Suffocating

       suffocating

[ˈsəfəkādiNG]

ADJECTIVE

1. causing difficulty in breathing:

“the suffocating heat”

• making one feel trapped and oppressed

Breathe in for three counts, hold for three counts, and breathe out for three.

When I had increasing pain in my spine and hips, imaging showed issues with my discs. My doctor said this could probably be easily surgically corrected, and he sent me to the new bone clinic. I didn’t realize I had not been sent to your typical orthopedist. I had been sent to an oncological orthopedist, so he did not look at my discs. What interested him was a lesion in my spine. He told me it was in a difficult place because it was in the center of my spinal canal, near where my spine joins my skull, where all your neuro activity goes into your brain. It was such a touchy place that she did not want to biopsy it because that could easily kill me or make me a quadriplegic. Hence, he said I should see an even more specialized spinal oncologist to see what they thought and to get a pet scan.

Breathe in, breathe out.

I found the new specialist’s waiting room but did not realize where I had been sent. When I looked up, I saw Brain Cancer Center. I looked around; this was unlike the cancer center on the 21st floor. There were very incapacitated people with scars on their heads. A deafening scream erupted inside me.

Why am I here? gasp

How did I get here? gasp

How could I have a third kind of cancer in 10 years? gasp

My head and heart exploded. I could not process this experience. I started breathing rapidly, and I became very dizzy. I went into a panic attack for the first time in my life, through two kinds of cancers, a stem cell transplant, and losing custody of my children for a year because of my health; I never had panicked.

I closed my eyes to escape my reality. I detached as entirely as I could to breathe in and out.

In and out.

Then slowly cracked the door open and let my reality enter at a reasonable pace, and control. Equanimity. When I saw the specialist, he explained he would order a pet CT scan. Still, his biggest concern was my panic attack which had sent me into an adrenal crisis. My blood pressure was rapidly dropping I had to go to the emergency room. It’s a particular emergency room for people in crisis with cancer. There are only a few people. It is quiet. I could shut my eyes and leave.

Because of my adrenal insufficiency, I could not produce the cortisol needed to power me through a stressful moment. IVs were hooked up, and I had to leave my reality and just

inhale…….exhale.

When my PET scan came back, the lesion appeared non-malignant. They didn’t know what it was but were convinced it was not dangerous. Okay, well, time to get back to my back! The scan did reveal a problem in my left hip. It turned out I have avascular necrosis from being given excessive amounts of steroids to treat my cancer. This means it caused the blood supply to my femur to be shut off, so the bone died, the primary bone going into my hip joint. So, I was sent next to an orthopedic surgeon. She looked at my imaging and informed me I did not qualify for hip replacement because I was too frail.

Frail, frail, frail, frail.

Who me? Frail? I was a sickly, scared, shy child, but I had worked my entire life to become a strong woman. Don’t call me frail, bitch. She told me I would not live through the operation. “What’s the next step? What do we do now? How do we fix this? “She said there was no way to fix this. I said what will we do about the pain? She said it would only get worse. There is nothing we can do. I have never been told this before.

Three in three out

Breathe in, breathe out

She felt bad about my pain. She wanted to help me in some way. So she said she could give me a shot that helps some people.

She injected a colossal shot of steroids into my hip. She forgot I had AVN. She forgot steroids had killed my bone.

It got worse.

Pant, pant, pant

Now I walk like a lopsided drunk. I usually need a cane, a walker, or a wheelchair; sometimes, I cannot move. Pain is constant. I am and always will be an addict.

that sucks

most of the time

It has become challenging to take my handful of pills each morning. I try to sleep in. I sit and stare at them in my hand. I know I must take them to stay alive. I also know they poison me.

I am breaking down.

My right hip is starting to hurt, too, as predicted. My spine is degrading,

remember to breathe

in and out

There is an expanding gap between my mind and spirit and my body.

I am a foreign body I do not recognize.

very long slow breath filling each section of my damaged lungs,

then a little more,

in

then as slowly as possible out

I must move most of my belongings out of the physical world

I have found a new address for my stuff. It is in the cognitive and spiritual world

I do not know my way around here.

It looks interesting, plenty to explore.

Each breath brings in cleansing, fresh, new air.

With each breath out, send out all the toxins and bullshit

I can not exhale long enough

I will practice

I have become a poem.

My experiences and thoughts are no longer linear.

My stories are not cohesive.

 I lost my glue.

There is no plot, no beginning, middle, or end. No path to follow cleared from the forest.

Fuck being linear.

This might be fascinating. Maybe I am lucky to get lost in the woods.

Gertrude Stein did not see her work as automatic writing. She stated it was an “excess of consciousness.” She lived in Paris in the ’20s. She listened to jazz with cubist painters. She wanted to find a written equivalent to collage or music.

She slowly breathed in. She breathed. Breathed. She. Slowly. She. In. She. In. She In.

An excess of consciousness

breathe

in

out

in

out