So, I've been sitting on this one since Monday; and am just now getting around to sharing these thoughts with you. A funny thing happened this weekend- I flew to Toronto for a wedding. The wedding of my best male friend. And here's what happened- I felt like absolute HELL. From the fucked up 12 hours it took to get from Seattle to Toronto; from landing at some crazy gate L in O'Hare and then not knowing just where in the Hell I was supposed to go from there; to finally arriving THERE only to be snapped at by some shitty shoe wearing gate attendant that I was to simply "read the board" to confirm my location. (To which I replied: "Hey, if the board had the right location written on it, do you really think I would have taken the time to bother to talk to you?" Yes, the asshole was implied.) And then being cut off by every WHITE man in the airport who apparently had someplace important to be...I mean, really. I was there FIRST and I'm a lady, dammit.
I really don't know why I worried about getting my cardio in on Friday. Because seriously, I walked the length of the entire Great Wall. And don't even get me started on the arrival in Toronto. JESUS. Who designed that asinine airport? Seriously...the walk from the gate to the terminal was like some scene out of Amy Tan's film The Joy Luck Club. Old people and kids were just falling by the wayside. And really- in my defense, I held up rather nicely- or so I thought- as I hauled my ass from here to there.
Wedding stuff aside, things fell apart big time for me on Sunday. I was about 2.5 hours into a five hour flight when I realized my heart was pounding away in my rib cage and I wasn't breathing well. And you know me- I assumed it was, well gas. I had eaten some pretty amazing food in Toronto. Seven course brunch. Dinner at a place called "Hey Meatball" followed by some killer crepes. Let's just say there wasn't a lot of "roughage" in the diet. But I DID exercise while in the hotel- because let's be honest- it was STUPID cold outside and I don't really like TV that much.
So, I did what any normal person would do. I got up and used the restroom. I walked the aisle. I did all kinds of things- because it dawned on me: "Uh-oh, I may need them to land this damn plane if I can't get this shit under control." And honestly, I just didn't want to be "that girl." I also looked on the plane map and saw that we were over Fargo, ND. And I just don't know much about their emergency facilities. Do you? While struggling to breathe, I did manage to get angry at myself for not catching this shit sooner, cuz then I stood a chance of getting an emergency landing in Chicago.
I'll readily admit it. I was scared. I kept checking my fingernails to make sure they hadn't turned blue. Because that was the deal I made with myself- if my nails turned blue, I would call the flight attendant and ask them very, very kindly to land the plane. Yes, even in Fargo.To pass the time, I knitted a whole hat. Knitting calms my ass down. And it worked. It took my mind off of my struggle to breathe.
Obviously, I made it home. And once safely on the ground, my breathing returned to some semblance of normal. I felt better. Not great. But certainly better.
Monday I was still a bit rocky. But I attributed that more to jet lag than anything else. My lungs were still burning a bit. But again, I figured it was because I put them through a bit of Hell. And my lung team confirmed that honestly, this type of thing will happen until I get healed up. Apparently to the normal lung person, the crappy cabin air they fill the plane with is fine. But for more sensitive folk like myself, we will basically asphyxiate. You know, that would have been good information to have going into all of this, don't you think? Doctors make me crazy. They really do. And I told them that- and didn't bother smiling either. She felt bad- and I think she felt bad for a couple of reasons.
1) She is empathetic. She knows how much this sucks.
2) She pities me. She knows what the road to recovery- if there is one at all- looks like.
So we talked about the future. She told me that if the steroids don't heal me up, then it looks like I'm on the road to something called fibrosis- for which there is no cure. Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. I have no reason to believe I won't get better like the last two times. But it is curious to think that I may find myself praying for a well-timed motorcycle accident- to get momma her new set of lungs. Morbid even. But I figure as long as there's places like oh, I don't know, Florida, where folks don't wear their helmets, I stand a good chance of coming out on top...So, there's hope.
3:30 PM arrived finally. I picked my kids up from school. Lungs burning and everything. I still had a shit ton of responsibilities in front of me. And I looked over at my boys. I explained very patiently: "Hey, I'm having trouble breathing right now. So I'm going to go take a nap for about 30 minutes. Then we'll tackle everything else. Don't kill each other or burn the house down."
My oldest son replied: "You know mom, if you said something like that to anyone else, they probably would insist on calling 911. Instead we just say: "Alright. Have a good nap." because we've been down this road with you before. We don't panic."
Yes. You see. The kids are alright.
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