So this is reality

I have had to discontinue my part time university studies. I am working full time and now I'm being asked to write more and more as a freelance journalist. I can't keep up with my studies which i wanted to do my best at, since last semester I got distinctions in all my subjects and I did so well. Now that a lung transplant has been laid out on the table like a shifty deck of cards I've decided that the less stress in my life the better. That is why I had to return to the hospital tonight to pick up a letter from my specialist explaining my reasons for taking a break from uni as to avoid the financial debt. The hospital haunts me. Every time I am sitting in that hospital I am extremely overwhelmed. As I was made to wait for my letter tonight I looked at the blank off white walls and I craved the noise that I left behind when I walked off the street into the cavernous hospital. These were my thoughts. The silence. There is no music here. No smiles in the corridors, just the echoes of footsteps. It's so quiet I can hear the blood pumping through my head. There is noone living here. This is not my life. Everything is foreign and I'm in mute. Please let in the voices from the street. I want to cry, in fact there is already water in my eyes.

As I left the hospital with my letter I was handed a big brown envelope with a pink fluoro sticker saying please open at home. When I got home I sat on my bed, the envelope in my hands with the pink sticker looking up at me. I put my favourite record on and opened it. Inside I found a brouchure said Cystic Fibrosis and Lung Transplantation.

So this is reality.