I often used the word “breathless” to describe a thing so incredibly beautiful that it “took my breath away” until a life-threatening event left me with a new meaning of the word that had nothing to do with beauty. 

As one who regularly practices mindful breath work, I found it ironic that I suddenly lost the ability to breathe. A non-symptomatic condition had been brewing in my body for an unknown amount of time and, though doctors to this day can’t say for certain, had I not had a massage that seemed to expedite the inevitable, pulmonary embolisms may have rendered me forever breathless.  

Almost 48 hours after a session with my regular, certified masseuse, the ability to take a full breath without pain and a strange heat in my chest became overwhelming. One of my closest friends happened to be visiting from New York when I began to experience increasing discomfort each time I inhaled. We began arm chair diagnosing, though neither of us normally fool around when it comes to health. When it was time for her to catch her train, she expressed trepidation about leaving. I said I’d be okay, that it didn’t feel like a heart-attack and was probably just the flu, but my intuition said to alert a local friend that something was amiss.  

Several hours later, in a room full of bright lights and solitude, I struggled to keep my mind from wondering what would have happened had I waited another day to get to the ER. I forgave myself for trying to be a doctor, was grateful for those seconds when, though I could not catch my breath, a power not my own granted me the capability to dial then barely whisper, “Come now, need the hospital.” 

Through prayer and good care, I emerged from the hospital after a few days, part of a club whose membership required taking medication—which was difficult for me as a holistic person who avoids prescription drugs. Friends and family continued to check on and in with me as they carried on with their day-to-day. I wanted them to stop asking me, “How are you feeling?” because I heard this question as one pertaining to my physical recovery only, unconcerned with the state of my mental and emotional health. It was still hard enough to take a breath because my lungs needed time before comfortable inhalations would return, without also having to explain how it felt to be alone and afraid to breathe. Seemingly, they failed to notice that my day-to-day had been interrupted and seriously altered by something I could not reverse, much less understand that there was no apparent reason for why my body had formed blood clots in the first place. Speculation and well-intentioned advice sounded like judgement and criticism. Life was moving on for them while mine felt as if it was standing still. A strange resentment took hold; People who have not experienced a chronic or life threatening diagnosis just can’t grasp what it feels like for the person who has, I told myself. 

One morning during meditation and prayer, it dawned on me that life had also changed for those around me.  I understood that perhaps my guarded attempts to express how I was feeling may have been misunderstood. That the advice I processed as criticism and judgement, at a time when only consolation was the healing balm I felt I needed, was still well intended.  I began to comprehend that though I was the one physically experiencing the diagnosis, emotionally they had to come to terms with what had happened to their loved one. That the common consensus, regardless of how expressed, was for me to get and be well. And like me, they were now thinking about the unpredictability of death, the preciousness of life, and considering personal changes to prolong the latter. 

So, when my Dad told me I was not the same person I was the day before being admitted to the hospital, I really heard him. He didn’t mean that I no longer had to have on earrings every day, that I was not still bossy and opinionated, that I’d lost my giving spirit, or that we are never the same from one moment to the next in the first place. What he meant was my chemical make-up had been forever altered, that I was now on a physical, mental, and emotional healing path that was mine to navigate. It was up to me to tell family and friends what I needed from them; their role was to listen, hear, and support. As we talked, I suddenly remembered a paper collage I had made using pictures of colorful blossoms to depict a pair of lungs. Had that image, created eight years before, foreshadowed what was to come? That, I didn’t know.   

All I knew was that using my creative gifts was part of the path. Uplifting, forward-focused messaging each day was another. To conquer fear, there is a breathing exercise I learned when I first started my mindfulness practice that calms me.  Though I’m unable to complete the exercise right now, for the first time since the start of this odyssey my lungs felt as if they were blossoming anew like the flowers in my artwork. And slowly, those days when my breath was less became memories that have added more meaning to “breathless.”