Sometimes I Just Need a Ventilator

I’ve heard more about ventilators in the past two years than in my fifty-plus years of living. At the beginning of COVID, I bought an oximeter because I was struggling to take deep breaths. The panic of COVID rendered me almost constantly anxious and I worked myself into phantom respiratory distress.  

In those early COVID weeks when I struggled to breathe, I thought a lot about people who truly can’t breathe; people whose lungs stop working, how horrible that must feel. And the relief they must experience when they get on a ventilator, finally getting some relief, some oxygen into their system.

This latest round of Omicron has not affected me nearly as severely as the past COVID surges have, but I’m definitely impacted. Yesterday morning when I woke up there was nothing amiss in my life (besides Omicron). There was nothing particularly stressful or worrisome in the day ahead, but when I woke up I could tell that I was a little off. I could feel the underlying rumblings of agitation bubbling beneath my skin. As I moved through my day, things that normally would have washed over me stuck like a burr in the heel of my sock. Everything bugged me. 

It felt like emotional indigestion — little fits of discomfort that only go away once everything in the abdomen is fully digested. By late afternoon I was seething. I wanted to scream. In cartoon land, plumes of smoke would have been shooting out of my ears and flames would be erupting from the top of my head.

I went for a walk. I walked hard and fast, angry steps marching me towards something, anything but this feeling. The cold air clung to the top of my ears and the tip of my nose. Under my down jacket and two layers of shirts, I was getting hot. I unzipped my coat to let the cold air in.

As I walked with my jacket open, the winter air cooled me down but inside the emotional turmoil was raging. I felt completely overwrought with agitation. My body was tense. I felt flooded, unable to think clearly, unable to breathe deeply. I was desperate to get rid of this feeling. 

I called my sister. No answer. I called a friend. When her voicemail picked up I said, “I’m not calling for any reason. I just need to vent. I need a ventilator!” Then I tried another. No answer. Finally, I reached a friend. Barely giving her time to say hi, I launched right into a tirade of unspecified fury and irritation. She listened until there was a pause and then told me that she wasn’t in a place to talk at that moment. But before my friend hung up she said, “Laura, I know. I know this feeling. I’ve been there. I can't talk now but I’ll call you later.” 

And that was enough. I had let my agitation out and by getting it out I had room to breathe again. And it wasn't just that I had vented for fifteen seconds; it was that I wasn’t alone in my craziness anymore. As irrational as I felt, I had told another human being that I felt that way. I wasn’t alone. 

This morning the friend I’d left the message for yesterday about needing a ventilator called me back. I woke up feeling much better today, but I took the opportunity to talk to my friend about how I felt yesterday, and it felt good. The conversation left me with more energy, more oxygen in my lungs.

In this round of COVID, more people are vaccinated and boosted and fewer people are in need of actual ventilators. But times are hard — the collective worry is still with us and life isn’t quite back to normal. I haven’t pulled out my oximeter for nineteen months and, most days I can breathe well. But sometimes I still need a ventilator.