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The phone finally rang \u2013 two days, three hours and fifty-seven minutes later than it should have.\u00a0 I was a shredded pile of emotions from the waiting.\u00a0 She took an infinitely long breath, cleared her throat, and dealt the blow:\u00a0 It is as we feared – lymphangioleiomyomatosis.\u00a0 I know what you\u2019re thinking:\u00a0 that\u2019s not a word, it sounds like a kindergartener made it up. \u00a0It\u2019s most definitely a word and it\u2019s definitely no joke. \u00a0While initially I was relieved that it wasn\u2019t the \u201cC\u201d word \u2013 the one disease we\u2019ve all learned to respect \u2013 now I\u2019ve come to wish it were.\u00a0 I remember learning in nursing school that cancer should really be viewed as a curable disease.\u00a0 Many times people with cancer receive successful treatment and are cured and we need to stop thinking of that diagnosis as the kiss of death.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Not so with lymphangioleiomyomatosis (or LAM, its kinder acronym).\u00a0\u00a0 It is not curable.\u00a0 In fact, \u201cthey\u201d \u2013 those great minds of the medical elite \u2013 make no concessions about that.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u201d don\u2019t even know how you get it or how to treat it.\u00a0 Paul and I have been to multiple physicians and even drove across the state to the University of Michigan and talked to the most special specialist who specializes in LAM.\u00a0 I have also now read from nearly hundreds of websites \u2013 six weeks since I first heard there was an evil in the world called LAM.\u00a0 Six weeks since \u201cthey\u201d first suspected I have it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\nI am 47 years old.\u00a0 I basically feel healthy and strong, but for years I have wondered if I was more short of breath than I should have been. \u00a0Although I can walk for miles, I couldn\u2019t really carry on a conversation while walking, and try as I might, I was simply unable to run for lack of air.\u00a0 I blamed it on being 20 lbs overweight and vowed that someday, when I finally got in shape, I\u2019d run a marathon.\u00a0 I was also more tired than I wanted to be – but I blamed that on four kids, multiple moves overseas, middle age, and an affliction that makes me unable to say \u201cno\u201d.\u00a0 And, apparently, I cough.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t bother me any, but I\u2019m finding out my loved ones have noticed it (a lot) and find it rather annoying.\u00a0 But I would have sworn to you I\u2019m not sick \u2013 just, well, a little bit not quite right.\u00a0 But now \u201cthey\u201d have assured me those are all symptoms of a disease which initially lets you appear healthier than you are.\u00a0 I guess LAM has started to take over my lungs and moved toward my kidneys.\u00a0 And slowly, I will find it harder and harder to breathe until I simply cannot.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u201d say this takes, on average, ten years.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Where does one even begin to process that?\u00a0 Before we even started telling family and friends \u2013 or our own kids for that matter \u2013 I was thrust, unwillingly but entirely necessarily, into a mind-numbing exercise of trying to make sense of all that is life, and all that is death, and how to fully live in every gifted breath.\u00a0 I hope, and believe, that as my plus or minus ten years progress, I will discover more about the meaning of life and that I can exit this reality with more peace than I have today.\u00a0 Because today I\u2019m still a bit of a mess.<\/span><\/p>\n\n
One day, or maybe it was night (they\u2019re all a blur lately), while being swallowed both in self-pity and a sea of snotty Kleenex, I decided someone with a terminal illness should probably make a bucket list.\u00a0 Ten years is not near enough time to do all the things you thought you had 40 years in which to do them. \u00a0My list included many things one would expect to see on a typical bucket list: \u00a0see \u201cWicked\u201d on Broadway, visit Machu Pichu, walk the great Wall of China, run a marathon, see Coldplay in concert, hike the Himalaya\u2019s, learn to speak Spanish, sky dive, etc.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n
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But before I even got to #9, I had a revelation.\u00a0 I realized that if I really only had 10 years left, I better first figure out the point<\/i>to this life and then waste no time trying to get there.\u00a0 I don\u2019t really have time for pointless activities \u2013 unless of course they were done with people I loved \u2013 but then, that would be the point.\u00a0 The more I thought that through, the more I was convinced I couldn\u2019t (wouldn\u2019t) make a bucket list full of typical<\/i> things one does before one dies.\u00a0 Because, I reasoned, those typical entries were all deposits made into \u201cME\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Places I <\/i>wanted to go, wonders I<\/i> wanted to see, things I<\/i> wanted to do \u2013 all of which, are all for ME.\u00a0 With only 10 years left, why would I only make deposits into ME?\u00a0 When I die, those deposits all die with me.