To: Tracy360, (Cont'd)
When I was 8, a playground game went bad and I ended in the hospital with a "bruised" kidney. They didn't hospitalize a patient w/bruised kidney for a week then or now. Rather ignorantly, the doctor popped Xrays up on the viewer, and as my big ears and eyes tuned in, he drew his finger around one kidney and then the other. The concern was if the kidney, resembling two pieces could be saved or whether part or all of it was to die. Although privately frightened, I shared the room with a boy of 10 with a shotgun wound to the back of the head. I lay wide awake hring my first death rattle. As soon as he began making noise, I called the nurse station. In quiet pandimonium, the doctor ripped the cast from his small head and with a respiratory crash cart and his medical bag, quietly prolonged his life long enough to understand his next stop was Heaven. The boy died, a girl in isolation died the day before I was discharged. Earlier in the week a couple rooms of boys talked our parents into buying gifts. The birthday party was sweet. Half the cake and ice cream was diverted prior to going into isolation. Years later when my little sister ended up in pediatric ICU, I realized, this is where I spent my worried week. We all die, that in part defines us. Those of us who endure the supreme inconvenience (CF) interfering with our lives as we try to minimize CF and live the most normal lives we can.