SOB

If there is anything we take for granted, it is the satisfaction of a deep, cleansing breath. Take one now. Fill your chest with clean, crisp air, and as it exits, let it leave you completely, and feel relaxation overcome you. Forget everything but this one cleansing breath and let it wash over you, just for a moment.
Now imagine if this breath was stifled, or hindered. Imagine what it feels like to try to breathe in a room of smoke or through something over your face like a scarf, or a pillow. It produces a feeling of urgency, an urgency to get out of the smoke, or to remove the suffocating stimulus from your face. Anyone who suffers from lung disease or breathing issues probably knows what this urgency feels like. They experience incredible and unforgivable fatigue. Breathing is the only activity the body saves energy for,  and all systems are shut down in order to secure just one deep, satisfying breath.
I've been sick for six weeks now. The pain is gone but the cough and the shortness of breath (SOB) remains. It's not infectious. It's not cancerous, and it's completely anomalous.
I try not to think about it. However, interestingly enough, the average human respires roughly 10 to 12 times per minute, reminding me every 5-6 seconds that I have a breathing issue. If I try to breathe to the depths of my lung fields, I am burdened with a nasty, unproductive, hack that makes me sound like I've been smoking for 40 of my 49 years. It reminds me of an anti-smoking commercial where the big, bad wolf huffs and puffs to blow down the little pig's house but everytime, he takes a deep breath, he exhales a deep, hacking cough with nary enough power to blow out a candle, let alone topple a house.  I have never smoked, so it seems a little unfair. Maybe I should have and I wouldn't be in this mess, but something tells me that smoking may have made this problem worse. I'm sort of considering taking up smoking at this point. If humid, tropical, Tahitian air is not making any headway toward getting better, maybe I'd make better headway with some toxic vapor. Maybe I need to toughen up those delicate, healthy tissues.  Unfortunately, I'm all talk, no action. Everything has a side effect or a price, and with everything I have going towards breathing, I can't afford the cost of an irreversible setback. I'm sticking with evidence-based medicine: healthy diet, lots of fresh water, decreased exertion, increased rest and crisp, clean air.
Why is this significant? Well, if I didn't have a cancer history, I'd pass this off as some unfortunate bug I've caught and can't seem to shake. However, being a cancer survivor means anything that attacks you for more than a week, raises your hackles. Why is my immune system not handling this? Why can't my doc diagnose it? Why are the meds not working? It's tough not to panic especially when you tell the story to friends and family and that  palpable look of fear on their face and the shake in their voice tells you that maybe you should be more concerned. I don't have the breath for panic. I barely have the breath to get up a flight of stairs right now, and I don't have that deep, cleansing breath as a mechanism to bring me peace and a level head. I wish I could focus on anything else, but the shortness of breath is extremely distracting and I have to consciously force myself to breathe deep just to know I still can. This deep breath is accompanied by a short bout of hacking and coughing followed by a recovery period.
I don't think this is a permanent thing but one never knows. My cardio capacity has been affected ever since chemo. I wonder if the chemo has set forth a pleural degradation over time and five years into this mess, the effects are beginning to be felt. To be honest, up to now, my capabilities have been incredible. I have been charging in the gym, on the soccer field, skiing in the mountains, rowing down rivers, surfing waves of the Pacific, chasing my daughters and pushing my limits as always with very little notice of defect or disability. When I think of the physical assaults I've undergone (broken femur/pelvis, hip replacement, stage III breast cancer), I feel a little guilty that my limitations aren't worse. The potential for disability is far higher than the actual status quo.  I guess that's why I try not to complain about this lung thing because really, I'm ahead of the game on all counts. However, after six weeks, I'm starting to dwindle. I also downplay my condition in the company of my husband and kids. They worry so easily and they've already been through so much. Everybody is scared and teetering on the possibility of tragedy. It's the reality of survivorship and everyone I care about looks to me for clues of how to react. Because of this, I don't react at all. I just take a deep breath and......