\u00a0 The only legacy one can possibly leave behind that makes any sense at all is a deposit into OTHERS. \u00a0\u00a0What I really must<\/i> do for the last 10 years is pour whatever energy I have left in me into other people. In my less selfish moments, when I\u2019m not grieving over the fact that I will be robbed of maybe 20 or 30 years on this planet, I have concluded I must spend my years sharing the love that I believe can only be found in Christ Jesus my Savior.\u00a0 I want to live like Him \u2013 just extravagantly loving others and pouring myself out for them.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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So,\u00a0 this is my better bucket list:<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n- I want to spend as much time with my four children as they\u2019ll allow.\u00a0 I\u2019m aiming for a melange of Carol Brady, Claire Huxtable, Maria von Trap, Mother Mary, and Olivia Pope \u2013 praying that even a sliver of good in me can be majorly multiplied in them growing them into good, kind, compassionate, hard-working, self-less givers who are musical, wickedly smart, and forceful world changers.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I want to be spending unhurried time over long lunches with friends who feel like they\u2019re being trampled from the hurried masses, beaten down by the world\u2019s injustices, or crushed by the pressures of a culture run amok \u00a0\u2013 and simply listen.\u00a0 We\u2019ve all got crap we\u2019re dealing with \u2013 but we don\u2019t often find good listeners with whom we can safely spew our crap.\u00a0 Dear Lord, make me a big crap loader.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I want to walk Buddy, my Holy Spirit she-dog, through the trailer park and let all the children (some who, I fear, are bearing physical and emotional wounds from their tired, over-worked, and underpaid daddies) pet her and play with her and forget their troubles for just a few moments.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I want to spend unsolicited coffee-time with my sweet and self-less mother-in-law who is slipping away slowly and barely remembers my name these days.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I\u2019m going to be all about letting my 12 year-old daughter climb up on my lap even though she is entirely too old to be doing that sort of thing, but entirely able because she is from Guatemala \u2013 a country where they just make smaller people.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I want to drink wine with our friends until we\u2019re giddy and foolish and we let some buried things bubble-forth and then we laugh and cry together as we realize this was the very therapy we needed.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I want to take longer showers (My husband must be thinking:\u00a0 is that possible?) \u2013 but like most people, \u00a0that\u2019s where I get my best revelations.\u00a0 Often, I feel God reveals to me random people from my past which feels like a prompting to reconnect:\u00a0 Kathy Henderson from nursing school, Diane Marker from Davenport, \u00a0Stephanie Saumon from Aix-en-Provence, Julie Jones and\u00a0 Stacey Johnson\u00a0 from Casablanca and countless others – where are you now, \u00a0my sweet friends?\u00a0 And do you randomly think of me as often as I randomly think of you?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I want to keep visiting our poorest of poor friends in Morocco and just sit with them, accepting their extravagant generosity, while we wrestle with the pain of how much we have and how much they have not.\u00a0 And loving them deeply, without necessarily fixing their problems.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I\u2019m going to keep a large bag of Snickers in my car at all times so I always have something to give a pan-handler.\u00a0 Since I am running out of time, it doesn\u2019t look as if I\u2019ll be able to solve the problem of poverty and homelessness in America \u2013 or for the rest of the world for that matter.\u00a0 And that beats the hell out of me because I so wish I could.\u00a0 But possibly, for this moment, on this day, for this one person, I can at least hope to spread a flicker of sunshine.\u00a0 Besides, who doesn\u2019t love Snickers?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I\u2019m going to work hard at forgiving those who wounded me unintentionally.\u00a0 Harder yet \u2013 forgiving those who hurt me intentionally.\u00a0 And why stop there?\u00a0 I want to bless them, too.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I\u2019d like numerous fireside chats with our neighbors making time for sharing stories.\u00a0 But also watering their flowers, feeding their dogs, eating their cherry tomatoes, giving their kids popsicles \u2013 so they are much more than \u201cthe people with the white car\u201d, but they are fellow sojourners whom we actually share life with on our little cul-de-sac in Hudsonville.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I think I\u2019ll watch more comedians.\u00a0 Brian Regan, Jim Gaffigan, Stephen Colbert (don\u2019t judge) and Tim Hawkins – these will be some of my new friends.\u00a0 I just want to laugh, in a room full of people I love, because I think laughter is music to God\u2019s ears.\u00a0 And bonus, I\u2019ve heard a good hard belly-laugh can burn upwards of 100 calories.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I\u2019d like to keep working at my job at a psychiatric hospital – because I believe I have been called to serve the marginalized in society.