Here it is. My five year anniversary of being diagnosed with Pulmonary Hypertension.
It is a milestone, to be sure. When I was diagnosed, the expectation was that PH patients had a 50/50 chance of living five years. I have actually truly beaten the odds (Now, why can't I do the same with the lottery? But I digress...)
I feel like I ought to write something profound here. Some deep reflection on the meaning of life, or illness, or the battle at hand.
But I actually don't have anything to say on that at the moment. In fact, what struck me most today was how normal the day seemed.
And so, that is what I am celebrating. Normalcy.
I named this blog "PH and the New Normal" because I wanted to re-define what the PH experience was to be. I hope I am doing well at that. But now I find it comes full circle. By all counts, just like today, the rest of my life is pretty "normal". Oh sure, there's nothing normal about $250,000 a year in medication, or the number of times I visit doctors, or the procedures I am subjected to, or the number of friends I've said goodbye to as they passed away from the disease I share. Those things are decidedly not normal.
But what is normal is I wake up every day, I still get to hold my son, my husband still brings me flowers, my friends and family are amazing.
So never mind a "new normal". I am almost even overlooking today's five year milestone. Instead, I am just deeply content and grateful that, while life is nothing like I had planned, today just felt normal.
