Another Story of Scott

Twice my little newspaper has done stories about a local guy named Scott Carlstrom that I never saw coming. Both articles have been inspiring tales of one man's will to survive in the face of difficult odds. Both have been incomplete.

The stories written by Mert Seaton and our new editor Dale McCurry were both well written. I didn't have a problem with either one. However, any good story is connected to many others. Each of those is just like a feather in a bigger chicken.

While I am always interested in the bigger chicken, what I want to write about here is simply another feather.

My wife, Valerie, grew up in a house across the street from "Scottie" Carlstrom. By all accounts (my wife, my sister-in-law's, Scott's mother), Val never made his young life, which sounded already rather difficult, very easy. It's safe to say she was a bit of a prankster.

Ryan Scott Carlstrom, now 34, has always had bad lungs. You see, he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at the age of 6. Often, children with this genetic disease never make it to be adults. One hazard: they have to be careful of infections, for sure.

Val, who is nearly four years older than Scott, never cared too much about his situation. Not that she was heartless. She did what kids will do; she treated him like anyone else. With little abandon.

For example, as an occasional play-buddy, she said she once sold him "China dirt."

"But I sold lots of kids China dirt," she said.

As you might guess, my wife never went to China.

She said his parents hated her growing up. She was too old to be playing with Scott. She was too rough. And my wife said they would always keep an eye on her; tell on her any chance they got.

Last year, right around the time the first story ran in the Free Press, my wife and I stood in a voting line next to Scott's mother. She seemed tense around Valerie at first, but something about the years gone by had softened her. His mother talked to us both about Scott, his condition, and how mean my wife used to be-- always the tomboy, the trouble maker.

My wife, for her part, acknowledged her own reckless attitude. We all talked softly about Scott and his deteriorating condition; he was in my graduating class, and though he seemed short, skinny, and shy, I never knew how he struggled.

A few days later, while taking my kids over to my in-laws, Scott's father came up to me and shook my hand-- he wanted to thank me for Mert's article. I tried to explain that I had nothing to do with it, but he was thankful all the same.

In this issue, on page 19, our new editor reported the good news. Scott received his long-awaited double-lung transplant. He lived in St. Louis for months away from his wife, and family, and friends...waiting.

My wife told me that, as a child, she did feel sorry for Scott at times. Especially, after school. You see, she said Scott's dad would make him run everyday to strengthen his lungs. She said Scott would often look sad that he couldn't just play with the others.

According to cff.org, around 30,000 kids and adults have cystic fibrosis in America. Unfortunately, not everyone gets to live long enough to see a shot at the type of life-saving surgery Scott received.

Dale reported that Carlstrom said he felt he was within a couple of months of dying. His lung capacity had been as low as 17 percent of where it ought to be before the transplant. It's now said to be at 123 percent.

In the article, Scott said: "I now know that I was lucky to have had CF all my life. When people live the way I now do for 50 or 60 years and then are hit with a catastrophic disease, it must be terribly hard to adjust. That’s all I had known.”

While he has had two rejection incidents, it seems now that he is out of the woods. With a new pair of lungs, it appears Scott has the best part of his life in front of him.

His parents, who have dedicated their lives to the care of their oldest son, can hopefully enjoy what's remaining of their stories.

There's a lot of feathers out there. There's a lot of stories.

For now, what matters is Scott has a new lease on life. He's 34, and just beginning to live.

Get out there and live, my friend. Play in the dirt. Get outdoors and play, Scottie. It's time for you to play.