This afternoon I pushed the button down on my inhaler canister. It seemed light. I looked at the dosages, “0”.

I plugged in my computer knowing the battery juice was low while trying to get ahead of the pages I have to read this weekend. After a good 45 minutes, I turned on my computer and realized I did not turn on the power bar to which the computer is plugged-in to.

I remembered to bring all my drugs today, albeit one was empty. My ID badge for work; I got a replacement the other day. And my head for the most part.

Holiday weeks can throw you off.

One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite books. I usually don’t quote things – but this one is worth it:

“The mind and body are like this. The body alone can do nothing for itself; it is a like a log unable to move or do anything by itself except to become subject to impermanence, decay, and death. The mind can do nothing without support of the body. When we mindfully watch both the body and mind, we can see how many wonderful things they do together.” – Bhante Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

Let me tell you the truth about something, something I don’t speak about much.

Death looms. It is a constant.

We ignore it, try to go around it, jump over, around it, chase it, and run circles around it. We back away from it. We may run away from it. We stare at it as if it was this thing. We shut eyes and hope it all goes away. This is not sadness or depression. It is just the truth. We talk a good talk. We smile, and a lot us have this little off-beat sense of humor.

It is almost brought up in some form in every clinic visit. It is in stats mostly. But it is in research as well.

Ann spoke at the North American CF Conference. She said she will never do it again. It wasn’t what she had to speak about it, because she said that part was easy.

She spoke at a podium for three sessions. Each session held 300 people. She had a woman from John Hopkins challenge her each session. And as each session progressed so did the woman’s aggression towards Ann.

I asked, “What did you do?”

“I was a professional. I answered her calmly and to the point.”

She later said that if she would had known the stats of John Hopkins compared to MN she would had nipped it in the bud right away. Ann said that MN’s average FEV1 (PFT measure) is 109% for pediatrics, below the age of twelve. John Hopkins FEV1 was 89%.

“That’s a full 20%. They still have kids die and we haven’t had kids die in years. And here she is trying to tell me that they have a better method of performing manual percussion therapy than we do.”

If a brain could produce steam.

I have these thoughts and I mentioned it to my professor, as it is related in the aspect of all research, writing, and health, whatever it may be.

Researchers often stand behind their research. The Institutions in which represent these researchers stand behind them. They do this because the Institutions invested the Institutions’ reputation, and physicians/researchers as well. They invested money, time, thought processes in the research, standards of care, publications, notoriety, and one could say ego as well.

They are not going to give that all up and say “Hey – you are right.” Let’s scrap all that and give you all the credit. They won’t do it even if they know the other guy is right, unless, maybe, they are pressed hard and it save lives. This is why second and third opinions are always necessary.

So – what does one do with all this?

A long, long time ago I subtracted all the words that I didn’t like out of my vocabulary. The ones that related to my health, and I only focused on the ones I liked. This was in my teens, late teens.

I will regress for a moment here. I had a “weight problem” per se in my teens. Puberty hit and bam, bam, bam, the pounds kept coming on like doe puffing up and out in the oven. I was like “Whoa, what is this?”

So, I started to restrict my food and it got messy for a while. I lost weight. It was bad. They wanted me at a certain number and I said, “You want fat.” They said, “No, weight.” We went back and forth as teenagers and adults do. I decided if they wanted weight they could have muscle instead of fat. It took about a year, but I got the weight back on and they backed off.

Then, I got it in my head that I didn’t like other words. I took death and put in breath; strong vs. weak. Simple word changes. I did a bunch of them. I liked my new words much better than the shabby old ones.

I learned that the words that went around in my head, bounced, and echoed between my ears, made a big difference.

Circling back:

“The body alone can do nothing for itself.” Got it.

“The mind can do nothing without support of the body.” Got it. Got it.

“When we mindfully watch both the body and mind, we can see how many wonderful things they do together.”

Sigh.

The air pushes away the doom,
And makes room, for the life and love
That were missing,
All those years,
That we never knew,
Until we spoke them – aloud.
What can one say now? The only one
That says it all –
Thank you.