Is Anyone in Your Pool Drowning in Plain Sight?

Is Anyone Drowning in YOUR Pool?

Drowning victims and caregivers have more in common than one might think. In this five-part series we explore the phenomena of “Drowning in Plain Sight.” As you read, think about the people in your ‘pool’—is anyone drowning?

[callout]’Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.’ Characteristics of the Instinctive Drowning Response—’On Scene’, The Journal of U.S. Coast Guard Search and Rescue[/callout]

Diagnosis and Deliverance

Somewhere, between diagnosis and deliverance, I forgot how to breathe. I find myself, at odd moments, holding my breath—not in anticipation or fright, but simply because I have forgotten the rhythm of breathing.
I didn’t know about my loss until I started experiencing horrible, unexplainable pain in the middle of my chest that felt like a heart problem.

“You’re as healthy as a person half your age,” the cardiologist told me.

Really? Than why does it hurt to breathe or have my heart beat strong and deep? Why does my left side swell up? When my malady strikes, it hurts to lie down or stand up. Why does it happen over and over again?

“You have superior lung capacity with normal breathing function,” the internist told me.

Than why did it hurt to breathe? Why couldn’t I take a deep breath without agony? Walking up the stairs presented a cruel form of torture.

“Have you ever considered acupuncture?” my family practitioner asked me.

Really? Alternative therapy? I couldn’t believe a physician suggested alternative therapy.

“Well, I do go to a chiropractor and a massage therapist,” I admitted.

“Does it help?” she asked.

“I’m not sure.” I shrugged. “Sometimes it helps the pain go away if I go in early, sometimes it doesn’t. My massage therapist claims that I have incredibly tight muscles on my left side. It takes her an hour to work through the knots.”

Have you forgotten how to breathe? It might be killing you. Click To Tweet

The Million Dollar Question

“Do you know how to breathe?” my neighbor and friend asked me. She’s a life coach, and helps people with chronic pain—she also suffers from chronic pain. “I can teach you how to breathe.” I reluctantly agreed to go over to her house after work one evening.

“It’s called diaphragmatic breathing,” she told me. “Put your hand right below your rib cage and try to push your hand out when you breathe.” I felt silly, but I tried it. “When you breathe shallowly, you decrease your body’s ability handle pain.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” She launched into the technical reasons why shallow breathing keeps a person from processing pain and releasing endorphins that help the body take care of pain. I thanked her and wandered out of her house, hand on stomach, practicing my breathing while thinking of breathing in general.

Over the next few weeks, while I waited for my pain to go away, I caught myself not breathing. The computer didn’t load fast enough, family members failed to put their own dishes in the dishwasher, or I got cut off on the highway. Each time I found myself breathing shallowly through clenched teeth.

Somewhere, between diagnosis and deliverance, I had started holding my breath—in fright, in anticipation of the next piece of bad news, in mental pain and agony, in emotional stress. No one ever warned me that a side effect of all that stress would be a loss of breathing.

In fact, no one warned me about any of the side effects of a cancer diagnosis. Slowly, ever so slowly, I put a name on the side effects and started dealing with them. For now,

Many thanks to my incredible next-door-neighbor, Becky Curtis. If you suffer from chronic pain, find hope on her website Take Courage Coaching.