Blindsided by CF

Greetings. I was hoping to avoid this topic. COVID-19 has already changed our way of life. The last time our way of life was changed by a global event was September 11, 2001. Liberties and freedoms were sacrificed for security. Are we safer? Maybe, but it is the threats closer to home now that I write about this.

As we all know, “social distancing” is a major topic nationally. Some people do not want to wear masks. Some people do not want to “social distance”. Some people do not think life has changed, they are completely oblivious to ANYTHING but their own selfish world.

Yesterday, I had a normal visit scheduled with my CF doctor. Go in, get a PFT (Pulmonary Function Test), and get refills for my meds. “easy peasy lemon squeezy”, right? Nope.

When I went in, my temperature was normal, but on the high side. It was not a normal HOT Georgia day. I brushed that off to walking with a hat on. Yes, wearing a hat can cause your temperature to increase. Who knew!?

When I went into the exam room, I had the normal vitals taken, then I had my PFT (which was a little lower than last time), time for the doctor to take a listen to my lungs. The look he gave me was not encouraging.

“Have you been tested for COVID-19 yet?” he asked. I replied, “No, I have been careful to social distance myself and I always wear a mask.” “Anyone around your social circles not practicing smart social distancing?” he asked. I replied, “Matter-of-fact, yes. My ex-wife is not. She recently told me that, she does not feel that she needs to social distance herself or our daughter from her new boyfriend.  In addition, she told me that it is more important for our daughter to get to know him and his family. Therefore, she would not limit her social contact based on my illness.  Even if it means I cannot see my daughter.”

‘Well, that kind of thinking is what causes deaths.” he said calmly. He continued, “I am hearing things in your chest, that are in-line with COVID-19 sounds/rattles. Let’s get you over to the Acute Pulmonary Center at Emory, now!  We should have the results in 72 hours. You are “high-risk” your ex-wife knows this and she is being “flippant” about your health and your ability to see your daughter?” My response was a single, “Yes.”

Within the hour I was at the Center. Talk about security and safety protocols in place. I was impressed. I never saw another patient, but the center was full. As I walked down an indiscreet hall-way, the only identifying marks were human temperatures on the doors to the exam rooms. All technicians were in covered FULLY. Even their heads were surrounded by headgear. If anyone has any doubts about this disease, go into one of these testing centers. It is something out of the movie, “Outbreak”.

I will not go into the test. I will just say, it is an experience I do not want to repeat anytime soon.

I sent emails to my ex-wife letting her know about the test. This was important because 1) I was to have my daughter for the next week for our annual Daddy/Daughter vacation and 2)If I test positive, more than likely, it is game over for me.

Not ONE(1) response from the ex. The Borg are more caring.

All thru the night, I was afraid of the outcome. For a CF patient to be given a “Positive” test result with COVID is a slow and painful death sentence. The doctor told me, if I go into the hospital, there is a high probability that I might not come out. There is no cure. All they can do is make me comfortable. Wow, the truth hurts.

I sent an email to some close friends, letting them know. All responded, “I am here for you!”

Well, today, less then 24 hrs later the results came back, negative. This is GREAT news. I told my friends and my ex-wife. Her response, “Thanks for letting me know.” My friends, “God is watching over you. I am so relieved to know you okay.” My response to them, “Yes, I am too. But what about next time?”

Yep, I might have to go thru this again and again because of selfishness, lack of empathy, lack of common sense, lack of compassion for others, and totally disregard for respect others. Nevermind, endangering a child.

Welcome to my CF world with an ex that does not look beyond her own self-interests. It sucks, but it is life. And my life is my daughter.

‘Nuff said!

Greetings all. It has been a while since my last post. A lot has occurred since my last post. Let’s see, 2020 started with wrath. Natural disasters started the year. Followed by a global pandemic. Got a publisher for my book(s). Started and got laid-off from a new job. My daughter is being told by her mother that, “Daddy is going to heaven soon!” and she is being introduced to her “New Daddy” now. It amazes me that her mother is using the pandemic as a reason to distance my daughter from me.

