Still in flannel nightgown at 11:33 am, listening to the music that feeds my soul on WXPN, promising myself that this weekend will mostly include resting in between writing articles, starting with this one. For the past week, I have been a wheezing, whistling, dripping, raw throated, coughing mess. Not my favorite state of being, but it is sadly all too familiar. Diagnosed with asthma at four years old, I spent many nights sitting in my parents’ bathroom breathing in shower steam to soothe my lung spasms and open my airway. My mother would call my coughing ‘barking’. I think of it now as imitating a baby seal. I have been in my own personal steam bath this past week as well. I spent multiple nights over the years coughing so hard that I moved ribs out of place.
One time, during an emergency visit with my chiropractor, she used her magic to pop them back in place. Now, I hug a pillow if I feel a spasm coming on. Sometimes they sneak up on me at inopportune moments, such as when I am on telehealth calls with therapy clients. I give them a heads up that if I mute myself, it is because I have been ambushed and don’t want to startle them with the sound of tectonic plates shifting. I have gotten so accustomed to the rattling that I minimize it with, “Oh, this is much better than it has been.”
I have been prone to respiratory illness that starts with sniffling and leads to coughing, which is part and parcel of my COPD diagnosis that arrived after years of working for 14 years in environments where I was exposed to second and third hand smoke. That’s when I bring out the tool kit that includes tea, water, lozenges, inhalers, cough meds, Vicks Vapo-rub (also reminiscent of mom nurturing all those years ago), tissues at the ready. It’s also when I took myself to Urgent Care since my PCP’s office was closed at that point and I didn’t want to go to wait, potentially for hours at the ER. I had tested negative for COVID in the wee hours the night before, even so, I masked up, since I didn’t want to cough on anyone and feel like Typhoid Mary. Within less than an hour, I had been examined, given the diagnosis of Bronchitis (been there, done that, got the t-shirt) and sent home to await filling of RX for an anti-biotic and a cough suppressant called Tessalon Perles. Several days and several sleepless nights later, I feel like I am turning a corner.
Yesterday by sister sent me Manuka honey and ginger lozenges which feel more healing and less medicinal than the menthol drops I have been sucking on one right after the other, almost like chain smoking when I have been on calls with my clients, lest a cough break through. My cousin brought over a care package that included Jewish Penicillin (Chicken Soup), elderberry cough drops and tea bags. I feel so loved.
I have been musing about the chronic nature of this condition. Have I gotten so accustomed to it, that I acclimate when it shows up, clamoring for attention? Have I come to see myself as a cardiac (heart attack in 2014) and respiratory patient that I have needed to adjust my life down to a smaller space? God, I hope not. I hear about friends doing things that I don’t have the stamina for, even though I work out at the gym. I just turned 65 and ponder if I will be able to be as active as my own parents were until their late 70s. They both passed in their middle 80s. My zooming, spinning and dancing a gazillion miles an hour grandchildren keep me moving, but there are times when I need to rest and recover.
It takes longer to get up from the floor than it used to. When we are out and about, I am the one pushing the stroller since it gives me something to lean on. 16 month old Lucy is tucked in the front, while Dean who will be four in January stands and perches on the back. Pushing over 50 lbs. of pre-school and toddler grandkiddos is no small feat, by the way.
As an empath, I have also noticed a lowered resistance to coping with trauma in the lives of others. My job as a psychotherapist requires that I spend my workdays hearing client’s stories about abuse and trauma, about loss and confusion, about seemingly unsolvable dilemmas, some of their own making and some that were thrust upon them by multi-generational family dysfunction.
Secondary trauma is a dynamic that first responders, medical and mental health professionals, police and military personnel fall prey to. By the end of the day, I often feel depleted, like I am drowning. Not coincidentally, it is also how I feel in the paroxysm of coughing, as if I am under water and can’t quickly find my way back to the surface. Hence, this weekend off. My plan is to stay in, write, talk as little as possible, watch movies, listen to music and nap…lots of that. And breathing…ahhhh~Â Just breathe…
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Unsplash
