Stepping Up

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Breathing. It’s the first thing we do when we are born in this world and, in many cases, the last thing we do when we leave it.  An adult completes this act, on average, 20,000 times a day.  During 99.9 percent of our time, we hardly give it a thought. Breathing plays into our body language. We breathe slowly to calm down after difficult events. If you see something beautiful, you gasp with air. I find one of the sweetest sounds in the world to be a baby’s sigh… 

By Carolyn Wolfrum

But what if you can’t breathe? It becomes all you think about. I have mild asthma.  As mild as my asthma is, if I’m really having an attack, panic quickly sets in.  I’m lucky though.  It doesn’t take much to resolve it.  A few puffs of my inhaler and I’m good to go!  I REALLY started to think about breathing this week, after a couple of Southern Gables neighbors, Bruce and Stormy McDonald, invited me to participate in a Cystic Fibrosis CF climb at Coors Field.  Participants who raised money or self-donated got the opportunity to walk up and down all the stairs on the bottom level.

I was pretty nervous.  I had no idea how well I would do. I had never done something like this before.  For comparison, I googled how many steps Red Rocks had.  There are 382 steps from the bottom to the top of the amphitheater. I’ve huffed and puffed those steps to many a concert.  This was going to be a 4,000 step journey. No pressure!

The day came for the event. I’m a Rockies fan, so I was enamored by the chance to play in this field where I’ve watched so many games played. I was glad to see about 300 people who are somehow connected to CF.  The atmosphere was one of excitement. Before I knew it, I was off to the race! As I walked up and down, my breathing became a little labored.  I realized how grateful I was that my asthma was an easily fixable problem.  Two things kept me going. One was the well chosen music.  The other was my newly found empathy for people and their families who live with CF. One woman told her story of not one, but TWO double lung transplants.  Last year she received her second transplant.  This year, she’s hiking all over the place. I had a moment of gratitude for this woman, as well as the people she loves and who love her and still have her. 

I learned that CF is very rare. There are only 40,000 people who live with CF across the nation. In Colorado, that number drops to 700.  Although there is not currently a cure, huge strides have been made to make it possible for people with CF to live long, meaningful lives while they work around their treatments.  A couple told me of their son, diagnosed 50 years ago under the age of 2, not being expected to live past his teens. With medical breakthroughs from research directly funded by the CF Foundation – by fundraisers like this one – he is living a happy and productive life at 52. 

When I looked up my time to complete the Climb, I found that my time was slower than most.  I don’t care. I enjoyed myself very much. I’m thrilled to have had this experience. Time will pass, and I’ll put this event aside for other things.  That is, until next year.  I’m hooked!  I am challenging myself though, to remember to breathe and what a miracle it is that I can breathe easily.  I never want to take that for granted again.

Carolyn Wolfrum has been a Southern Gables resident since 2002, and is an itinerant teacher of the Deaf for Jeffco Schools. She loves working in her garden, running, bike riding, reading and traveling. In addition to climbing stairs to raise money for a good cause, she is preparing for the Denver Century (100 mile) Bike Ride in September. She is Vice President of the West Metro Fire Protection Board of Directors, and a member of the Neighborhood Association Board as well. Carolyn is in charge of the Southern Gables Book Club, and reminds us that the book for September is A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. 

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