Mike,
I can relate to you in many ways. sometimes you just need to know there is somone else out there who holds out home. an optomistic CF pashent seems to be hard to find theese days.
when I was younger I spend a lot of time in the hospital, I think that the nursses there rased me about as much as my parents did. the hospital has become my home away from home, and the volenteers docters nurses, and RT's are my second family.
I have also come to know a lot of the other CFers. about 2 years ago a very good friend of mine with CF passed away. she had had a lung tranceplant 3 years earlyer, during those 3 years she did amazingly well and lived life for all it was worth.
after she died I asked my favorie nurse what she concidered a success for a lung tranceplant. I know that doctors don't concider it a full success untill 5 years. but I like the nurses ansore. she told me that if somone lives for just one day without the strugle for breath, if he or she can make one dream come true, even if that dream is to take in a full breath of air for the first time, then the tranceplant was a success.
that got me thinking about my friend, she always had 2 goles in life, 1, to become a doctor, and 2, she always wanted to play soccer. she wasn't able to make her first dream come true, but she tole me when she was in the hospis that the seson of soccer she played after her tranceplant made everything she had ever been through worth it.
my friend was an insperation to me, and even though she is gone, she still is. she makes me remember that it is the little things that matter. like the feeling when you first get out of the hospital and your PFT's are back to your baceline, whatever that is, and you take a breath, that feeling that you can take on the world. that is what life is all about, thats what you need to life for.