Be Strong and of Good Courage

Over the span of five weeks, I lost count of how many times my parents saved my life. I was as good as dead multiple times every day.

Struggling for Air

You may or may not have noticed my absence here over the last month. I wasn’t able to write because I had to focus all of my time and energy on breathing. You see, on July 21, I came down with a severe chest cold. (How I came to contract this illness will be explored in another post later this month, along with the mystery of suffering itself.) At first the cough was not much, but by the next day it was a very wet cough — a full-blown chest cold. And it got bad.

Very bad.

Because my respiratory system is compromised by breathing muscles weakened with spinal muscular atrophy and by severe scoliosis deforming my torso, squishing my lungs, and twisting my airway, a chest cold is always bad. Pneumonia from chest congestion is the most probable way that I will die. I’ve wondered throughout my life when the next chest cold would come and if it would kill me.

Through every day of this five-week invasion of mucus, I wondered the same thing.

To make this bad chest cold terribly worse, I kept getting mucous plugs. I would hear all of the phlegm moving in my chest like a thunderstorm, heavy, thick, and one of my parents would help me try to cough it out. In order do this, I can’t just cough. I need to lie down and have one of my parents place a hand just below my diaphragm and, on my signal, push so that my weak cough will be enhanced, more powerful, though not as powerful as a healthy person’s cough. Without this, my cough is much too puny to bring up anything. With their help, however — an hour or more of pushing and coughing — the phlegm can rise. Well, it would rise up into my windpipe anyway, but then it would get lodged there. Stuck. Somewhere near my vocal cords, thick mucus would become a plug allowing no air to move in or out of my lungs. Nothing.

It wasn’t like those times when we might feel like we’re choking on something and we say, “I can’t breathe!” There was no “like” choking. There was no way to speak, to say anything. There was no air. No air at all. Having had mucous plugs before, I know that they can dislodge. Sometimes by a little movement of my head (I can’t really turn my head either way but I can tense the muscles), or by swallowing. But none of this worked this time. Nothing worked.

I hope, dear reader, that you understand what I’m telling you. I could not breathe. At all. I was without air and could not get myself to breathe again. At all. When the body stops breathing, it dies. I was as good as dead. If there had been no one near me, I would have continued in my inability to breathe and death would have come. I would’ve died.

I did not die, however. Obviously. That’s because there was another human being next to me. That’s because another person in this world was standing by my side ready to assist me.

A Little Act Can Save a Life

My mother and my father are amazing parents. They always have been. They are generous with their time and their energy, selflessly giving to me, making sacrifices for my good. Their love is beautiful, a terribly beautiful example of Christian love — Christlike love that sacrifices self for the other.

In times past, when I have had difficulty swallowing or breathing, I have asked my mom or dad, whoever is with me, to lift my chin. A simple act. A very small act. A quite little action that came to save my life this summer. Completely unable to breathe, I would make somewhat desperate signals to my parent with my face and my pathetically weak right hand, mouthing the words “chin up,” hoping that each one would remember the simple act needed. I needed my chin lifted. I needed my chin lifted to dislodge the mucous plug or else I would not be able to breathe ever again.

Thanks be to God, each one remembered. Sometimes, it took a little while. My father might think I wanted to spit out something, or my mother might think I wanted a drink of water. This could be frustrating and scary at times but also, every once in a while, comical. Eventually, we got there. The one little act happened. My dad lifted my chin. A couple of hours later, my mother lifted my chin. Each time, breath was restored. Usually, it came in just the slightest thread of air, getting through with a wheeze as I carefully breathed in so as not to re-block my airway. Sometimes, air returned with a terrible gasp. I can only imagine how terrifying this was for my parents as they watched me.

In the early part of my illness, our parish priest was offering a relic of Lazarus to be venerated after Mass. Obviously, I was unable to attend church during all of this — I could barely attend to surviving. Though not usually drawn to relics, I felt myself drawn this time. Lazarus… Yes, I thought, like Lazarus. How appropriate. Each time that I would cough up the mucus, a plug would block my breathing, and I was dead. And then I was restored to life.

This Is Where I Leave You

Often when I could not breathe, especially when the chin lifting was slow in coming, or if the act did restore my air right away, I would be almost calm, strangely matter-of-fact. As I was lying on my bed, looking up into the eyes of my mother or my father, I would hear the words in my head, “This is where I leave you.” Each time I thought that this could be when I die. I was as good as dead, after all. If that’s what God truly wanted, I thought, then that was that. I was so tired that this did not cause panic inside of me.