During these times, one finds out very quickly who their friends and family that matters. But, in the grand scheme of the universe, we are islands, in a vast ocean.

Guess it is pasta for me again for dinner.

Each month I visit my local pharmacy. Walk upto the counter and give a sizable percentage of my income for medication I need to breathe! Yep, you read that right, I pay to breathe every month!

Sometimes pharmacists, even the ones that know me, squint at the price as if they know something cannot be right! Sometimes they even comment, “Are you aware of the co-pay of this?” That happens more times than I can count. Trust me.

My book Onebreath is about that and more. The idea/concept that there are people out in the world that HAVE TO pay a large price just to breathe.

The price does not just consist of money. As you will read, it has cost me; love, relationships, family and altered my view on the world and what is REALLY important to life.

I have had an enriched life. The characters and experiences I have encountered are part of my history. A history I want to share with the world. Remember, history does not change, just the facts that consist of it does.

What you will read here and in my book are factual. Life consists of many stories, I will be sharing some of mine with you. (Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty. Or maybe they have not been. Either way, they are part of my history and what does history NOT do…’ Nuff said!)

Kaye abandoned her $40,000 Lexus. The day she deserted the car, she simply pulled over and called an Uber. Not two weeks later, she was entertaining the idea of getting a new car that didn’t have so many issues.

The day she bought her Lexus was one of the best days of her life. Pulling out of the dealership, she revved the engine while cranking her favorites tunes, windows down. Prior to her purchase, she’d spent a lot of time researching what car to buy. Kaye wanted something dependable, but with a slight edge of luxury, and Lexus seemed the perfect fit.

When pressed on why she ditched the Lexus, Kaye lamented the car “wasn’t what she expected.” She explained that about every week the car ran out of gas. Her Lexus also developed small dings she hadn’t put there either. Those imperfections — over time — wore on her. A major issue, Kaye emphasized, was that some problems stemmed from the internal wiring. However, due to her busy work schedule, she never had time to make it to the dealership for repairs or tune-ups. “Who has time for that, anyway?  It’s a semi-new car for god sakes!” Kaye exclaimed.  The last straw was when the car stalled, and she was forced to pull over.  Frustrated, she called an Uber and abandoned the once adorned vehicle.

Kaye — while hypothetical — is a fool.  Each of us would scoff at her absurd notion of a car not requiring maintenance. Yet, the way she treated her car is how many of us treat marriages, friendships, or romantic relationships.

Commitment Issues 101

As a child I remember getting birthday invitations in the mail or while at school.  In several invitations, there was a simple request — Please RSVP by (certain date).  The host always needed a headcount to ensure the proper amount of food, beverages, and cake were ample enough to satisfy growing teenagers.  I still get these invitations today, albeit in a more digital form. There’s Evite, Facebook invitations, and I even still retain the traditional practice of a wedding invitation via snail mail. Where we once responded quickly and let the host know if we could attend, these days brides scramble to get a final headcount.

We love to pretend we’re busy or “forgot” but deep down we all perceive the real reason.  We don’t want to commit to the event in case something better comes along.  There’s genuine anxiety for several young people thinking up hypothetical situations they could miss out on if they commit themselves to an event.  Because there’s fear and ample distrust of commitment, we extend this thinking into our relationships. If it’s easy and fun, we’ll be there! If it sounds like work, no thanks, I’m out.  No wonder so many are dissatisfied in their friendships and romantic relationships.  We refuse to commit to anything and are thus a bunch of flakes when times get tough.

People then become commodities — like cars — except we treat them worse.  You shouldn’t have to work at your marriage or do tune-ups.  It should just work from the beginning!  That friend of yours got passive aggressive and their wiring seems off?  Better bail.  What do you mean I’m a bad friend/boyfriend?  I’m the one who’s lonely.  You should pour into my needs!  Gas me up!