\u00a0\u00a0 I feel so honored and privileged to care for these misunderstood people – I\u2019d even be willing to work there for free.\u00a0 And I now see how the soul begins to die when we stop serving others \u2013 which is a much worse death than the physical one.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- Because of that last one, I think I\u2019ll return to the homeless shelter where I interned last year and start volunteering.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never felt more alive than when I walked through those doors and breathed in deep the aroma of desperate need colliding with God\u2019s love in action.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I want to spend countless afternoons watching the sparkles accumulate on the lake as the sun descends in the sky, and then, because we\u2019re too ensconced to get up and cook a proper meal, we\u2019ll just throw all the food from both of our refrigerators onto the picnic table and feed all the kids left-over chicken wings, string cheese, a head of lettuce and a can of baked beans.\u00a0 I want to laugh and eat s\u2019mores and drink wine around the campfire until our sides hurt too much from laughing and the mosquitos chase us away.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I want to have ice cream for dinner \u2013 repeatedly throughout my remaining summers – buying about 20 gallons too many so that we can take all the extra gallons to the trailer-park to spread smiles.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I want to spend time at my local nursing home and find out which residents never get any visitors.\u00a0 And I want to sit with those lovelies and let them talk endlessly about their childhoods, their children and grandchildren, their careers, their legacies – until they run out of stories or break into song with \u201cHow Great Thou Art\u201d.\u00a0 I used to work there \u2013 I know how it goes.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I want to pull out my memorabilia from high school and college and spend a whole day, or perhaps a whole week-end, with my high-school sweetheart, who both miraculously and graciously married me, and together read through all of our old hand-written love-letters to each other.\u00a0 And I want to revel in the beauty of 27 shared years.\u00a0 Twenty-seven.\u00a0 That\u2019s a pretty big number when you\u2019re talking years.<\/i><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I want to read a ridiculous amount of books.\u00a0 I know that seems contrary to what I said earlier about investing in others and not myself \u2013 but I also believe this truth:\u00a0 When we live out the life that God destined us to live and we become who He created us to be, He is glorified.\u00a0 He made me a reader and a writer.\u00a0 And when I read, I feel His pleasure.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I want to plant trees.\u00a0 Is it just me or have others noticed that the trees are dying?\u00a0 When we returned from living in Morocco, I was hyper-aware of dead trees everywhere \u2013 way more than when we had left 4 years prior. \u00a0I think it\u2019s continuing to get worse.\u00a0 I think I\u2019ll plant at least one tree for every year God gifts me here.\u00a0 At first, I felt like this one wasn\u2019t an investment into people, but now I think it is.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I want to hand-write cards expressing: \u201cThank-you\u201d, \u201cWay-to-go!\u201d, \u201cCongratulations!\u201d, \u201cThinking of you\u201d, \u201cPraying for you\u201d, \u201cSorry for your loss\u201d, “Wish you were here\u201d, \u2018til my carpal-tunnel screams \u201cNo more!\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- If my lungs will allow, I want to take several trips to Guatemala or Honduras \u2013 two countries that are home to many people we know and love.\u00a0 And on these trips I want to take bunches of people who have never left the USA before, and introduce them to the \u201creal world\u201d and hope and pray that they get it, absorb it, and live differently because of it.\u00a0 That\u2019s what changed us, anyway, and I\u2019d love to keep paying that forward.\u00a0 Even though it wrecks you for good.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I hope I\u2019ll never watch another reality TV show \u2013 perhaps any<\/i> TV show for that matter.\u00a0 I don\u2019t find the point in it at all.\u00a0 Unless, of course, it is \u201c24\u201d with my husband and our two sons and we\u2019re all death-gripping each other\u2019s hands on the couch, or \u201cDownton Abbey\u201d with my two daughters curled up under the same blanket with me.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- I don\u2019t know, but I think with only 10 years left, I\u2019m going to give up dusting and vacuuming.\u00a0 Those two things seem equally pointless and just time-suckers – time better spent with people.\u00a0 I need to be about making a point.\u00a0 I bet they don\u2019t dust and vacuum in the Congo.\u00a0 I\u2019m contemplating throwing out cleaning toilets as well \u2013 but more undecided on that one.\u00a0 I still have nightmares about the toilets at Paul\u2019s college residence after just ONE year with no cleaning\u2026 I swear I got bit in the butt once by some kind of toilet vermin.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- And I\u2019m going to write that stinkin’ book.