I would think that I couldn’t go on, and maybe that was all right. Maybe this was how I would die — I would have to die somehow. When I wasn’t giving in, I was praying to God to let me live a little longer. There are two things occurring next year that I want to be physically part of here on Earth, so I asked God to please let me live to see these things. And I would cry.

But it was such a struggle to breathe and to cough and to clear and to breathe that I didn’t know if I could keep going on. I would ask God if this was it. Exhausted a little demoralized, I would think, yup, this is how I die. I was too tired to cough. I didn’t want to struggle anymore. Even as I was thinking that this was okay, that I would have to die somehow, the fight against the mucus would surge up in me, almost separate from my will, and I would begin all the coughing again with extra strength that I did not have before. And I would think, “Okay, I guess we’re fighting.”

Suffering Brings Us Closer to God?

Frankly, those first two weeks of my illness did not inspire any bold or beautiful thoughts, did not bring me closer to God or even lift my mind to anything spiritual. It was a lot of time wasted. Mostly, I would cry and be angry at myself for being so stupid as to let myself be exposed to such a terrible chest cold. (As I wrote earlier, more on that later.)

At the beginning of the illness, my father had contacted our parish priest to ask if I could have the sacrament of the sick. The priest, rightly, wanted to know if I was dying — was this an immediate emergency? As it was not in immediate danger in the beginning, the priest did not come right away. (Of course, when my airway was blocked, that moment became a life-and-death moment.) No clergy came to see me in the hospital. I asked my dad to see if the priest could come on August 2, which was First Friday, during my second week of illness, so that I could continue my determination to finally receive Holy Communion on nine consecutive First Fridays as part of my consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I didn’t want to miss August and have my dedication broken. Thanks be to God, my parish priest came. He heard my confession, gave me the sacrament of the sick, and administered Holy Communion to me. Three sacraments in one day — a blessing indeed.

All through this ordeal, even during the time when I was doing nothing but surviving, barely even thinking, six words from the Bible kept coming to my mind. I remember them being from the book of Joshua, when God would tell him, over and over again, every time that the Israelites needed to battle against armies that vastly outnumbered them, every time that they came against impossible odds, to “Be strong and of good courage.”

I did not feel in any way that I could successfully battle against the phlegm in my lungs and overcome the congestion. I did not feel in any way that I could overcome the mucus and live freely again. If God wanted me to live, then God would allow me to live — God would help me to live. And then those words from Joshua would come to my mind. I knew that I had to trust God and in that trusting I had to be strong and of good courage. There was true bravery required for me just to cough the mucus out of my lungs and up into my airway, because every time I did so my breathing would stop. I would have to face death again and struggle against mucous plugs, hoping for air to return. I really did need to be brave.

Go boldly into battle, Christina. God is with you. Be strong and of good courage.

When my parish priest came to give me the sacrament of the sick, he told me that God loves me and delights in me — something I believe we all need to know, because God truly does love each and every one of us. But the advice that he gave, though I don’t know if he meant it as advice, was to share these words with me: “So be strong and of good courage.” As soon as I heard the words, I smiled up at him as I lie on my bed. I told him that those words had been coming to my mind since the illness began, and he said that it was good we were on the same wavelength.

“The same God-length,” I said.

More to Tell

The best end to this recounting of my illness might be to say that the jets of mucus spraying into my chest, rocking and blocking my lungs, stopped after receiving the sacraments. Sadly, however, I had three more weeks of torture to get through. In the following weeks, I hope to unpack with you all of the gifts that were given to me through this terrible trial. Just calling it a “terrible trial” does not describe what I went through well at all. It was like I was dying for five weeks. And like I was dead. But now… Restoration to life. And, please God, not just life as normal, but true life.

Please read next week’s reflection, which will explore a bizarrely terrible episode in my illness as well as my four-day hospitalization. Then, a reflection on the awakening of my exhausted mind, the beginning of finding meaning in my mess, hope in my horror. That spiritual transition was marked by a little request given to my smart speaker. Finally, there will be some reflections on biblical passages that spoke to me as I lie in exile. At least, I think that’s how the order of posts will go. I’m still in recovery, after all.

To those of you who have been wondering where I have been, I give thanks for your prayers, spoken and unspoken. To those of you who have known what I was going through, I give thanks for your prayers. To those of you who are just discovering my blog and reading something of what I’ve been going through — I give thanks for your prayers. Prayers are always heard, and the answer given is always what’s best for those who love God. My death might have been what was best this time. But, apparently, God has chosen otherwise.

God is good.

All the time.

God is good.

May I not return to normal.

© 2024 Christina Chase

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Feature Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash