Best friend and partner in the fight

seahn

New member
Hello all, I'm new here. I myself have CF, and sadly soon before Christmas 2011 one of my best friends passed away from her battle with CF. I've known her sense I was 17, and am now 24 myself, she was 24. I'm sure most of you can assume where we met... in the hospital, but I must say, any time spent in the hospital with her was well worth it. I could go on about stories just relating to our time spent in the hospital, but I think I will share 2 of the my favorite stories I have of us causing havoc :p

The first story starts about a week after we met, and I will refer to her as V. V had actually been to this hospital longer than I had, as I moved to a new location ( and hospital :p ) around the age of 12, and really stayed out of the hospital most of the time. Then when I was 16-17 I started having complications with my pancreas, which ended up being the development of pancreatitis. So due to the pancreatits on top of my lungs, I started frequenting the west wing alot more (being admitted). Anyway, one night we were up, partially due to the treatment regimen protocol at that time, having treatments @ 2am, and decided to take a walk. We cleared this with the floor nurses even though it wasn't standard practice, signed ourselves out, and went for a walk. As we are walking we are talking about our experiences in each wing we had been in, as the more CFers started going to the hospital the greater demand for better facilities arose, so we changed wings about every year for a while. V having gone there for longer than me mentioned a wing I had never stayed in, nor even visited. So she recommended we head that way, and I figured why not. So she gives me the grand tour, and we head back, we get back on the floor just to find that the nurses were in a panic as they didn't know where we were, as they didn't think we would be gone so long. This next part I cant say for sure, it could have been true, or it could have been the nurses trying to scare us to not do something like that again. They told us that they were about 2 minutes from calling a certain alert, basically a kid napping, as V was 18 at the time, a legal adult, and I was 17, legally a minor. The nurses by no means were crude about it, I think after it was all said and done they had as much a laugh about it as we did.

The second story I guess is thanks to one of my favorite doctors to date. I will call her Z, she was a pediatrician, but her understanding of CFers was great, and it might not have even been that, it may have been that she just knew us so very well. Anyway, at the time, the hospital, depending on specific requirements, would allow patients who have been in for over 3 weeks, a day pass. Both V and I took these often, and if we weren't in the hospitol together, we made sure to get passes so the other could come and hang out, then go out and enjoy one anothers company, at a movie most often. Well Dr.Z surprised us, while we were both in the hospital with not only a day pass, but a personally escorted day pass. It was Dr.Z, her date, V and myself. She took us to the movies, a nice Italian restaurant (first time I had calamari, V refused to try it :p) and just a nice day at the shopping center where all this was located. Definitely a day I will never forget.

My loosing V came not 3 years after I lost another best friend, however he battled cancer in his early 20s, and did not have CF or any other illness before the cancer. And I guess the only thing that comforts me is my faith. Faith that tells me they both no longer have to suffer, and are surely in the presence of one another, enjoying each others company, as well as the company of many other great individuals.

I thank you for listening/reading, and hope you, and those who you love stay healthy, happy and with a sense of humor intact.

:)
 
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