So, when we last left off, I was just beginning to pack up for my impending trip to the hospital, after spending a good couple of days debating if I had a quick-and-dirty virus, or perhaps might in fact, be dying instead.* In fact, I’m pretty sure the “kidding!-(not-really)-maybe?” aspect of the later option had something to do with why it took me an extra day or two to cop to what was likely going on.

See, I’ve never been one to have had problems with my O2 saturation (the amount of oxygen actually making it to your blood where it belongs, and the thing being measured by the little clip with a red light on the index finger of people in hospitals/on medical teevee programs, expressed as a percentage) – even in situations where otherwise healthy people tend to do so, like waking up from surgery. Nevertheless, I began to suspect that a problems with my oxygen intake, exchange, or both were somehow related to whatever was going on, for a bunch of lifetime-of-patient-role-spidey-senses reasons I won’t go in to here. After deciding to be a grown up and face likely facts, rather than continue to live in blissful self-imposed ignorance (“Me? need oxygen? Nay, I’m simply a panicked hypochondriac running out of hypotheses!”) I caved and bought a pulse oximeter (the little red light on the index finger thing that measures aforementioned O2 saturation).

And then I nearly crapped myself.

“Normal” ranges are generally anything 94% or above; 93-92 can be acceptable for a short time if you’re particularly sick or have underlying health issues. The highest reading I could get was in the mid-80’s, and more than once it was hovering in the high 70’s if I had been sleeping for a while. So holy craptarts, relief and confusion and fear OH MY! Relief, in that OK, I at least know, writ large, what’s wrong, and why I feel like I’m suffocating (I kind of am). Confusion and fear because lack of information scares me, period, and I had no idea why this was happening at all ever, but particularly so quickly and severely and now. My resting heart rate was also hanging out between 140-160, with occasional forays into the 180’s if I got all frisky and like, coughed, or walked across the room, or awwwshhnap bent over to pick something up. For the sake of context, the target is 80, but at least less than 100 for someone my age and size.

To recap, I went from be-bopping along at the outlet malls feeling a-little-more-under-the-weather-than-I-let-on, but debatably “sick-sick” by even my healthier standards, to clearly requiring some form of supplemental oxygen for the first time in my life – including that awesome Fall Break of ‘04 where I weighed 94 lbs, my skin was grey, and my mom had to bribe me in to staying awake and making myself finishing a “meal” of 3 whole chicken nuggets after assisting me in the frighteningly disproportionately exhausting trek down the hall and out of my dorm. So crazy or not,  I needed a good day or so to kind of research, process and ruminate over what I might be in for upon darkening the hospital’s revolving doors. That’s how I work.

Sidebar: As long as I’m given honest, fairly reasonable expectations of what will be, or might be, happening to me; honest, balanced explanations of why it’s necessary, or maybe not even necessary, but prudent and preferable; and honest, fairly reasonable estimations of how painful, scary, disorienting, or humiliating it’s going to be, I can generally dig deep and find a way to deal and get through it, in the moment at least. (I’m not a droid, so I still sometimes lose my marbles later, but that’s definitely preferable to screeching nasal obscenities at an ENT resident when underprepared for just how strong that suction thingamabobber is going to be.)

So, let’s see. Worst case, what should I plan to deal with when I get there…OK, definitely oxygen. From a sheer discomfort/what-can-I-actually-dig-deep-and-handle-without-going-batshit perspective, no problem. But what about other tests? That blood gas thing where they stab you in the wrist and very strong people with high pain tolerances cry like teething babies? Oh my god what if they make me start out in the ICU instead of my normal floor? Will anyone still get to stay with me overnight? OH GOD will I have to pee in that swing-out toilet thing? Why is this even happening in the first place? Is one of my lungs collapsing? Has it been collapsed and I’m just too stupid to differentiate ‘”you’ve got a whole lung stuck together like fly paper” from “severe muscle spasm from coughing all the damn time for days on end”?

Once I was sufficiently convinced that I would neither be left to writhe in pain needlessly, gasp for air, or pee in a not-really toilet sufficiently uncomfortable and scared about the state of my being, I collected the necessary documents and technological paraphernalia for a who-knows-how-long variety stay, finished packing, and summoned my last frayed sparks of quasi-energy for my littlestitious “last” shower. Despite knowing I had just gotten the last good shower I’d be getting for at least a good week, I used no hair products. No lotion. And I only shaved up to my knees. THAT is how awful I was feeling, you guys. No hair products. Nay, not even a single hair appliance usage. Just a quick blow dry and a fuckitall sunglasses-sweep, with a cross eye at my emerging reverse-roots. That’s puny, y’all.

But then I got dressed, minimally accessorized (I’m not dead, after all), and I did that thing – or rather, that thing happened to me – where I got all zen, and totally focused, and on point, and “what will be will be and I will rise to meet it” – and settled in the passenger seat for the long trek towards the hospital, hope, and healing. I had three hours in the car ahead of me, in the beginning of which I enjoyed the spoils of a Bojangles’ detour and a welcome distraction in the form of the latest from around the nation on NPR. But later, as I drifted off into a self-imposed nap (anticipating the long night ahead), I couldn’t help but sort of rest in this odd certainty – a peace, even – that things were about to change in a pretty major way. I didn’t know what, I didn’t know how.

All I knew was that after almost a year of better, then worse, then better the same, then worse the same, we fixed it, we didn’t, and no answers, I had an increasing sense of just treading water, doing more of the same, waiting for another shoe to drop and give us the next clue; all the while feeling like I was on a dessert road trip where it didn’t matter how badly I wanted to get where I was going, it didn’t change the fact that I was running on fumes with no pit stops for miles. In an odd way I can’t quite explain, there was a weariness relieved, and an almost desperate hope that whatever was causing this problem with my oxygen would give us some insight into what had been wrong all these weeks and months. I wasn’t sure if it was for better, or if I was finally starting to chart my way towards irreversible “worse” – but I felt it in my bones, I was in for some serious “different”. And at that point, anything other than more of the same was good enough for me. I had a belly full of biscuit, a heated seat on a cold night, and a driver-slash-advocate-slash-mom by my side for whatever may come, and insurance to cover it all – in other words, all I needed and more.

To be further continued…

*only slightly exaggerating.