The Ventilator
This is a section from Chapter Six of my manuscript. It feels like an applicable share at this moment for multiple reasons.
Friday night, day 7, was the scariest time I experienced in the hospital. It began with a new set of evening nurses who I didn’t trust. Irrationally, I thought they might do something wrong and I wouldn’t be able to communicate my schedule or needs with them. My parents had already left earlier in the evening but Kennett normally stayed with me each night until at least 10 pm. On Friday, I asked him to stay with me longer.
My fear stemmed from the fact that I was on a ventilator to help me breathe. The machine hooked up to a small tube that went into the opening in my windpipe from the tracheostomy. Mucus formed inside the tube over time and had to be suctioned out because it would block my airway, leaving me suffocating in my own phlegm.
That night, mucus built up every 20 minutes and each time my breathing became labored as my chest filled with fluid. Kennett was in protective mode and hit the nurse's button repeatedly in an effort to speed up the respiratory therapist’s response.
She seemed to move at a geriatric patient’s pace while pushing her instruments into the room, putting on sterile gloves, and unwrapping the sealed, sanitary tubing. The tedious process seemed to take minutes and, while I fought for enough air, both Kennett and I wanted her to hurry the hell up. Finally she’d connect the pencil-sized tubing to a machine, stick it down the hole in my neck, all the way into my lungs, and clear out the phlegm. Even though the suctioning was performed for less than 10 seconds at a time, each procedure was as terrifying as the last. The tubing blocked my airway, so it created the sensation of choking. I also had be temporarily unhooked from the ventilator, which aided my breathing in the first place.
Throughout Friday night when I’d close my eyes I'd hallucinate bright, gigantic mardi-gras characters, who were projected onto the wall and ceiling. Their legs were out of proportion with their upper bodies, as though they were on stilts. The women wore long dresses while the men were in vividly patched clothing. The background was tangerine orange as I watched them dancing to big band music. The dancing was the most grounded element of the hallucination because Kennett and I were listening to my iPod.
My sister had brought me small speakers earlier in the week so we could play music as an activity. I had been a long-time groupie of the singer-songwriter Stephen Kellogg and his band The Sixers so we played song after song, repeating the same ones over again as the hours went by. I’d been to over 10 of his concerts before. I couldn’t sing along, but I knew all of the lyrics.
In one of the actual concerts I’d attended, Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers played Milwaukee and broke down each element of the music. The pianist did a solo after which Stephen sung, “It feels alright, the sound of that piano filling up the night, makes me feel alright.” As the piano solo continued he talked about getting scared at life and how friends, family, and the melody help him feel less afraid. When the drums came into the song he described them as the heartbeat. “Then, when all else fails and you just want to get out of your situation, you’ve got the electric guitar to scream.” That is exactly how I listened to each element of the music while in the hospital. Exhausted and anxious from each respiratory episode when I struggled to breathe, Kennett and I broke down crying through lyrics such as, “You relieve the, the clouds of rain, and you remind me there’ll be other days…”
And that was how the night continued. We played songs, cried to the lyrics, and I’d describe my imaginary giant people to Kennett with pen and paper. I’d complain that even with my eyes open I kept seeing purple, red, and orange colored fireworks bursting through the darkness. Mucus would fill my lungs, the respiratory therapist would shuffle in, and I’d look for reassurance from Kennett as I endured a few more seconds of choking and violent coughing. The goal throughout it all was simply to make it until the sun rose.
In the morning Kennett went home to sleep and I took a nap. When my parents came in at nine o’clock, I made my dad play Stephen Kellogg’s song Father’s Day. Over the speakers Stephen sung, “I'm sorry for the things that get messed up, And there will be places that you may not get enough, And some memories you wish you never had, But what won't kill you makes you stronger, And you just tell them, You got that from your dad.”
I needed the protection of my family, and to listen to the reassuring lyrics of my favorite songwriter to remind me there’d be better days ahead. While that night was the last I struggled to breathe, I had other looming fears that a slow moving respiratory therapist and pain medication couldn’t fix.