14 Years...

14 Years…

Where do I begin?  You would think after 14 years this would get easier, but to the contrary, each year is harder than the last.  I’ve spent over 80 hours in by basement this week. Oh, and its Wednesday! I’m hoping my boss doesn’t read this because there aren’t enough hours in the week! For those of you that know me, I hate my basement. It dark, my husband decorated it, and most days it’s Sal’s game room… as it should be. But this time of the year this is the auction room. …The Sal’s Pals room. On any given day you will find several computers down here in “the dungeon,” (as I call it,) along with tubs of items ready for bid.

Over the years I have had multiple people ask me, “How do you find the time to put this event on? How do you get everything donated? How do you keep doing this year after year?”  The answer is pretty simple: I’ve been blessed with a pretty awesome circle of people around me. I’m not saying any of this is easy. When you hear the old saying, “It takes a village…” Well, we have TEN zip codes of people helping us fight CF!  I guess what I am saying is, in order for this event to take place, we need a vast amount people from multiple organizations to come together to make this happen.

Would my life be easier if I just settled on the fact that Sal does above average for a cf patient? Absolutely! My house is a hot mess, I haven’t cooked dinner in a week, and I am slightly snappy these days to say the least. But at the end of the day, my house will work out. The laundry will get done, and we will eat some fabulous carry out! No one is naked and starving in the corner at our house!

Through the chaos, I try to remind myself that we are doing something that goes far beyond ourselves. So, when I start to freak out, this is what I have to remember: People’s lives depend on the work we do. Would it be easier for me to say, “We are taking break?” The answer is YES…for sure! But who’s life does that benefit? People are dying from CF every day because the right medication or treatment did not benefit them in time. How do I tell my son that I quit because my life is a little disrupted?  His life is disrupted every day by 40 pills and an hour worth of breathing treatments.

I can’t quit now even though I could come up with a million reasons to. I hate my basement… but I love my son more! When you start to put little things in perspective, everything else falls into place.

My advice… if you are committed to something bigger than yourself, no matter what that might be, you keep your vision and you dedicate yourself to whatever that is and you let that be your guide. For me, my son’s health and well-being is what I’m committed to. So, I stay dedicated, because I truly believe that the dollars we can raise for the CFF will give my Sal the years of life he needs. So, dungeon… here I come!