Breathe easy Melissa...

A few years ago I started chatting to a bubbly and confident girl from Cape Town, also with CF. She needed to go onto the waiting list for lungs but was severely under-weight. I met her in person for the first time just over a year ago and we just clicked immediately. She had a similar thought-process to me (which I think is very pro-active and logical when it comes to medical stuff) and was sooooo positive and strong. She had a peg put in to help her gain weight, which worked very well. When I met her the first time she even brought me 2 gifts... a fridge magnet about kitties and the bookmark below... definitely knew me very well!!!

I saw her for the second time in October last year when we were in Cape Town... less than 4 months ago... we had cocktails at Blue Peter in Tableview. She was doing so well that she didn't have trouble managing without O2 (at the coast). The pic below was taken on that day. I saw her again later last year when she was here for a day at Milpark to see our Dr for check-up and spent the night in hosp. 

Yesterday she told me that she was admitted to hosp at 4am, and wasn't feeling well, she had been complaining about struggling to breathe in the heat the whole of last week. She did have bloods done though to make sure it's just the heat and bloods were apparently fine. AND she was just 200g away from her goal weight... she was so excited because it's the most that she has ever weighed, meaning she was ready for transplant! Last night she told me that she was still feeling crappy and needed quite a bit of Oxygen but that her iron was low and she should feel better after that gets sorted. This morning I see on Facebook that she passed away... I don't know why or what happened to cause this but it was SO unexpected and sudden.  

I'm so sad about this, and it's even harder because she was READY for those lungs and this was so out of the blue. If I had to sum her up in one word it's DETERMINED. She worked so hard to get ready for transplant, she was so passionate about her job as a teacher and so convinced she would go back to teaching after transplant. Before she stopped working she fought for as long as she could to KEEP working and stay busy. She was someone who took control of her health and did what needed to be done. 

RIP Melissa, I will think of you every day when I see my magnet and the bookmark that is hanging on my cupboard door. And whenever I dare to want to complain about something regarding transplant I will remember that she would have given ANYTHING to be post-transplant.