Oxygen. It’s a wonderful thing. We need it to live. It was the very first drug we learned about in nursing school. A drug, because an order with specific parameters is often placed for patients in your care. It is used to treat a problem.
Like anything else, too much oxygen can be dangerous. Free radicals and toxins will be released, and will damage you. We see this in preemies in neonatal units: they can go blind from too much oxygen. If you have severe lung disease, the carbon dioxide level in your blood may be chronically high. This happened to my mother as she approached the end of her life. Your brain learns to stop looking at high carbon dioxide to stimulate breathing (which is what drives respiration in healthy people). “CO2 retainers”, as we call them, rely on hypoxia to prompt breathing. Administering too much oxygen to a person with this condition will shut off respiratory drive.
You can indeed overdose on this wonderful thing.
Then there’s the opposite problem: not enough. As I type this now, I am recovering from scooping the litter box. For some reason, this task is very demanding.
Last Monday, I had a much more serious incident. I’ve been dealing with chronic laryngitis and a partially paralyzed vocal cord for several years. The laryngitis had gotten markedly worse in the past few weeks, to the point where I can’t carry on with my comedy routine or my YouTube videos. It is difficult to communicate with patients, especially at the end of the shift, because of the dry hospital environment. Monday, I lost my ability to speak altogether, and my ENT in Philly was able to see me urgently that afternoon.
I booked the 12:22pm train out of Elizabethtown, but got distracted checking Twitter and watching recaps and snippets of the Goo Goo Dolls’ shows in Las Vegas that weekend. It was suddenly 11:50, which meant I had to rush. My bad.
I felt fine as I raced east on routes 283 south on 230. I was grateful for every green light and irritated with every slow driver. I arrived at the train station with minutes to spare…only to discover there was nowhere to park. It was 12:20.
I had to park at Masonic Village. I could hear the train whistle as soon as I got out of the car, and I ran. I sprinted hard, large purse over my shoulder, coiffed hair blowing behind me, wrecked. The train rolled into the station. I pushed harder. And harder.
As I approached the tunnel, I felt the strength leaving my legs. My breathing suddenly turned to gasping. When I attempted to climb the very steep stairway up to the platform, my legs gave out completely and I had to pull myself up with my arms. i signaled to a woman at the top, who was looking at her phone screen. She gave me a puzzled glance, then looked back at her phone and got on the train. A conductor asked me if I was okay. I told him “No” as I mustered the strength to stand. My body was shutting down.
Once on the train, my gasps caught the attention of other passengers. My oxygen saturation was 90%, heart rate 122. Those readings were after I’d recovered a bit. My arms and legs felt heavy, and I began coughing. It dawned on me I should never have boarded the train but should instead have called 911. You don’t think straight when your oxygen level is low. I was as close to passing out as I have ever been in my life, and it was terrifying. For the rest of the day, I was spent. I prayed there would be open seats on the SEPTA bus in Philly, for I was too exhausted to stand up long.
Running for a train, riding a bus, and scooping a litter box should never trigger dread or phobia, but it’s the second time I had this experience with the train (the first time was much milder), and now I’m fighting fear again.
Most of the time, even when short of breath, my oxygen level is “good”, reading 95-98%. The reason why I still get winded at these levels is because of my heart. My scarred lungs, asthma, and (especially) pulmonary hypertension have placed great demands on the chambers and valves on the right side of my heart. So while I was struggling to suck in breath on the platform stairs, blood was flowing backwards due to a dysfunctional heart valve. My muscles shut down because my body was preserving itself. Not enough oxygenated blood was getting through to the left side, where it goes out to the body. My muscles and gut were starved of the good stuff.
Scooping the cat litter requires bending at the waist for several minutes. This causes an increase in blood flow to the heart and, in my case, causes venous pressures to shoot up. I see spots and rings in my vision, and I feel a lot of pressure in my chest. I then become short of breath and have to sit immediately.
In summary, my lungs and heart have had a very bad week. But I draw on the inspiration I got from the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Boxes” album again, and I am reminded there will be times when I must adjust to new normals. Whether these incidents are indicators of my condition worsening, or simply a rough few days, I choose to keep moving forward and do the things I do. Even if I must limit those things to sedentary activities ( like working on my novel, or blogging). Amazon’s Alexa helps me with the housework, telling me to stop and break every twenty minutes. I refuse to cave into fear. The “So Alive!” tattoo on my shoulder, the “Help people. EVERYONE!” tattoo on my right forearm, and the dragonfly on my right ankle are doing their job to help me push through times like this. I’m still very much alive, I’ve chosen to reach out and help people despite feeling crappy, and the dragonfly reminds me I am resilient and strong.
One day, you will likely see me with an oxygen tank, riding a scooter in the grocery store. A tough thought for a multi-marathoner, Appalachian Trail hiker, and regular Gold’s Gym member. But I will, as John Rzeznik sings in “Long Way Home”: “Light up the darkness/take what you’re given/it might be frightening/but it’s amazing”.
Frightening is an understatement. But as Joyce Meyer teaches at her conferences: “Do it afraid”. Because by pushing through while trembling, you become a conqueror.
Thanks again for reading my blog and visiting these pages. It means a lot to me. And feel free to check out my So Alive Project Facebook page. I also host a life coaching website and YouTube channel called the Pragmatic Princess (www.pragmaticprincess.com)