The first time my lung collapsed, my mom found a half carton of cigarettes in my apartment.
It was the dead of winter. Midstate. January.
I wasn’t sure if I should go in. The pain was severe, yes, but it wasn’t uncommon to wake with some new sort of exquisite agony.
Chest pain wasn’t out of the ordinary, either. I know they say you should always go in—but it was always nothing.
Normally nothing.
I waited half an hour before I sent the text—apologetically—to the only person I knew in town. A boy from work who I’d kissed a few times when we were both bored and numbed by the fluorescent churn of our lives at the publishing factory—sorry—company.
Textbooks. None of the good stuff.
He was hungover, but he came. A good friend, I thought. My heart twisted a little for him, white-knuckling the wheel, skittering over black ice, cursing under frosted breath. He asks again how I feel, how bad it hurts, if I could breathe. I was coughing now—dry, shallow croaks. I only mumble about how this will ruin my Sunday. I had laundry to do. My fridge was empty.
The nurse greets us after two hearty slogs from a styrofoam cup. She retreats down the hall.
I smile a little when Nick shouts after her, can’t you get her a wheelchair or something?
She was too far though, and he didn’t shout that loud. But he wraps a long arm around me and we hobble to the examination room as one.
It was maybe an hour of tests. Maybe more. Eventually, someone gives me a spot of morphine and I have the best five minutes of my life. I could do cartwheels, I say.
Nick stays longer than he needs to. He fights me about leaving. Your family should be here! He barks, indignant. I nod. It’s okay. Go home. Sleep.
He finally slinks out, drawing the curtain behind him. I promised to text him.
A squirrelly nurse enters some time later and wordlessly releases the brakes of my gurney.
Where are we going?
She deflects.
Her eyes glued to the wheels. The monitor. She fixes a kink in my IV.
I ask again.
The saline sways, she steadies the bag.
We parade past the nurse’s station, once unmoored with lively chatter, now stock-still with eight pairs of eyes tracking my descent. I start to cough again.
No cartwheels.
The doctor is plain. Efficient. Your entire left lung has collapsed. Your right one could go any minute. We need to operate now or you’re going to die.
“Can I call my mom?”
He says sure with the cadence of a shrug.
My phone rings four times while a flurry of strangers open my gown, insert a nasal cannula, drape me in polyethylene. I had texted her earlier: Going in. Nick’s driving me.
Keep me updated, she replied. It was my father’s birthday.
“‘Said my lung’s collapsed. ‘Think I’m gonna be a while.”
“Okay. I’ll drive up.”
I tuck the phone under my thigh.
Then there is a man sitting beside me. On my right. Not the surgeon at my left who rubs alcohol into my ribs. An older man, maybe in his seventies. White hair, thick mustache, pale blue eyes. Santa Claus, I think.
He doesn’t introduce himself. He takes my hand, both of his over mine, and leans in like we’re old friends.
Honey, he says, this is going to be very uncomfortable.
There are two techs at the foot of my slab. Their hands nest gently around my ankles, bracing, unsure how much pressure to apply when the thrashing begins. I’ve been perfectly polite so far.
I look back to the man on my right. Through his wire-rimmed bifocals, I think—I’m not certain—there are tears. He squeezes my hand tighter.
The man on my left readies his tools.
I’m not sure when my mom arrived. Time was real fuzzy after that. She looked straight past the tubes and suction and wires and complained about the weather. The long drive. The roads were very slick.
Why did I call her?
I brush brown flakes of dried blood from my vinyl cot.
‘Cause that’s what you do.
I asked every doctor. Every nurse. The assistant who loads me in and out of the elevator. I asked the radiologist. The students who linger in the corners and study their shoelaces and empty the commode. “Was it the cigarettes?”
Certainly doesn’t help, but no.
No, this is completely different.
We call that popcorn lung—nothing like this.
No, this is undoubtedly a product of your genetic condition. You should quit smoking, though.
Still, I need fresh clothes. My toothbrush. And the dog needs walking, so I surrender my keys.
She turns the place over. Plunders the closets. Rifles every drawer. Takes careful inventory, until she finds it—her golden carton. She walks the dog. She feeds the dog.
A girl my age helps me to the commode.
I wished for years after that I’d tossed the pack. Or finished it. Or gave it to a friend. I didn’t smoke that often, it usually made me sick. But I liked the ritual of it, an excuse to stand out in the cold.
Maybe it was the dryer sheets or the scented oils. The ceramic incense burner I left by the stove. I could use a new bra, the straps are too tight. The dog needs walking.
One week later, a doctor rolls me on my side and rips the plastic tubing out like he’s starting a lawn mower. A week after that I take a half-day to get the staples removed. Unpaid.
PTO burned out before Valentine’s Day.
The second time my lung collapsed, I just called the ambulance.
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