Aside from incoherent twitter updates, I haven’t had the chance to sit down and tell what happened this week.

Monday, May 3 was a difficult afternoon for me. Full of meetings and work to do, I could hardly make it through with the kind of cold I was developing. I knew the next day I’d be home sick. Problem was: I was also sick just three weeks prior so to justify missing more work I would have to go to the doctor.

Tuesday morning I felt even worse. My head felt like a brick and I was coughing heavily 3, 4, sometimes 5 times a go. I made an appointment for later that afternoon.

I got on the subway and went downtown. Once I met with the doctor, I shared my symptoms focusing mostly on my sickness, but I also shared one seemingly unrelated thing: I had been short of breath since returning from vacation in late March.

On my last night in the Bahamas in March, I had severe back pain. I had no idea from what, my best guess being that it was from diving in shallow water at the beach earlier that day whilst playing football. In any case, it was excruciating and limited my sleep. The next day, I flew home and, on each of the 3 planes, I was beside myself, having a great deal of difficulty breathing. The passengers next to me on each plane must have wondered, “What is wrong with this kid?” I wasn’t sure what was going on, but anxious to get home, I just wanted to get through it and figure it out later.

For the next month and a half, I felt short of breath. Walking down the street made me huff and puff and I seemed unable to sing properly, with my breath running out faster than previously. Unfortunately, the very thing that some believe makes our health system work prevented me from doing anything about it.

I’d be interested to know how many people who have serious illnesses stay home and do nothing to avoid the perils of hospitals and health care such as waiting and bills. If anyone finds a study on this, I’d be curious to know. Either way, I’m fairly convinced that if all of these people actually went to the hospital, it would severely bog down an already bogged down system. Of course the flip side is that you’d probably get a ton of hypochondriacs who actually freak out over nothing. Ultimately it’s a fine line I suppose.

The other issue is that I had grown skeptical about what could be done about “minor” illnesses. For example, a couple of years ago, I discovered that I had a small case of post-nasal drip and it was affecting my singing. I went to an ear, nose and throat doctor who put a camera up my nose but determined that he would do nothing. Surgery would be too invasive and there was no prescription that could eliminate it. Thus I was stuck between having a problem big enough that it was affecting my way of life and having too minor an illness to do anything about it.

Was I going to do something about this one? The answer is yes, just not right away. I just didn’t think it was life-threatening and thought it might go away in time.

After informing the doctor of my breathing issue, he seemed to take it seriously, which was nice because I wanted to be able to sing again (my first thought, of course). He did the old stethoscope thing—something I never thought resulted in anything. However, a minute later he said he couldn’t hear anything on my left side and that I might have a collapsed lung. An x-ray would be needed to prove it, though.

I was sent across the street to an x-ray place and after having them taken, the radiologist pulled me aside and said in a very concerned tone, “You have a fully collapsed lung and need to go to the hospital.”

“Yeah?” I said.
“Yes . . . you’re Jonah, right?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm, well you look fine, but you still have to go.”

What did it? My best guess is when I jumped into the pit of cave water in Bahamas from 15 feet up because it was the only high impact thing I did.

I was definitely concerned, but I realized quickly that I’d been living like this for over a month. I had been exercising at the gym like normal; I had been trying to sing (unsuccessfully); I had been going to work; I had been driving; the list goes on. So while the radiologist and the office staff were frantically gathering my x-rays and reports to take to the hospital, I had to tell them to calm down. Once I received the materials, I left, got in a cab and went to the hospital.

The next 3 days were a bit surreal. Most hospital visits are, but I just never thought it would come to that. I was admitted a little over an hour later and underwent a procedure that involved a small tube being inserted into my chest so that air that had entered my chest cavity and was pressing my lung down could be sucked out. The result was that the lung was allowed to re-expand on its own.

While I was able to be in the company of friends and family during the days, staying overnight in a hospital alone is always an interesting experience. I hadn’t done it since I was 12. Although there are other patients in the room and nurses on call 24 hours a day, you’re really, really alone. It’s then when you really have to fight to get better.

The time allowed me to re-acquaint myself once again with Sigur Ros and the ( ) album, but more importantly left me wondering how fragile we are. Here I was, a seemingly healthy person in the best shape of their life, completely at the mercy of chance. I guess sometimes things just go wrong inside.

I remained in the hospital for two nights and left on Thursday, May 6. Now at home, I’m recovering but also paranoid that I might relapse. After all, I have little control over what goes on in there. It makes me understand exactly how post-heart attack victims feel. The anxiety is very real.

I have always tried to avoid living in fear. I try not to be fooled by media scams, the swine flus of the world, overly insuring myself and my property, and I really try to give every stranger I meet the benefit of the doubt. Simply put, I don’t ever want to prevent myself from doing something out of fear.

Times change, however, and it becomes more difficult to do so as the clock ticks on.