The hallway loomed ahead of me, stretching out to infinity, hostile and filled to the brim with possibilities to keep me imprisoned at the hospital over Christmas Day.
The weakness in my knees and the lightness creeping over my body signaled to me that my oxygen level was plummeting again but the gal from respiratory, my walking companion, had to depend on the technology on my pointer finger to know that things were going awry.
The technology registered a steady decline from a healthier 95 percent to a discouraging 87.
The gal from respiratory had the numbers on her side, twinkling and blinking accusingly at me. Only a fool would argue with her.
"Wonder when that little guy was calibrated last?" I knew all about calibration from the likes of NCIS and The Closer, so I was somewhat of an expert in the area.
Naturally she didn't know the answer off the top of her head.
I had the advantage but I wasn't sure what to do with it. The advantage wasn't anything I ever experienced before. I was the master of my hospital room but pretty much nothing else.
I could slow walk from the bed to the bathroom, sit on a straight-backed upholstered chair with complete abandon, lounge in the bed in every contortion I could think of… head up, legs down. Legs up, head up. Head and legs down flat. Feet dangling over the side of the bed. I could make myself look like a railroad track over a bumpy country road. It was all up to me.
The only thing I couldn't control was the walk around the hallway. The long, never-ending hallway that wrapped around the bank of elevators, past the nurse's station and past the other bedrooms where the other patients were busy messing around with their own bed controls.
Every time I failed breathing 101 I had to take a refresher course on how to breathe properly. "Take in a deep breath through your nose and then breathe out through your mouth like a fish. Practice it. Every couple of minutes, practice doing it."
After a while I couldn't remember which way to breathe. Was it nose, mouth or mouth, nose? I finally got it straightened out by remembering that a terrible thing to call someone was to refer to them as a mouth-breather. There. One more mystery solved.
I practiced breathing relentlessly while I flipped through the TV channels, breathing no matter what was on the screen. Then I decided that it would be a lot more fun if I turned the breathing exercises into an off-shoot of the drinking game where you take a drink every time a certain word or phrase is said.
I chose "kick the can down the road" so I was constantly breathing.
I finished one good book at 4:30 in the morning, breathing constantly. I put down another good book down 300 times and never did finish it because I found by then that I couldn't breathe and read at the same time.
Breathing was the difference between making my own peanut butter sandwich for lunch or being able to pick up the phone and order slices of turkey breast with gravy and fresh fruit platters. Breathing was the difference between turning my bed into a pretzel or having animals crawling all over me. Breathing was the difference between remaining in my hospital room or going home for Christmas.
But every time I tried to master the hallway – the mean spirited little black contraption on my finger squealed on me, announcing to the world, or more importantly, to the respiratory gal that I was a failure.
The moment of truth came when I was sitting on the side of the bed, dangling my feet over the side, dressed in the two gown attire of the hall walkers, looking at the black technology hooked on to my pointer finger. It was registering the fact that even on bed rest, without exertion, I was still running low numbers. I could go home on Christmas Eve, but I could only do it with the help of an oxygen tank.
I chose home, peanut butter sandwiches and the animals.
I miss my bed control but I will get over it.
Happy New Year.
(You can reach Janet Good, Somerset, any old time at janetnjim@yahoo.com.)
Breathing lessons
-
-
-
Comments0
-
-
-
0
Comments (0)
Add comments | Discussion FAQCurrently there are no comments. Be the first to comment!
