Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Going to Ball Games... and stuff

"...why must you live out those songs that you wrote."

Hank Jr's been rolling thru my mind of late.  Like Hank, I'm often questioned about some of the things I do when going out and about with my Sweetie.  I like to share our activities on social media, and that sometimes get a "what the heck' reaction from friends and family.

For instance, we went to a Rangers game last month.  Now the ballpark in Arlington is an open ballpark and at first pitch it was 107 F. Later in the game I posted this on Facebook:


I have to admit, that was a rough evening for me. So here I am, in the middle of a chronic lung transplant rejection, with a very severely suppressed immune system, going out in a very public place during a heat advisory.  Why?

Basically, because my Sweetie wanted to.  You see, it was snow globe night at the park, and every time she saw the commercials advertising the give away on television, she said she wanted to go.  So we went.

Something I haven't mentioned here before is that my Sweetie has early onset Alzheimer's.  The symptoms of her disease have been progressing for over 3 years. My job is to help her have the best life possible.  So yeah... I do stuff I shouldn't, but as John Wayne stated... "A man's got to do what a man's got to do."

No worries though, I take plenty of precautions.  For the game I drank 2 liters of water before going and brought 2 more liters of ice water to the game.  We had a cooler and I had my mask. High SPF sunscreen and taking is slow got us through the night.  Also, it was a pretty great game.

We have to live life.  I have received a wonderful gift of new lungs, that gift is meant to be shared and enjoyed.  Supporting my Sweetie is a blessing that I would not have had without this gift.

3 comments:

  1. Thank you for posting this. I appreciate so much about it. Love hearing about your desire to support your sweetie, and how both of you are living, and enjoying, your lives. And many of us with chronic illnesses hear about it when we dare to have a good time, upsetting assumptions many people have about how we're "supposed" to be sick.

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    1. Hi Melissa, thanks for your note. A quote from Albert Camus that sticks with me - "Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy to be normal." I replace the work "be" with "appear". I'm never going to 'be' normal, but there are times when I can appear it.

      Speaking of Camus, my absolute favorite quote attributed to him is "In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."

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    2. Ooh, as someone with pretty brutal seasonal depression, I love the idea of an invincible summer inside me.

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