Sometimes Plans Have to Change

By Kiara Tatum

Life doesn’t always go according to the plans, especially when you have PH.  You can plan for a great outing with your friends; maybe see a movie and have a nice lunch with your friends.  But with a chronic illness like PH, you may wake up that morning and feel not so good and have to cancel the planned outing with your friends.  Sometimes your plans just have to change.

I was recently hospitalized for five days, but I had lots of plans made.  I had a doctor’s appointment, meetings to attend, a meet and greet to prepare for at my church, prepare for the upcoming spring 2013 semester, a blog to write for PHA, and had to….  I had plans!  So of course when I started to notice that something was wrong, I ignored it.  I denied that something was wrong.  However, I needed at least one more day to get some things completed because I couldn’t stop just right yet.  But then my body knew it was time to go to the hospital, it was not letting me do anything.  I could barely walk from the living room to the bathroom without hugging the wall and feeling short of breath.  Well then I thought, I’ll go into the emergency room, get stabilize, and be out in and out.  That was doable.  So true because of these plans I had, I had certain things that had to get done before I could call ambulance.  So here I am ready to go to the hospital, and I’m calling around to people to ask if someone could come get the display board to finish it for me.  I figure if I couldn’t finish it; someone else could finish it.  I had everything laid out, so it would be real easy.  Well no one was able to do it for me.  And after an hour, more than an hour, I decided to call the ambulance.

I get to the hospital, and things don’t go according to my plans either.  I get put on fluids since I was dehydrated, and I get all the testing like blood work, chest x-ray, EKG, etc. completed.  The on duty doctor reviewed my results and says I need to be admitted.  Well that didn’t work with my plans.  So now I’m a little frustrated.  Okay so re-strategize.  I’m in the hospital a day or two which gives me plenty of time to be ready to teach for the spring 2013 semester, which is still doable.  After hours of waiting for a bed, I get admitted.  The ICU experience didn’t go according to plan either.  While in the ICU, what could go wrong at that moment did go wrong, so this prompted my PH specialist to have me transferred to his hospital as soon as a CCU bed became available.  So now I’m angry and furious.  I know I need to go, but this just really changed the plan. 

I have PH that drastically changed my life almost seven years ago, and now the one thing that has been keeping me afloat the last few months was going to be taken away from me.  I couldn’t teach if I was in the hospital.  Now my plans have to change again because of PH.  I couldn’t stand for it again.  These plans made were needed to make myself feel like I was productive and that I was like everyone else that worked and earned an income, and it was something that I loved to do.  I was angry, hurt and sad.  I started to panic, and I knew that I had to at least try to hold on to my teaching position.  I contacted the school and was informed that I could have someone cover the classes for me while I was in the hospital and the whole semester if necessary.  I also received a telephone call from a newly appointed dean, and he reassured me that whatever happened I would have a position at the school. 

So what can we do when PH disrupts the plans we have?  We can’t do anything.  Hardest lesson to learn, but it must be learned.  We have to just be okay with the fact that plans change.  If I wasn’t going to be able to teach this semester, then it was just going to have to be that I couldn’t teach this semester.  We must eventually accept and let go of the anger, the frustration, the let down, and accept that sometimes plans have to change.  Having PH means were going to have a lot, more than those without a chronic illness, of changes to our plans.  Those changes to our plans at first may seem to anger you, make you feel sad and hurt, but it will make you stronger and more creative.  It’ll all be okay.