So, commit to anyone who will take work and maintenance?   No, thank you. Where’s that Staples Easy Button?

The side effect of our failure to commit to anything is in plain view.  We ghost, bench, or zombie our dates.  We jump from relationship to relationship because there are so many damn fish in the online sea.  We even live together to test out whether we want to commit.  When there’s conflict in friendships, we find new friends, isolate, or disengage.  We complain about that there’s not an app that can help us find friends.

For others of us, it’s that we saw parents who were “committed” but seemed to hate each other.  There was abuse or violence.  Commitment then seems like a way to stay trapped in an unending prison sentence with disastrous results.

But what if commitment is an antidote to what ails you?

Skin Deep

“How are you doing?”

I ask after biting into my sandwich then look up.  My friend finishes his bite, swallows, then begins.  His wife is battling breast cancer, recently lost her hair from the chemo, and they have two small children.  The cancer has taken a toll on him and he’s honest about where he is struggling.  As he talks, it occurs to me that we have been friends for almost thirty (30) years.  We’ve had good times and some bad ones.  There is often laughter when remembering idiotic moments in our friendship — but nevertheless — we’ve remained friends.  Now, we are the “grown-ups” in the room.

In much of masculine culture, there is a resistance to emotions and vulnerability.  Our relationships become skin deep with our friends and carry over into romantic relationships.  Many men are accused by their partner of being “emotionally distant.”  I know part of why men do this is a fear of rejection.  We want someone to commit to us, but we are afraid if we reveal all of who we are, we’ll be seen as weak or rejected outright.  We then become self-fulfilling prophecies who don’t know how to commit to anything — friends, girlfriends, jobs, or family.  For several men, their relationships remain skin deep and with the culture‘s deep cynicism about commitment, we follow the trends.  Serial dating.  Ghosting.  Surface level friends we play fantasy football with but never talk to.

Over lunch with my friend, I realized that — though we live states apart — we have fought to put time into our relationship.  We remain committed friends through thick and thin.  He was there for me after I received my diagnosis, and now I get to be there for him through his wife’s cancer.  We keep putting gas in the tank, checking in for tune-ups, and making sure our “wiring” is not getting out of whack.  After all, isn’t that what most of us want?  A working relationship?

I have long wondered what we are to do now that we are forced to live in a world with commitment issues.  It would appear the status quo is to abandon relationships that “don’t work.”  But what if we became the ones who finally started gassing up the proverbial car in our relationships?

Perhaps then, we would not have so many stranded “cars” on the side of the road.

I recently asked several of my friends, married and single, “Tell me about your best and worst stories about dating.  Would you say dating is hard these days?”

One of my favorite movie scenes is from the final “Lord of the Rings — The Return of the King”.  Aragorn arrives late to a battle the fellowship is losing.  Hopping off a boat, he draws his sword and confronts a crowd of enemies who laugh at the sight of one man.  That is, until Aragorn’s ghost army piles out of the boat and overruns every combatant on the field leaving a wake of destruction.  Awesome!

So when I asked my question about dating, the scene from Lord of the Rings came flooding back.  One friend hopped out of the proverbial boat and told me her story.  By the next day, story after story overran my email.  Most of them provide a picture of the littered bodies on the field of dating.

“Online dating is THE WORST.”  A friend once huffed while rolling her eyes.  Each time I ask friends, ranging from their early twenties (millennial, ‘Nuff said)  to their forties (Gen X) — how is the dating pool?  Most of the time the response starts with, “Let me tell you a story…” or “I know what it is like to have a stalker…after the first date!”  For all the talk of ease that a dating app “claims” for a potential date, the impression I am left with is, everyone is swimming in a pool they all took a massive s**t in.  Instead of getting out of that pool, everyone decided they need to keep swimming in it.  Or even worse, more people “jump in”.  Why, because that is the pool everyone is swimming in.