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter if it is ever published or even gets read for that matter, it just matters that our story gets told.\u00a0 We all have a story and they are all too good to not be told.\u00a0 The five reasons this bucket list entry is for others and not for me are named: \u00a0Paul, Andy, Josiah, Grace and Yulisa.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- In fact, I\u2019m going to write everything<\/i> down on this journey.\u00a0 And I\u2019m going to share it openly not caring what some negative people may say anymore.\u00a0 I\u2019m done with letting words hurt me, and I just don\u2019t have time for that anymore.\u00a0 The only way I can be hurt now is if someone would steal the set of lungs that I might need for a transplant.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n- And then, hopefully, if I still <\/i>have energy left after all that, I want to devote serious time, money, and creativity in bringing awareness to LAM.\u00a0 Because it\u2019s so rare, it doesn\u2019t receive the research monies a terminal illness deserves.\u00a0 It still has no cure, and it is silently killing many women in the prime of their lives with average age of diagnosis around 35.\u00a0 I cannot possibly understand the mercies of our God \u2013 but mercifully, He has allowed me to live this long, well into my 40\u2019s; and hopefully, He grants me another 10 years.\u00a0 But many other women with LAM do not live long enough to even see their first grey hair or their children graduate from high school.\u00a0\u00a0 I want to tell everyone I know about LAM, and trust that somehow, somewhere, someone out there exists who will discover the cure.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The phone finally rang \u2013 two days, three hours and fifty-seven minutes later than it should have.\u00a0 I was a shredded pile of emotions from the waiting.\u00a0 She took an infinitely long breath, cleared her throat, and dealt the blow:\u00a0 It is as we feared – lymphangioleiomyomatosis.\u00a0 I know what you\u2019re thinking:\u00a0 that\u2019s not a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,11,20,22,23,24,25,27,29,32,36],"tags":[81,83,86,114],"yoast_head":"\n
If I only had 10 more years to live: - Cindy DeBoer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cindydeboer.com\/2013\/12\/24\/if-i-only-had-10-more-years-to-live-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"If I only had 10 more years to live: - Cindy DeBoer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The phone finally rang \u2013 two days, three hours and fifty-seven minutes later than it should have.\u00a0 I was a shredded pile of emotions from the waiting.\u00a0 She took an infinitely long breath, cleared her throat, and dealt the blow:\u00a0 It is as we feared – lymphangioleiomyomatosis.\u00a0 I know what you\u2019re thinking:\u00a0 that\u2019s not a […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cindydeboer.com\/2013\/12\/24\/if-i-only-had-10-more-years-to-live-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cindy DeBoer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-12-24T23:28:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-12-08T22:15:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/cindydeboer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/IMG_6947-300x225.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cindy DeBoer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Cindy DeBoer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"14 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cindydeboer.com\/2013\/12\/24\/if-i-only-had-10-more-years-to-live-2\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cindydeboer.com\/2013\/12\/24\/if-i-only-had-10-more-years-to-live-2\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Cindy DeBoer\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cindydeboer.com\/#\/schema\/person\/0ac88bb25b526d02f231ed1d250da136\"},\"headline\":\"If I only had 10 more years to live:\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-12-24T23:28:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-12-08T22:15:40+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cindydeboer.com\/2013\/12\/24\/if-i-only-had-10-more-years-to-live-2\/\"},\"wordCount\":2776,\"commentCount\":52,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cindydeboer.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cindydeboer.com\/2013\/12\/24\/if-i-only-had-10-more-years-to-live-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cindydeboer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/IMG_6947-300x225.jpeg\",\"keywords\":[\"JESUS\",\"JOY\",\"LAM\",\"TERMINAL ILLNESS\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Adoption\",\"Contentment\",\"Joy in the Journey\",\"Life Overseas\",\"Lymphangioleiomyomatosis\",\"Michigan\",\"Morocco\",\"Parenting\",\"Popular\",\"Simplifying Life\",\"Terminal Illness\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/cindydeboer.com\/2013\/12\/24\/if-i-only-had-10-more-years-to-live-2\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cindydeboer.com\/2013\/12\/24\/if-i-only-had-10-more-years-to-live-2\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cindydeboer.com\/2013\/12\/24\/if-i-only-had-10-more-years-to-live-2\/\",\"name\":\"If I only had 10 more years to live: - 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