Breathe!
2023; University of Missouri; Volume: 46; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/mis.2023.a915403
ISSN1548-9930
Autores ResumoBreathe! Marina Hatsopoulos (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Photo by Thuy Nguyen [End Page 46] When my husband, Walter, and I arrived in the Intensive Care Unit, our twenty-five-year-old daughter Zoe was lying, eyes closed, under a nest of tangled wires and tubing, being treated for severe dehydration after finishing a Half Ironman. Electrodes were poking out from her scalp, and IV lines were plugged into her arms, saturating her veins with sedatives. A ventilator was breathing for her through a tube connected to her throat. It sounded like human breathing—a gentle swooshing-in as oxygen fueled her red blood cells and a blowing-out as carbon dioxide was expelled. [End Page 47] I kissed the spot on Zoe's cheek that wasn't covered with tape or tube. Her boyfriend, Emmett, had flown in from San Francisco in the middle of the night and slept in the hospital room until we could finally get from Boston to Galveston, Texas. He was standing by the bed with two of Zoe's friends, a couple who had competed with her in the event. Emmett said the CT scan results hadn't come in yet. The scan would show if her 30-second seizure in the Emergency Room had caused cognitive damage. I told myself not to panic—she could be fine. As if to refute my optimism, her eyelids popped open and her eyeballs looped around in a full circle without seeing—vacuous, as if nobody was in there—and then closed. I squeezed Walter's hand. "Sunshine" Zoe, always bursting with spunk, had completed her Half Ironman in five hours the day before. Severe dehydration and sodium depletion had caused her to throw up, which was dangerous in her non-responsive state, so she was put on a ventilator. To avoid the risk that she might gag on the tube and try to pull it out, she was then pumped full of sedatives. Zoe didn't do drugs. She barely drank. For good health, she and her fraternal twin, Natasha, had turned vegan fifteen years ago with Walter and me. Only plant-based, gluten-free inspirations, like kale salads, brown rice kimchee bowls, sweet potatoes, and peanut butter smoothies, were allowed into her body. Not today. Today it was fentanyl and ketamine. I wanted my daughter back, the firecracker who clamored encouragement to her startup colleagues on Zoom, pored over CAD designs, constructed mechanical prototypes, cross-trained in several sports, and read self-improvement books like Good to Great. Zoe's two friends left the room while Walter, Emmett, and I stood over the bed. The incapacitated body in front of us was unable to even take a breath on its own. To breathe unassisted, Zoe first had to wake up, so the doctor turned off the sedative drip. I stroked Zoe's matted hair, waiting for the dramatic moment of her awakening. Normally she jumped out of bed before dawn for a cup or two of Nespresso, oatmeal with organic berries, and a ten-mile prework power run. Not today. Today we waited for signs of life. This was her third medical knockdown this year: the first happened when she broke her shoulder in a bike race, and the second occurred when she got a concussion from hitting her head on a car door while rushing around. An alarm beep made me jump. It was the IV bag that needed replacing. A minute later, another alarm went off when Zoe's heart rate [End Page 48] dropped below forty beats per minute, even though that was normal for her. In fact, given the state of her body and mind, her heart seemed to be the only thing that was properly functioning. Somebody turn off all that damn beeping! Up to now, nothing really bad had ever happened to me. I'd always been grateful for ignorance about a certain despair I knew I didn't understand. I recognized the impossibility of returning to such blissful oblivion now that I'd crossed over to the dark side, and my bones felt scraped to a chill that made me shiver. I immediately boxed out...
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