It's Not Fair! 😭😭😭😭

Our church is offering a course in caring for people going through tough times. A person trained this way would be able to provide support to one person at a time, meeting with that person once a week for about an hour. I wanted to take the training. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that a support person was someone I would NEED, not someone I should become. As I journey through my illness, I will need someone to go with me. Of course, Colleen will be there to support me. But who will support her? We’ll need someone to join us, and someone with Christian beliefs would obviously be our first choice. We spoke with a lady after church this morning. Her name is Dale. She’s really nice. It’s our hope that she might connect us to someone within the church, someone compassionate, and hopefully, not too "preachy."   

Brigitte is another friend we’ve found at our new church. It turns out that Brigitte is an ICU nurse who works with the transplant programme at Toronto General. What a treasure she is! We told her about the doctor wanting to prescribe oxygen for me. Brigitte says oxygen is a good idea. She said oxygen is critical to all parts of the body, and oxygen deprivation, even a little, stresses vital organs. She spoke about the importance of supplemental oxygen to help preserve my heart and organs thereby making me a better candidate for transplant. When I told her how an oxygen prescription would prohibitively increase the cost of travel insurance and spoil our travel plans, she agreed. 

"Travel is fine," she said, “if that’s what you want to do. But you need to be aware that your choices have consequences. You can refuse the oxygen and see the world, or fill the prescription and stay home. Either way, transplant or not, it’ll be a very rocky road. It’s important you understand that.”

It seems I can live longer, or better. But not both. And so I must choose: Either use oxygen to increase my chance of a transplant, or do without it in order to travel and enjoy Life for as long as I can.

But how can I choose? 

How? 

Why must I have to? 

This is not fair! 

Fuck. 😭😭😭