Healthy People Measure Time by Clocks. Lung Patients Measure It by Oxygen.

One of the strangest things chronic illness does is change your relationship with time.

Healthy people complain that there aren't enough hours in the day.

When my COPD was at its worst, I had plenty of time.

I just didn't have enough air.

Five minutes wasn't five minutes.

It was the time it took to catch my breath after climbing a flight of stairs.

A shower wasn't part of the morning routine.

It was an event.

Sometimes a successful one.

Sometimes not.

Even conversations changed.

I'd find myself planning sentences before saying them.

Long explanations became a luxury.

Breathing came first.

Talking could wait.

Healthy people measure time by clocks.

Lung patients measure it by oxygen.

Then came the transplant.

Something changed again.

Time didn't suddenly become unlimited.

It became expensive.

Not in a dramatic, every day is a gift kind of way.

I'm allergic to that kind of sentence.

More in the sense that I stopped wasting it.

I have less patience for meetings that should have been emails.

For conversations that go nowhere.

For people who drain energy and call it friendship.

If something or someone consistently leaves me tired, I pay attention.

The lungs taught me that.

Before the transplant I was always saving my breath.

Now I try to save my time.

Both are limited resources.

One thing chronic illness does remarkably well is improve your priorities.

Not your personality.

Just your priorities.

You become very good at asking one question.

"Is this worth today's energy?"

Sometimes the answer is yes.

Sometimes the answer is absolutely not.

And surprisingly, saying no gets easier with age.

Or maybe with enough hospital admissions.

I'm still not sure.

The biggest surprise came after the transplant.

Ordinary things became... well... ordinary again.

Walking to the supermarket.

Taking a shower.

Standing in line.

Playing with the grandchildren.

None of those activities would impress anyone.

Including me.

Until I'd spent years wondering whether I could do them at all.

People often ask whether a transplant makes you appreciate life more.

I'm not sure.

It certainly makes you appreciate ordinary life more.

There's a difference.

I don't wake up every morning overwhelmed with gratitude.

I wake up, make coffee and hope the day behaves itself.

That's enough.

Looking back, I don't think illness taught me that time is precious.

Everyone knows that.

It taught me something slightly different.

Time isn't measured by how much of it you have.

It's measured by what you're able to do with it.

Sometimes that's writing for three hours.

Sometimes it's swimming.

Sometimes it's sitting on the floor while my grandchildren turn the living room into a disaster area.

All perfectly good uses of time.

As long as I'm breathing well enough to be there.