1:58am June 24, 2013

I had a dream that I woke up in a hospital.

I had a problem that doesn’t exist in real life, called unstable chest architecture.

The inside structure of my chest was slowly disappearing.

Doctors had the means to put everything back and fix it forever.

They refused.

They said a bunch of rules, but it was really because I was disabled and poor. Just like when they didn’t want to put in my feeding tube in real life.

The rules said they were allowed to, what did they call it…

I don’t remember. They could react to problems, but not solve them.

Everyone who loved me argued with the doctors. Screamed at them. But it didn’t matter. Nothing got done.

They had the technology to replace everything in the hole in my chest, but they let it get bigger. I kept having operations designed to respond but not solve. Just like when they gave me antibiotics for pneumonia but wouldn’t give me the feeding tube to prevent the pneumonia, IV fluids while starving, but no feeding tube even as the weight dropped off. In real life without tumblr I might not be here, you guys saved me. Tumblr didn’t exist in the dream.

Finally all my loved ones came to me and they brought ask my favorite things and people so I could say goodbye. But I never got a chance to say goodbye.

I started suffocating, and felt like I was drowning, and everything went black. But then everything started getting less fuzzy. Breathing felt harder than ever. Then coughing. Did they fix me?

No I was awake.

But I don’t think it was just a dream.

Whenever my sleep apnea gets really bad, I start having nightmares about death designed to wake me up. But also many of the deaths are from suffocation.

I can’t tell if this was central or obstructive sleep apnea or both. But I’m almost betting on central. The way I felt when I woke up is the way I feel after hours of overly shallow breathing. The kind I get when my bipap breathes for me. Similar to how I felt when my breathing got better earlier today and I went off the bipap and had to struggle harder than usual to make my lungs go full enough.

I coughed up a ton of watery phlegm. That explains the drowning feeling. I’m still coughing it up. Yay bronchiectasis.

Now I’m afraid to sleep. But I’ll have to eventually.

Likely I don’t see my pulmonologist for the results of my sleep study for months. Because of a screwup where twice they scheduled me with the evil and stupid sleep doctor.

Breathing still feels too difficult, more than usual. .

When I breathe really shallow for a long time, then when I start breathing deeper again it feels like…. horrible. Like right now.

The dream was also realistic in that way where in life threatening emergencies, you never have enough time, things never go according to plan, everything falls apart too far too fast. In real life there is no emergency right now. But the dream was hell.

I’m so glad I’m seeing my GP in a couple days. Maybe he can help.

Fey is curled up by my side on my arm with her head resting on my blankets.

I need sleep. But how will sleep help me if it’s like this? And I hurt right in the middle where the hole was in my dream.

7 notes