changed every part of who I am. And I am not just talking about physically changing which lungs I had. I am talking about mentally too. I can say that all of it is behind me, I can. I can say I think more about living now, than dying. And I am. I can say that all that doesn't matter now, and I guess it doesn't. But it all shaped me into the Cassie I am today. The one sitting here writing this blog.
She is so different than who I was. And I think that's ok, right? Sometimes I wonder. I wonder who I was, and if I ever liked that person. Or if I like this person. They are honestly so different. he strange thing is, I am not sure when it all changed, it was so gradually fast, that I blinked and missed it.
But I will save all that for another time, another blog.
