Day = Difference

This post is going to be therapeutic, so read at your own risk. I have a lot on my mind.

I have been thinking a lot about the difference a day can make. It actually makes me think about my friend Kathy who died last year. When she was diagnosed with cancer (on top of having CF), her Facebook profile had the line (or a very close iteration): "What a difference a day can make." Her life was transformed in a single day -- the day she found out she had leukemia. Her life changed in that very instant. Most change throughout life is gradual and can't be pinpointed to a specific moment. It's like, all of a sudden you wake up one day and realize that a transformation happened so slowly that you don't even recall how you got where you are. Then, there are other changes that happen so instantaneously that you can't possibly process the information as quickly as necessary.

A nurse I knew died last week from stomach cancer. She had no advanced warning, but went to the doctor complaining of stomach pain and found out that a) she had cancer, and b) it had spread to her entire body. She died three weeks later. I find it nearly impossible to grasp the concept that she was in a hospital more days than not, yet was unaware of the cancer.

Moments like these remind me exactly how precious each day is. It's so easy to get lost in the concept of the future -- living for it, preparing for it, dreaming of it. Sometimes we get so focused on the future that we lose sight of today. I realize I'm not making any never-been-heard revelations here, but this has been weighing heavily on my mind and heart over the past few weeks. No, we shouldn't get so caught up in today that we make reckless decisions that jeopardize the future. However, we also shouldn't harp so much on the future that we deprive ourselves of the things that bring us today's happiness.

Each day is meant to be cherished.

____

Disclaimer: Blog posts like this annoy me sometimes, but I wrote it for myself. So STEP OFF!

An amazing day

Today was an incredible and inspiring day. Yeah, I worked way more than I was supposed to on what was going to be my day off, but there was nothing but positivity in every other aspect of my life. Let me start telling you all of the great things that happened today...

• First and foremost, Drew's Crew is sitting at an ONLINE total of $20,226. We even have at least $500 that hasn't posted, and I'm still collecting donations!
• I got the green light to get randomized for my study! Hopefully I will be on the vanilla goodness within the next week or so. FINALLY!
• I watched a space shuttle launch in real-time on the Internet. Yes, I would have loved to have been there in person, but I do have a friend who was and took some video, so I'm excited. That space shuttle launch blew my mind.
• My new favorite drink at Starbucks is the Iced White Chocolate Mocha Latte. For real. I'm glad I made that choice to branch out yesterday, because I got another today.
• I was feeling so pumped up from all of the good news that I went to the gym and ran two miles without stopping or even feeling tired, despite not exercising like that in over a week. Then I walked another mile on an incline.
• Being excited and humbled from the success of Drew's Crew, I donated $100 to another Great Strides team for tomorrow's walk.
• It didn't stop there, though. I saw a CF friend on Facebook posting a link to donate for Relay for Life and was intrigued. I thought of a friend (KM) battling CF and cancer and wanted to make a donation. Ironically, the person was $65 short of his goal, and '65' is associated with CF from the mispronunciation of cystic fibrosis as '65 roses.' All of the stars aligned, so I donated the $65 in honor of my friend KM, knowing how good it feels to meet the goal.

Now I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I'm excited to celebrate the success of Drew's Crew at the walk, as well as ALL of the money raised to support CF research. I think there will probably be about 20 people walking for me, which should be fun! I will get to see some friends I haven't seen in a while, too, and meet some other CF-related folks that I only know online. It should be AWESOME!

In all of the craziness that's been my life these last few weeks, I might have forgotten to mention that I'm going to a concert tomorrow night with my friend (and soon-to-be roommate) AH. We are going to see Tim McGraw and Lady Antebellum. I am really looking forward to it. It's been forever since I've been to an outdoor concert like this! Hopefully I'll nap between events to recuperate. I took an Ambien over an hour ago hoping to get a good night's sleep. I have just been so excited that it's tough to sleep. That's a good problem to have - it's GOOD excitement keeping me up versus negativity.

I am so happy and thankful. I'm truly on top of the world.