I made a choice…

When life throws us a curveball, we have choices to make. Which is what my week has been consumed with. 

I haven’t felt like writing. I just got a text from one of my friends, Nicky, who wrote, “Julz, no new posts, FUCK. How are you doing?” Lol! I love my friends! 

Things went to shit for me mentally starting last Sunday. I felt so overwhelmed I almost had a genuine, real-life George Bailey temper tantrum. 

What’s a George Bailey temper tantrum? It’s from the movie It’s a Wonderful Life. Click on the YouTube link above if you would like to see what in the hell I am talking about. 

Jimmy Stewart was battling PTSD from World War ll while he was filming It’s a Wonderful Life. It came out while filming these scenes. I am still battling PTSD after decades of abuse from my adopted mother and sometimes feel like losing it as he did.

After my third X-ray, I found out I needed a CAT scan. Then, there was an issue with an antibiotic the doctor prescribed. I would not be approved by insurance. However, I didn’t need it since my pneumonia had cleared up.

Then we had a snowstorm forecast to end all other snowstorm forecasts. Yes, that came from Rudolph. I am sick of winter and staying in for five weeks, and we had tickets with my friend Ann to see Hamilton Tuesday night. We purchased the tickets last March with our theater subscription for the year.

I wanted to go! It was the only thing I’d looked forward to in the last six weeks! This bummed me out; on top of it, I didn’t feel well enough to go to dance class on Wednesday night. What a shitty week for my mentality and creative outlets.

Of course, the weather people were correct this time, and we got 30 inches of heavy wet snow. We lost power for a whole day. It sucked. I was already done being home and winter; without power, I went stir-crazy. I tried going outdoors, but the cold air made me cough too much, and I had problems breathing.

Poor Marty and Ann came up despite the forecast, hoping the weather forecast would be wrong like us. They were out there six times doing snow removal with shovels and our snowblower in less than 18 hours.

Meanwhile, I was on edge, waiting for doctors and central scheduling to call me to schedule the cat scan and to answer some of my questions. 

I fucking hate having to rely on logging into patient portals for messages and checking them 100 times a day. Grrhhhh! I also communicated with my gastroenterologist’s office at Dartmouth Hitchcock—more signing in with user names and passwords.

Everything seemed to calm down after receiving my cat scan results. I was 90% sure I knew what I had and was correct; I have pulmonary fibrosis, most likely from the Humira I inject bi-monthly for my ulcerative colitis.

According to The American Lung Association, Pulmonary fibrosis is In technical terms, fibrosis means thickening or scarring of the tissue. In this case, the normally thin, lacy walls of the air sacs in the lungs are no longer thin and lacy, but get thick, stiff and scarred, also called becoming fibrotic. With this scarring, the architecture of the lung makes it stiffer and is less efficient at delivering oxygen into the blood stream. In addition, the stiffness or fibrosis of the tissue makes it more difficult to expand the lungs. It takes more effort to breathe, and this additional demand of energy or work leads to shortness of breath.

Each time I’ve had a cold or bronchitis which eventually led to pneumonia the pulmonary fibrosis made it worse. It makes sense because any time I did get sick in the last four years, I had an awful cough that lasted for three months easily. 

Funny enough, the only time I didn’t cough for months was when I had covid. However, they also found ground glass opacities, which they now see in the lungs of people who had covid. Oh great! 

According to Wikipedia, Ground-glass opacity (GGO) is a finding seen on chest x-ray (radiograph) or computed tomography (CT)imaging of the lungs. It is typically defined as an area of hazy opacification (x-ray) or increased attenuation (CT) due to air displacement by fluid, airway collapse, fibrosis, or a neoplastic process.^[1] When a substance other than air fills an area of the lung it increases that area’s density. On both x-ray and CT, this appears more grey or hazy as opposed to the normally dark-appearing lungs. Although it can sometimes be seen in normal lungs, common pathologic causes include infections, interstitial lung disease, and pulmonary edema.

Pulmonary Fibrosis is something I am going to have to live with. I was referred to a pulmonologist to help manage the disease. Dr. Levy, my gastrointestinal at Dartmouth, will have to find a new medication to keep me on track with my colitis and stay in remission.

How am I feeling now that the pneumonia is finally gone? At times bad. I feel good when sitting quietly or sleeping; I am not coughing much and have no trouble breathing.

When I try to walk up a flight of stairs, I have to stop two or three times because I have difficulty breathing. It stops me dead in my tracks. I have to wait several seconds before I can continue. The same stairs I used to fly up.

I have massive coughing attacks when I get to the top of the stairs. This happens when I walk too fast, walk up our driveway or work too quickly in the production kitchen. 

This will most likely go on for a long time until my lungs heal, but the fibrosis or scarring will never go away; it will get worse over time, making my breathing more difficult. This will be a lifestyle change for me.

So I have to admit I was scared before the cat scan. Then when I learned more about the disease and spoke to my doctors, I somehow didn’t feel afraid anymore. 

The choice I had to make, as in the title of this blog post, was how to accept this new illness. I started to go down the path of fear, giving myself a prison sentence and grieving my old way of living. I was mad and depressed.

Then, I decided, no, I am not doing that! I am a bad-ass Jersey bitch and will be strong like I’ve always been. I have had to figure out ways to compensate while doing everyday chores and activities with the arthritis pain I have every day. 

I also to be strong at the age of 15 when I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. I had a severe bowel disease that was so embarrassing as a teen, and all the testing I had to go through was terrible. It was the beginning of playing the game, “Where’s the toilet!” I still play that game today.

I am taking this one day at a time and looking at it as another bump in the road. The next step will be to go through lung testing and pulmonary rehab. The pulmonologist will teach me how to manage my new disease.

When I get this managed, I plan to live my best life, continuing to do the things I love, especially teaching & belly dancing. I will still go places and to shows with Marty.

I will work, go to our farmers market, swim, and walk. I will continue to cook and finally be able to work on my Youtube channel. Things may have to be done slower than in the past, but that’s ok.

I’m mentally in a good place with the support of my family, friends, and you guys. I am a strong as fuck woman because I have had to be, to survive the horrible things I’ve endured; this is no different. 

The good news was that Hamilton was postponed and not canceled due to the snowstorm. We will see it this Sunday night at 7:30. I hope Ann can return and go to the show with us. I have something to look forward to again.

Just like George Bailey learned from Clarence, his guardian angel, I have learned this week that no matter what is happening or changes, It’s a wonderful life!