The conclusion I came to was; everyone is trying to date, but they are all miserable.  Note, some of them will always be miserable.  They just look for an excuse to be.  Although in the end, it is all self-inflicted

One really good friend told me that multiple guys were asking for nudes (which people think is now the norm).  Oh, let’s not forget the unsolicited “dick pics”.  That is the standard, “Hi, nice to meet you, here is a selfie…” intro email.  Another on-line society created a norm.

Men seem to enjoy the no strings attached hook-up culture of today’s dating world, yet lament the online landscape just as much as women.  Men looking for long-term relationships shared stories of women they tried to pursue only to be ghosted.  Another male friend shared about the lack of emotional and mental maturity he has seen in the digital dating world.  I totally agreed with him.  But, truth be told, that is not just in the dating world.

Much has been written regarding the demise of dating and the up-tick in hook up culture.  The source blamed is often the internet and dating apps.  I am not saying Tinder, Bumble or Grinder have ruined everything.  But they ruined everything.

The whole debacle has me wondering if the source of the tainted dating pool is actually because we dropped radioactive dating apps in the water.  Or is it something far more insidious we helped grow and mature…like leaving food in your refrigerator to see if you can create life…Doctor Frankenstein?

“Welcome to the Dawn of a New World”

In every post-apocalyptic thriller, the director introduces the audience to a bleak landscape in which people scavenge to survive. There are allusions made to how the apocalypse occurred — nuclear holocaust, war, famine, disease — but you never get the full backstory in most movies or TV Show (i.e. The Walking Dead.  Do not get me started…).

It seems we, as a society, are no longer hopeful about the future or dating prospects.  Similar to a Walking Dead episode, everyone is scavenging for leftovers and fighting for arable land (i.e. emotionally mature men and women).  One question most people seem to totally ignore is the same as what the audience do not get: the back story.  We are focused on what the causes are and how it continues to affect our lives.  Apps and the hook-up culture is symptomatic of a deeper issue.  We are trying to treat an infection with a Band-Aid (trademark), and it just is NOT working.

So what is the real cause?  The simple answer here…We are!

Efficiency. Speed. Convenience.

The other day I placed an Amazon Prime order like the vast majority of Americans do each day.  I needed to replace air filters in my home (CF or no CF everyone should do this).  I launched my Amazon app, found some cheap filters (as cheap as a “10” rating filter can be), and was guaranteed delivery in two days (Prime membership).  My filters, however, arrived five days later, much to my surprise.

I have had this happen before with Amazon. I will order something and then it is either delayed or, “Oops, sorry to inform you we don’t know why it’s late.”  Even though it arrives a few days later I am still pissed off (as are most of us).  Amazon promised two-day delivery!  (Think of the girl from Willa Wonka, “Daddy, but I want a golden goose now!).

What is ironic is that for days I drove past a Home Depot each time saying to myself, I should get my filters.  But then I answer myself with, “I will just order them online.”  Why waste 15 minutes looking in a store when I can have air filters delivered to my front door?

More than ever we are choosing convenience as a deciding factor in everything.  Don’t want to shop for groceries?  No prob, have a stranger shop for you with Instacart.  Do not want to cook?  Eat out.  Do not want to drive to get your food?  Grub-hub.  Do not want standard delivery but have a craving for farm-to-table food?  There is an app for that too!  Want to check out and not deal with your emotions and/or break up?  Netflix binge…add some wine and/or beer… things will get so much better…right?

Want to date?  Swipe right, swipe left.  Do not talk to someone face-to-face even though the vast majority of communication is non-verbal.  Have an endless sea of fish and never settle.

