Last night my husband brought me an oxygen tank up to the bedroom to give me a "boost" before falling into dreamland. Yes, that's right. I'm one of those people now and smiled inside as he strapped the nasal cannula around my ears.
Josiah asked me the day before, "Mom, are you one of those old people that have to drag that around now?"
"No, sweetheart! I don't have to take this with me everywhere. It's just to help me with my migraines."
"Oh!" he said calmly and walked off.
I don't remember much of that dark Monday afternoon but as I slipped the nasal cannula up towards my nose, in hopes of warding off my migraines, I realized just how much I hated these, along with non-Rebreather masks, back in the hospitals. Yes. I said it correctly. Hospitals. And I had associated the swooshing noise of the flowing oxygen with everything related to the hospitals.
Memories of me fighting against the doctors in the emergency room the day I had the blood clot. The day that nearly took my life the second time.
"I can't....breathe! I....can't.......breathe!" I kept saying over and over again. The doctor's and nursing staff had placed a non-Rebreather mask on my face yet I continued to tear the mask away. Extra hands intervened to hold me down. Eventually one of the doctor's yelled at me to focus on him as he pointed towards his eyes. It was then that I relaxed and coded shortly thereafter. The last thing I heard before surrendering to my situation was the swooshing of the oxygen. That ominous swooshing....swoosh...swoosh...swoosh.
And suddenly last night as I recalled the familiarity of that sound, and having to use that horrid oxygen mask, another faint memory came back to me. I was in a dream like state. Something horrible was taking place. That something was unknown to me or my husband standing beside me.
The mask had been placed back upon my face....that ominous swooshing .....swoosh...swoosh...swoosh....was back. It would be just a matter of minutes now before I would fall back into the unknown; back into the world that continued calling my name.
"Come with me.
Come with me."
"I'm not ready. Not yet"
