I am a sucker for a good drama. My favorite shows of all times have been the sad, depressing stuff found on My So-Called Life or the crazy relationship drama found on Felicity or Dawson's Creek. I have to admit, though, that television schedules of the last few years have offered me little in the way of good, quality drama. It seems like every show I took a liking to got canceled.
Maybe it's this lack of a good story or just the proliferation of blogging on the Internet, but I have become rather obsessed with reading people's blogs. It started out innocently enough, with a simple desire to keep up with what was going on with people I knew. But then those blogs became neglected or got deleted, so I just started reading other people's blogs to get my fix. Now I probably visit a dozen blogs a day. Some of them are people I went to college with, some of them are complete strangers who blog about stuff that interests me, like coupons or saving money. But I find all of them interesting.
One blog has sucked me in like no other: Confessions of a CF Husband. It was linked from one of the other blogs I read, and I was hooked from the moment I clicked on the page. It's the story of Nathan, Tricia, and Gwyneth-- a very endearing family enduring some very difficult circumstances with grace and immense faith. Tricia has Cystic Fibrosis, a chronic condition that affects the lungs and digestive system; and without a double lung transplant, Tricia's chances of surviving another year are slim. Just before Tricia was placed on the transplant list, she and Nathan discovered they were having a baby. Against their doctors' advice, they decided to have the baby and delay the possible transplant. After some complications, their little baby, Gwyneth, was born about fifteen weeks early. Gwyneth is still in the neonatal intensive care unit, but she is improving and gaining weight and looking cuter every day. Tricia's been in the hospital at Duke for more than three months, preparing to get back on the transplant list and now waiting for a set of lungs.
Yesterday they got the transplant call, and you would have thought it was happening to someone I knew because I got so excited. I was praying so hard that the lungs would be the right ones and that everything would work out. I couldn't stop refreshing the page to check for any updates. Before I went to bed last night, I did find out that she had gone into surgery and it looked like everything was a go. I could barely sleep last night because I was so excited/worried/prayerful. The first Web site I went to this morning was theirs, and I was relieved to find out that the surgery appears to have been successful.
Isn't it amazing how invested we can become in a stranger's life? Unlike TV dramas, this is real, and perhaps that is why it impacts so many people so emotionally. These characters are genuine, and their lives are not just a passing plot line. I will probably never meet Nathan, Tricia, or Gwyneth, but I am thankful that they have invited me (and millions of others) into their lives. At some point Nathan may shut down the blog, and I'll probably be disappointed; but I feel that my life is much richer because of their story. How many of us can say that about a TV show?
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