The ways of celebrating a birthday are as numerous as birthdays themselves.
For the third year in a row, Brittany Graham will celebrate hers climbing the St. Louis’ Metropolitan Square Building’s 40 floors, consisting of 856 steps, as part of the American Lung Association’s Fight for Air Climb, to honor her mother, Cindy, who died from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in 2017.
Graham with Cindy’s best friend, Paula Korman. This is their third year participating in the climb as a team called “Sweet Cindy’s Soldiers.”
Cindy’s best friend, Paula Korman, also participates with Graham, as part of the team they call “Sweet Cindy’s Soldiers.”
Cindy battled a cough for about three years. Doctors first thought it was allergies, but the cough eventually got so bad that she could barely hold a conversation. Then she was diagnosed with pneumonia, which led to more tests on the origin of her cough. At just 60 years old, Cindy was diagnosed with IPF, a progressive lung disease, and multiple myeloma, a form of cancer. After the diagnosis, Cindy moved in with her daughter. Within just six months, she had four hospitalizations.
“Her lungs were 40% scarred,” Graham said. “She needed a lung transplant, but couldn’t get one because of the multiple myeloma. At age 28, ready or not, I became my sweet momma’s caregiver and embarked on what would be the most painfully beautiful experience of my life.”
Over the next few years, Graham learned how to tell when her mom wasn’t getting enough oxygen and her concentrators needed to be adjusted. She figured out how to identify the pallid complexion of her skin that meant she needed to get to the emergency room immediately, and she became a pro at turning the hospital couch into a bed. Then, in August 2016, Cindy went into hospice.
“Determined to focus on living and not dying, we planned a celebration of life party and invited everyone we knew to tell my mom how amazing she was,” Graham said.
Unfortunately, on Dec. 8, 2017, Cindy died.
“We were both too young for this. We didn’t see it coming,” Graham said. “It was the honor of a lifetime to be able to take care of her.”
Korman and Graham proudly proclaim the reason for their climb.
After her mother died, Graham was driving home and saw a billboard for the Fight For Air Climb at Metropolitan Square, which happened to be on the weekend of her birthday. She decided to sign up to memorialize her mother. On April 4, she will participate in her third Fight for Air Climb for her mother, but also to raise awareness about lung disease and funds for a cure.
“Nothing can ever replace what Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis took from me. My mom won’t zip up my wedding dress; she won’t babysit her grandchildren; she won’t meet me for any more dinners on Friday night,” she said. “Despite these harsh realities, I’ll fight until my last breath to help find a cure for this deadly disease, so other people don’t have to travel the same devastating journey my mom and I traveled.”
For more information, visit FightForAirClimb.org/StLouis.
