I finally have news

I have been wondering how to write this?  It's not that easy.  I don't even know exactly how I feel about it.  It is the oddest feeling.  Sometimes relieved, sometimes hopeless, and other times just numb.

So... Last night I got the call I had been waiting for.  As soon as the woman told me her name and where she was calling from I swear it was like I was in a tunnel hearing only her words.
It was a call from the University of Washington that I had been waiting for all this time.  Whatever she said would determine my future and how it would be lived.

As it turns out... I will not be having the surgery at this time.  She told me my FEV 1 #'s are too high to qualify for  the surgery.  She told me to continue on with my Pulmonologist and they will be testing me every 6 months. 

This is bittersweet for me.  I was scared to death to have the surgery.  What I read online and those I spoke with had extreme anxiety and discomfort with the surgery and post op.  However, if the results were good there was a chance I could come off of oxygen for maybe years. 
I had been preparing myself for it.  Losing weight as fast as I could, going through all those tests, laying in bed at night wondering if I was going to come out of it... I had talked myself into it.  Set my mind to it.  And now........  Well... Now nothing.  I will go on with my days just like I have been for a year.

I feel like this whole year has been building to this and now I find out I will continue to decline until I get serious enough for them to do the procedure.  I have no idea how long that will be.  It feels odd to just be left to decline.  That is the nature of emphysema/copd though. 

One does not get better.  I can and will however do whatever I can to slow the progression down.  Losing weight is helping to make breathing easier... not better, just easier to get air in.  Does that make sense?
The slimmer I get I think the easier it will get also.  I am exercising which will help my lung function.  It doesn't matter to me that I exercise with a cannula on.  I had hopes of getting rid of it.... but that is just not to be.

It's really odd to finally after all these years be smoke free, be exercising, losing weight & taking better care of myself ... only to continue on a downhill slide.

Please don't judge me badly for being so dramatic.  I will see the positive in this.  Already I am telling myself look... this is what you have to work with and you can only do what you can do.  I am putting all my effort into taking life day by day.  I am trying to have no expectations beyond tomorrow.  All I can do is take it one day at a time. 


(This will be my last post with the label LVRS)