The Trick is to Keep Breathing

On Tuesday, I received a new oxygen concentrator.  It was much smaller than the ones I'd had before, easier to move around, and didn't require as much energy to run. They claimed it was quieter, though I didn't find it to be quieter at all. I kept it until today, when it produced a horrifying sound and flash the Red Button of Doom at me. It wasn't a pretty moment.

I called the company that handles my oxygen because, thankfully, they work on a 24/7 basis. Within an hour, I had a different machine and all was right with the world. This one is blue and somewhat squat, but I find it charming. I actually hope I get to keep this one. Unlike the failed concentrator, this one actually is kind of quiet. I'll miss it when it leaves.

I'm glad my company is so prompt because it kept me from making the situation worse by having a panic attack. The closest I've been in my adult life to dying happened in the week before I got my first concentrator. I was struggling to breath. No matter how hard I tried to draw in air, my body just won't accept it. One night it was so bad, I actually called my best friend and told her goodbye, just in case.

I know that the slow path towards health began once the oxygen machine was in my life. Having enough oxygen in my system again made a great deal of difference in how I could handle things. It changed the way I could see. It changed the speed in which I could access my thoughts. It altered how I handled the slow wind down of the day.

In the year prior to starting oxygen therapy, things had gotten really bad for me. My mother had died. I was at the highest my weight had ever been. I was more or less a shut in. I would only leave the house three times a week, only then traveling once to see my grandmother, once to a double therapy session, and once to see my best friend. Other than that, I never left. My life had become a very small, small trailer.

Once I began to get a little better, I started helping my roommate bring groceries into the house. I remember sitting on an office chair in our little makeshift computer area. I would pull the chair as close to the door as I could because every step was painful for me. I kept a tank of pure oxygen in the office and I would breath on it in small, five minute bursts as I waited for him. I can remember feeling so horrified that my life had come to this, but so grateful for the oxygen in my system. I remember feeling a hunger for that oxygen that was deeper and more urgent than any need I'd ever felt for food.

Things have gotten better. Most of the time, unless the weather is messing with me, I can go the whole day without the oxygen machine, only turning it on as night falls.  That makes my life easier, though there are still times when I feel a lot of shame about the fact that I am attached to tubing for a certain portion of every day. There are weeks where I am out of the house many times and I almost always drive my roommate when he goes shopping. My world is bigger. My life is better. And I owe a lot of this to having oxygen concentrators.

I think a lot of the reasons why things got so bad for me was the fact that I was in such denial about my situation. "I can't be THAT fat." "Surely I'm just as mentally and emotionally stable as everyone else." "I'm doing just fine." I would never admit when things were falling apart. I would never admit when things were out of control. I would never admit when things were very very wrong. I would never admit how badly I was hurting.

Staying in denial about things feels very protective, but it's also counterproductive. As long as you deny the problem exists, you can never seek help to solve the problem. I let my problems just slide, hoping they would go away or simply disappear, until I was in such a crisis I had no choice by to find help. Once I did, things began to get better.

I really hope that from now on, I learn from this. When I'm in a bad place, I need to admit it and see if there is a way out of it. If I need help, I need to find out how to get that help, and take the steps to make that happen. I may be denied help . . . and I have been denied, many, many times . . . but it still helps to ask. At least you know you've exhausted your options.

It isn't easy though. Even when the machine broke today, part of my brain was screaming in protest at the idea of calling the helpline. "Don't bother people." "They'll be angry." "They'll judge you." "You really don't want people in your house, do you?" I had to silence all of these voices and remind myself that I deserved good service, just like anyone else who worked with this company. So I called.

Now I can breath again.