Breath -by Barbara Fleming
Breathing is a natural reflex we all take for granted—until it isn’t.
About a year ago, I found myself struggling to breathe at times. After a few days in the hospital and a few weeks in rehab, I landed at an assisted living facility in Loveland, on oxygen full time.
All kinds of infirmities can crop up as we age. I tell myself I should be grateful that I do not have dementia, crippling arthritis, or some other significant ailment, and there is a partial remedy for what I do have. Still, it was a surprise, traumatic to put it kindly. I am not a smoker, and I have never lived in a heavily polluted area, yet I have scars on my lungs.
They are labeled idiopathic, meaning of unknown origin. I speculate—might they be genetic? Neither of my parents lived into their seventies, much less into their eighties, so I have no examples to go by. Moreover, causes of death were largely unknown before their generation; I cannot trace it back. My brother is deceased, but my older sister has no such symptoms. So what caused them? No one knows.
Living with this infirmity requires that I take a portable oxygen unit with me whenever I leave my room, that I sleep with the canula in my nose, and that I sometimes have to take deliberate breaths. No doubt numerous individuals have similar debilitating conditions, so I am in good company. I hope they, whoever they are, have learned to live with their situations with grace and courage, as I am trying to do.
What else is there to do but make the best of it? I am learning to live around it, to accommodate my need to breathe easily wherever I am. A long-time friend has been on oxygen for a good many years; she has adapted to it and, while she may find it annoying from time to time, she knows she is dependent on it and she simply accepts it. I hope I can achieve that attitude.
The hardest part of it is loss of independence. Being in an assisted living facility makes me dependent, and as one who has been self-directed for most of her life, this is a hard pill to swallow. I had to talk sternly to myself to understand that I did nothing wrong; I did not bring this on myself. It just happened.
During my life, more than eighty years, I have experienced a variety of medical issues, some of them life-threatening. This is far from the first time my body has spoken to me. But in the past, what I had was treatable and would go away. This time, that was not the case. These scars are permanent.
So I live out the rest of my days coping. Some days, coping gets pretty old. However, what are the choices? I can whine and feel sorry for myself, or I can look for the positive, do what I can, and carry on. So that’s what I choose to do.
Barbara Fleming is a local author and editor. Her most recent published book, Hidden History of Fort Collins, is available at local bookstores and on Amazon.com. Her newest novel, My Name Is Meggie, will be published later this year. You can visit her at her website https://www.authorbarbarafleming.com
