Writing out the waves...

And so it continues... this new journey--a journey I never intended to embark on. But as with all journeys, I've met some wonderful and delightful people along the way. Interestingly enough, I would have never met these new friends had it not been for my illness... this new journey.

This week I met a lovely woman who was diagnosed last year with a similar condition - an extremely rare form of Pulmonary Hypertension. Funny thing is, we have a lot more in common than having a rare disease that has scarred our lungs. We are the same age. We have a deep appreciation for nature, gardening, the simple things in life. We are happily married and we have young children. We also share the uncertainty of our future. We have central lines--tubing running through our chests and straight to our hearts. We take some of the same medicines and experience similar symptoms. We have had similar hospital experiences. We worry about our children and their future and wonder how much more time we will have to hold onto their little hands. We watch in awe as our husbands play caregiver roles and help mix our medication. We appreciate them, and our many friends and family who have become our support teams and our protectors.

She has a blog. It's relatively private but she shared it with me. In the last two days I've read through all her posts. I cried, I laughed, I wanted to give her a hug.

There's something to this writing. I explained several posts ago that I was struggling with writing this blog. But, something was telling me I needed to start it and keep family and friends abreast of the latest happening. Not only that, I felt others may be looking for me. After all, I was scouring the internet to find others going through what I was going through. I wanted to know how they were handling things and I wanted to know what they had been through. Do you know what I found? I found that I'm not the only one who feels this way. I'm not the only one fighting a battle. I'm not the only one on a new scary journey that I didn't want to take. I'm not the only one trying to bail water out of this leaky boat...

So, back to this writing. There are actual studies that have been done on patients who write. And it appears that writing about stressful experiences can actually help reduce symptoms in some patients. Some studies reveal that it is expressive writing, rather than general journaling, that demonstrates some beneficial effects in physical and psychological health. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Indeed, I should be writing more blog posts...