World IPF Week 5

Marking World IPF Week

Alchemilla - struggling to thrive on rocky ground

The plant gets its name from the belief amongst the alchemists that water droplets on the leaves was of the purest form and so was used in their fruitless efforts to turn base metal into gold.

When we learnt of the diagnosis of IPF my first feeling was of relief that it wasn't lung cancer again but then we got home and looked it up ...
Phil wrote in his diary, '... came out a bit numb - had expected 'infection - will clear', didn't really understand IPF. Checked on the internet what it was - like how my dad described a 'doodle bug' - long drone, then it cuts out and you wait silently and still for it to hit the ground and go off not knowing where it will fall. And then 'bang' and you are either still there or not. Average duration at best possibly 3 years, often more aggressive, very variable. No cure. No real treatments other than steroids and immune suppressants - uncertain efficacy. A. very distressed, crushed by the sheer cruelty of having to go there again. 2 things - must not let the future ruin the present, and must not pretend its not there. Walked today .. sometimes breathless, sometimes gasping, pains and slow going.'

Flying Inside Your Own Body by Margaret Atwood

Your lungs fill & spread themselves,
wings of pink blood, and your bones
empty themselves and become hollow.
When you breathe in you’ll lift like a balloon
and your heart is light too & huge,
beating with pure joy, pure helium.
The sun’s white winds blow through you,
there’s nothing above you,
you see the earth now as an oval jewel,
radiant & seablue with love.
It’s only in dreams you can do this.
Waking, your heart is a shaken fist,
a fine dust clogs the air you breathe in;
the sun’s a hot copper weight pressing straight
down on the think pink rind of your skull.
It’s always the moment just before gunshot.
You try & try to rise but you cannot.