Several years ago, my dad was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. The news was a shock. At 84 years old, Daddy had been dedicated to his physical health for decades.
He played tennis twice a week, ate my mother’s low-fat meals, and spent lots of time outdoors on their organic vegetable farm. But the diagnosis did explain the symptoms he’d been experiencing. He got out of breath more quickly.
He had a cough that wouldn’t go away. And he’d lost so much weight, none of his old clothes fit — likely, the doctors said, because taking in less oxygen limited his exertion, thus lessening his appetite. Pulmonary fibrosis is considered a progressive, terminal disease; there is no cure for the irreversible scarring of the lungs that occurs.
But my dad told me not to dwell on that — and not, under any circumstances, to google it. All that mattered, he said, was that it wasn’t cancer. “Maybe I will reverse it,” he mused, “and demonstrate that it’s reversible after all!” He approached his diagnosis with his trademark jovial attitude, and I didn’t doubt the sincerity of his optimism, but I had a hard time feeling it myself.
The pandemic had been raging for two years, and I couldn’t help but think my dad was one COVID infection away from life-threatening complications. I also found his new physical limitations hard to watch — the way he stopped to catch his breath, panting, after walking down the stairs; the rope from his tool shed now threaded through his belt lo.