Until of course, you get tired of the game and want a long-term relationship with someone you can share hopes, dreams, and aspirations with.  Someone who knows your fears and the depths of your soul.  But nooooo, it’s cool, just keep swiping, growing ever the more self-centered about your needs and never learning what it is like to sacrifice for someone else (people who know me will totally understand that statement).  When you are old and grey (thank you, Yates) and beauty is a memory of the past, you will die a thousand deaths wishing you knew the beauty of love and commitment as opposed to the shallowness of convenience and your own selfishness.  Don’t worry though, you will have plenty of time to share those crazy dating stories with…kids?  Dead or senile friends?

That might be a bleak over-exaggeration, but the premise of how you end up in a post-apocalyptic landscape begins with a simple concession for convenience.

ANY Relationship Is Not a Microwave

Given we are a culture now built on speed and efficiency, we expect everything else to follow suit.  However, there is one aspect of life that will always buck the system:  a relationship.

There is no shortcut to friendship, dating, or marriage.  It does not exist.  If it did, don’t you think we would have figured it out within the thousands of years humankind has been dating, mating, and developing friendships?  Every single married couple will tell you about the time, effort, and energy it takes to maintain a relationship.  Any person with deep and authentic friendships can tell you of the rocky points in their friendship that refined it.  I have never heard of someone who has a best friend within a few months.  It takes years to cultivate that depth and quality of the relationship.

Here is what’s interesting.  Going back to the question; “Share your best and worst stories about dating”.  The best stories all included examples of growing in depth and patience with another person.  People shared stories of how they became friends first.  Many went on several dates that bombed.  One person explained that even after a few less than stellar dates she realized she had to put in time, effort, and patience as opposed to writing the person off.  She is now married to the guy who bombed their first date.

But it is not just dating that is affected by our obsession with speed and efficiency.  Our mental health is taking a dive too.  Depression and anxiety are on the rise, and when I speak to men and women suffering, people are looking for quick solutions; a pill, a book, a person, anything that will ease the burden.  Watching the hope go out of their eyes when they discover a silver bullet does not exist is devastating because I know many could bounce back if they put in the time towards a solution.  Hell, some people’s depression stems from the fact the dating pool is a swampland and they appear cursed to the land of “Forever Alone.”  But, it is their choice if they were in a relationship and ended it because it was “too hard” or they believe it is “easier to start over” then work on what they have.  (Again, those who know me, will understand my POV).

Without the strength and perseverance to be patient and work towards changing the dating landscape, it is easy to try patience for a bit, only to jump right back into the same cesspool everyone else is swimming in.  Then the disillusionment begins and they swear off dating until they find themselves back in the same tainted swamp…once they become lonely…again.  It is a vicious cycle.

I guess that is the crux of this post.  There is no silver bullet to fix the “Dating Apocalypse” except patience and people dedicated to treating someone like a priority as opposed to an option.  We cannot expect to receive all the perks of dating without commitment and vulnerability.  The damage will continue.  We will only continue to breed shallowness and superficiality into our dating lives while, deep down, we want to be fully known and loved by someone.

So I do not know what the answer is, but I understand how we got here.  Left unchecked, the need for convenience and ease will not just affect dating, but all aspects of life that take time and energy.

Just maybe if we understand what went wrong, we can take steps to correct it.

Who am I kidding, writing SciFi would be easier!

When we hold each other, in the darkness, it does NOT make the darkness go away.  The bad things, the monsters (yes, there are monsters), are still out there.  The nightmares are still there.  When we hold each other, we feel…not safe, but better.   “It is all right.” we tell each other.  “I am here”  I love you.” and we lie, “I will never leave you.”  However, for just a moment, the darkness does not seem so bad.  When we hold each other.

 

It has been said that a man is not dead as long as his name is still spoken. That we are only truly gone when we have disappeared from the memories of those who have loved us.

Perhaps privacy is a thing of the past. In the future (today) everything will be available at a touch of a button. Who’s fallen in love, who’s having an affair, maybe it is a good thing; a future without secrets, but of course those of us with a few many years have made a value of our mistakes and have survived them. It is not that we want to keep our secrets from others, usually, we are keeping them from ourselves!