Take My Breath Away
My Geography teacher, Mr Arlers, would dictate our class and I remember writing furiously not to miss a point. It was Friday last period and the first week of Grade 11 was almost done. My right arm started to ache, and at first I thought it was from all the writing, but it was too painful to be that. I gave my arm a shake and a stretch at my school desk, but nothing helped. I remember thinking for a moment that I’m having a heart attack and debating with myself that no then my left arm would have the pain. The class ended and the ache seemed to subside. That evening was youth group and I was playing in the band. The pain was mostly gone and I pushed it out my mind. Late that night it started to gradually return, but being sixteen and maybe a little too headstrong, I downplayed my discomfort. My mom said that we’d go to the doctor in the morning to get it checked out. It was very difficult to get comfortable in bed and my chest ached if I lay flat, so I had to try sleep sitting up for some relief.
Saturday morning came and I actually felt better. I got out of bed to tell my mom that I’m ok and while walking down the passage I suddenly couldn’t breathe. I froze trying to understand what was happening and went to form a shout, but was unable to expel a anything. It felt like I was in a vacuum of space. No air. I stood there like a statue, with a buzz growing in my ears and vision slowly blurring, I felt myself suffocating. I didn’t have time to think about death, it was just terror and confusion that faded to white as I passed out down the middle of our passage way.
I remember gaining consciousness for a moment, hearing the roar of the car’s engine and warm daylight blinding me from the passenger window. There was heavy pressure on my chest and I faded out again.
The next moment I smelt sterilizing chemicals and opened my eyes in an unfamiliar place. Back in 2000 it wasn’t everyday that you saw people wearing surgical masks, so it felt quite disconcerting to wake up to the sight of hidden faces rushing around me. There were maybe three people there and I remember lying flat on my back and cocking my head to the side to see a defibrillator next to me. My lungs had gone on strike, but fortunately my heart was a little more stubborn and I hadn’t needed to be ‘recharged’ via the volts. I was confused but clam. I was told that my lung had collapsed and I needed surgery asap. I remember questioning for a moment whether it was a dream. It seemed so ridiculous and out of nowhere. My body felt light, like if I wasn’t gripping the table beneath me, I might float away. I slowly came back to myself, but could only take shallow quick breaths.
It’s not what I can solely describe as pain, but rather a strange and slightly nauseating sensation. Something was pivoting inside my chest as I breathed and moved. I looked down to my right side where the foreign discomfort had registered, to discover a long clear tube with the diameter of a hose pipe exiting from between my ribs into a bottle of liquid that was on the floor beside the bed. I moved to investigate and could feel it craning inside me, causing me to gag and cough which awarded me a flash of pain throughout my chest. I was too groggy for any panic to announce itself, so I slowly lay back down relinquishing any responsibly for what needed to be done to me. Although perplexed by the situation, I felt I was in good hands and at least I had woken up so I felt it wasn’t my final chapter yet.
The doctors had inserted a chest tube which allowed air to drain from the collapsed lung cavity so it could re-inflate. A common practice for stabbing victims where a puncture is left. But my situation is far less common. I had experienced a spontaneous pneumothorax. A bubble, also known as a bleb, on the surface of my lung had ruptured leaving a hole resulting in my deflated lung.
The drain however was just step one. The surgery I needed was quite invasive and would usually entail a large incision between the ribs to access the lung. Fortunately, one of the top thoracic surgeons in South Africa had recently moved to little East London and gave my parents an alternative surgery option. A newer less invasive key hole surgery that didn’t require extensive cutting. The surgery would be the same on the inside, but without the massive gash in my side granting access to the deflated lung. And just like that, before having time to digest what was happening, I was gearing up for major lung surgery at sixteen years old, where previously my biggest fears were a girl not liking me or breaking a guitar string on stage in front of people.
I remember praying and feeling peace, and even being ok with the thought of dying. Maybe I would’ve been more scared if I was older.
I have never liked injections. No matter how much I rationalize the moment, an illogical fear always rears its head at the approach of a needle. But lying there with a pipe sticking out my side seemed to diminish that fear as I was given a drip and a number of injections. I remember the tonal beeps of monitoring equipment and feeling more like an objectified thing than a person. Like I was a piece of machinery to be repaired and the ‘I’ was somehow detached. The doctor asked me to count back from 10, and I don’t remember even making 9.
Hours passed. Black. Muffled sounds. Then I heard those familiar beeps and felt a warm sensation throughout my body as I slowly entered back into the world of the conscious. I can’t remember feeling pain at that moment, but felt very heavy and stiff like I was wearing clothes a size too small.
I grew up surfing and swimming, and in high school I enjoyed playing water polo. I had experienced a muscle cramp before and it’s not pleasant. It is painful and debilitating as a muscle becomes stone and the nerves scream out with shocks of electricity.
Some time passed after the op and then I felt something creeping up on my feet. Like increasing the volume slowly, the pain started to build as I noticed the sheets reforming while my feet started to curl below. It came in waves and progressed up my body. The cramps moved methodically up into my calves, then my thighs. You don’t fully know your own strength. I cried not just from the pain, but at the thought I was going to snap my own spine as my back contorted. I lost all control of my own body. A spasm is painful, now imagine every muscle in your body cramping over eleven hours as wave after wave hits and all you can do is twist in agony.
I had eaten peanuts as a child. I had been stung by bees. All the usual suspects were eliminated as I grew up exposed to potential allergens. What I never knew, was that I was allergic to a drug called Stemetil. It’s commonly given after operations alongside other medications. I had obviously quite a severe reaction and all we could do was let it run its course through my body.
My mouth felt like it had never encountered water and my tongue lay like a piece of dried leather. I remember being so scared to swallow as I thought my dried-out uvula (the little dangling bit at the back of the mouth) would snap off and I would swallow it. I remember wandering if I would be able to eat without it while my eyes rolled back in my head as the spasms reached my face.
During the allergic reaction I was rushed to get X-rays done. Presumably to check that the contorting wasn’t undoing the surgery. My situation was unfortunately not explained to the radiologist technician, and he got very impatient with me for not lying still. I was unable to explain as my jaw muscles had clamped my mouth shut. I remember him shouting at me at the second or third attempt to get a scan and crying on the table feeling helpless.
Hours passed and with a rotation of nurses massaging my muscles, the cramps slowing dissipated leaving me feeling like a lump of tenderized meat.
I was in the hospital for about a week and then home for a few more recovering. Being what I thought was a healthy and strong (although skinny) adolescent that had become independent in some ways, the weeks that followed were very humbling. My parents had to bath me and many things I would previously do without thinking became difficult and even impossible with the pain. The surgeon had made several incisions through my intercostal muscles, and turning and lifting reminded me regularly that those muscles weren’t healed. My wounds were stitched on the inside and stapled on the outside. I felt like an upgraded version of Frankenstein’s monster. After a couple weeks we went to the doctor to get the staples removed, with you guessed it, a staple remover. It indents the center and the outer parts flare out like wings as they pop from the skin. I know its not technically needles but that too was unenjoyable.
I have no doubt in my mind that if I had gotten the initial type of invasive surgery, I wouldn’t be alive today. My allergic reaction and the subsequent body twisting would have pulled open the wound and I would of likely bled out. I’m forever grateful to my parents and the doctor for making the right choice.
My right lung collapsed at the beginning of 2000. 2001 was my matric year, and little did I know then that my left lung would follow suit, but that’s another story.
Most of the time I go about life, business as usual, but now and then I remember to take a breath and hold it. I treasure that air inside my lungs and then exhale with gratitude.