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Why Birthdays are Important to Me as a Young Adult Living with PF
Unfortunately my 30th birthday isn’t likely one that I will think of with a lot of fondness. Despite our best efforts in making it one to remember, my two friends and I were in a car accident while visiting NYC to celebrate my 30th birthday this past winter. A yellow cab we were riding in lost control and hit a curb, then a pole head-on and we all ended up in the hospital on the eve of my 30th birthday. While the accident still triggers a lot of emotion for me, I am also caught in the vortex of being so thankful that none of us were critically injured or killed.
Birthdays never used to be a big deal for me, however, since I received my diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) two years ago, I’ve now wanted to savour and celebrate each birthday. This includes the birthdays of my friends as well, not just my own.
Recently I was talking to a friend of mine who is turning 30 this summer and I asked her what her plans were. From what I understood, people celebrate 30 as a “big” birthday and so I was a bit confused when she said she had no plans. Celebrating birthdays is a personal choice I suppose, and I am starting to realize that not everyone values birthdays as much as I do. Perhaps it is because they aren’t faced with a diagnosis that threatens to extinguish their life sooner than later. I know prognosis is just a number, and that it is only according to the literature that people with IPF live 3-5 years… I plan to write my own prognosis for this disease!
It’s funny to reflect on why birthdays may mean so much to me and not to others. Everyone has their own reasons to celebrate. Maybe its to celebrate that you’ve survived another year, or a particularly tough one (‘adulting’ can be hard, folks). Maybe they’re an opportunity to get together with friends and celebrate, or maybe it is because you are faced with a life-threatening illness and you don’t know how many more birthdays you’ll be able to celebrate. Do me a favour as someone facing the latter: enjoy each birthday and the moments in between them.
Have you found an increased desire or interest in celebrating birthdays since your diagnosis of IPF/PF?
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