Nineteen

 

…Nineteen years, that is, since my double-lung transplant at the wondrous Cleveland Clinic (technically, I won’t hit nineteen years until August 26^th. Unless I step into an open manhole, I should make it.)*

My visit last weekend was both medical and pleasure. Besides my yearly checkup, I spent the weekend with my best friend Steve and his wife, Dede. Steve and I have been best friends since our first day of high school way, way, way back in the Nixon administration.**

My checkup was blissfully routine—my vital signs, breathing tests, chest x-ray and bloodwork were all unremarkable, which is remarkable. I’m a lucky man. I sat next to a woman in the lab waiting area and, as is my habit, nosily asked her, “Did you have a transplant?”

“Yes, lung, on April first,” she said. “Did you?”

It feels so great in situations like that to say, “Yes, in 2004.”*** I like to think laying that ancient date on patients like her gives them a renewed feeling of hope and possibility. She asked me if I ever get used to all of the medications. I told her yes. The whole routine has become routine for me and it will for her.

Then, amazingly, waiting for breathing tests on the ninth floor, I ran into another woman who had her transplant on April 21^st, and an almost identical conversation ensued. It felt great being an elder statesman of the transplant community.

The survival statistics say, sadly, that one of those women won’t make her sixth year anniversary. But nobody knows what the future has in store for them, or me, or any of us. Carpe diem!

* Don't put it past me

** Nixon seemed, then, to be the worst president imaginable. How naïve we were.

*** W seemed, then, to be the worst president imaginable. How naïve we were.