A kernel of my imagination

A few weeks ago, in the middle of the night, I jolted awake, unable to breathe. I clutched at my throat, as sleep’s sweet unconsciousness relinquished its clutches on me. Something was obstructing the passage of air through my windpipe and I could feel it.

You never think about breathing until you can’t. Years of asthma taught me that.

While other kids could run and laugh and play without worry, I carried around a bag in the shape of a tropical fish containing my inhalers, the spectre of attack always imminent. Years later, when I changed asthma doctors, I took a breathing test and was told I had a 30% breathing function, comparable, my sweet new doctor told me, to breathing through a straw. My brothers and sisters still tease me about that.

So, wheezing and oxygen deprivation are feelings I’m familiar with, but this midnight attack was slightly different. I mean, what could possibly be choking me at two in the morning as I lay serenely in my bed? I tried to stay calm as I jolted up, but I felt the fear rising. So I prayed. If He wanted to, God could easily take this away. Easily. ‘C’mon, Lord, I pleaded. Please. Please help me.” Nothing. “Okay, Thy will be done. Just teach me and help me.” Then I made a deal with God and with myself. If, in an hour, I’m still struggling to breathe, I will admit my own inadequacy, accept that I am a ridiculous burden to those around me, and wake up my roommate. I gargled salt water, tried to cough, dry heaving with desperate attempts to coax the foreign object out of my body and into the night. Slowly, two turned to three, I was increasingly agitated, and my throat increasingly raw.

“Hey, uh, Leslie,” I murmured into the deep of slumber, “I need you to take me to the emergency room.” Dutifully and diligently, she got up and dressed and we headed out into the December darkness.

When we arrived in the ER, I was feeling increasingly silly. “What seems to be the trouble?” the receptionist inquired. “Well, this is totally not a big deal, and I don’t know if this was even the right place for me to come, but I feel something in my throat blocking my air passages.” I suddenly felt like I was going to cry. She was tired and looked a bit beaten by life, and, maybe because of this, she was incredibly gracious. “This is the right place for you to come. It’s scary when you can’t breathe,” she nodded. “Have a seat, there, honey, and we’ll get right to you.”

So I sat down, Leslie kindly joined me, and we listened to newscasters prattle on and on about what cocktails to serve at your New Years Eve party tonight. An ER waiting room is a fascinating place. We watched two young men ignore a sleeping toddler and text and wonder if the cops were in the hospital and find their drugs. As the precious child’s cornrows uncomfortably slumped against the fake wood armrest, it was all I could do not to sweep her into my arms, and kiss her darling face. There were some Vandy undergrads, incredibly affectionate and upbeat for a 3am Emergency Room visit, and, of course, the ubiquitous unwashed man in the corner exclaiming gibberish at random intervals.

Finally, they call some mispronounced version of my name. “That’s me!” “Don’t worry,” I confidently tell Leslie, “you don’t need to come back with me. This will literally take five seconds. Heimlich maneuver or popsicle sticks or whatever.” (Yes, I’m very keen on medical terms.)

I’m directed to a room to wait for my doctor, “who should be in any minute,” and I sit on the edge of the hospital bed with expectant eyes and rising panic. After an interminable no more than five minutes, not one but two doctors enter my room. We’ll call them Real Doctor and Kid Doctor. “What’s up?” Real Doctor asks, with a certain compassion and competency. After some incoherent apology about taking up his time for something so minor when there are gunshot wounds and strokes in the world, I tell him. “There’s something in my throat. I can feel it moving and can’t get it out and it’s obstructing my clear breathing.” Oh, okay, let’s have a look. “They can’t see anything,” he tells me (what?), and so that means it’s probably a little deeper than I thought. “Can we do a chest x-ray?”

“They’ll come for you in a minute,” Kid Doctor chirps in, “in the mean time try to lay down and rest.” If I could just lay down and rest, Kid Doctor, I wouldn’t be here, I think. Instead, I look at Real Doctor and tell him I’m afraid to lay down because I’ll choke again. He tells me it’ll be okay and, “hey, if you do choke, you’re in the right place.” Good point.

After a little while, I’m wheeled (yes, wheeled, people) to the x-ray room, which, incidentally, is exactly why I don’t like The Future. Darkness, radiation, and weird outfits. But, I digress. At this point, I feel like a four-year old (which, turns out, I am) as the x-ray technician lady gently moves my arms and neck and face into the proper position. I put back on my fleece and am wheeled back to my (hopefully not final) resting place. (Hey now, everything’s dramatic at now four in the morning.)

My doctors return, bearing news. “We want to put a camera down your throat,” they tell me. At this point, I’m like, whatever you need to do to end this nightmare, do it. They numb my throat with some spray and prepare to take a look. (The spray is in a syringe looking thing, so at first I thought it was a needle and, terrified, asked Real Doctor if I had to get a shot?!? I think this was the moment he realized what a frail creature he had on his hands. “Oh, no, Sweetheart, but it does look like that.” Okay, I bravely nod, and we proceed.) All numbed up, Kid Doctor is preparing his camera for the big unveiling of whatever has brought me to the hospital on this cold night.

Putting a camera down your throat at first sounded a little cool to me. A hidden camera, for a spy or Christiane Amanpour. It’s really not. About one second after Kid Doctor begins what may have been his maiden voyage into the human windpipe, I start crying.

This is an embarrassing fault of my character, probably, but I have never not cried at the doctor. Even if I have a minor cold, when I hear my own small voice say, “I just don’t feel good,” there will be abundant tears. This was no exception.

“Tell me what you feel,” Kid Doctor implores, “what’s going on?” “I don’t know,” I awkwardly sob, “I’ve never had a camera in my throat before- I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like.” It was legitimately painful and the nurse’s empathy assured me that it was fine for me to be so hysterical. We proceed and, as the tears roll down my face, I realize I’m probably hurting the Kid Doctor’s feelings, or at least his ego. “It’s not your fault,” I tell him with big, weepy eyes, “I have a really low pain tolerance and am terrible at going to the doctor. You’re doing a really good job.” He looks grateful. Not long after, Real Doctor steps in. The camera mercifully goes down and sees…nothing.

Nothing.

But my windpipe is now clear. “It could have been anything,” Real Doctor explains, “the camera probably pushed it down.” “Maybe some popcorn,” he offers. I did have popcorn earlier, I say, and he assures me that was probably the culprit. Real Doctor leaves for a minute to get my x-ray results, leaving me and the Kid alone.

“Sometimes, “ he begins, with all earnestness and medical school knowledge, “people legitimately think that something is choking them. But there’s never really anything there.” (I’m sorry… what??) “You think it was a figment of my imagination?” I ask, absolutely incredulous. “Maybe.” “But I could feel it. Really feel it.” “That’s not uncommon,” he replies. A figment of my imagination? Could I possibly be so delusional to have imagined that I was being choked, woken up myself and my roommate, and been essentially tortured for hours for no real reason?

Real Doctor returns and I ask him about that, he shakes his head at the Kid’s proposal, and assures me that there was assuredly something that was obstructing my breathing, not to worry. We talk a little, he asks me about the study of history, and tells me about his family’s story. I apologize again for crying, we shake hands, and I walk out into the coming morning. Into the cold air. Which I can breathe clearly.

I still sometimes wonder if I could have possibly imagined the entire event. Our imaginations are extremely powerful. Every person fashions their own version of reality, in some ways. They imagine that they’ve kissed the object of their affections. They envision finally telling off their boss. They pretend to confront a nagging mother-in-law. I guess I’ll never know for sure what happened, but in the meantime, I’m chewing popcorn very carefully.