Fifteen years ago this week, my beautiful daughter Veronica entered the world. She didn’t make a sound. As I stretched out my arms to hold her in the delivery room, furrow-browed doctors and nurses instead whisked her away. I shouted after them in panic:
“Is she all right? Is she going to be OK?!”
Slightly underweight and jaundiced, she remained in the hospital for several days before we got the all-clear. My husband and I counted our blessings. But it wouldn’t be the last time we felt the pangs of parental helplessness when it came to her health.
Here’s the good news: In the blink of an eye, our shy, clingy little girl blossomed into a wry, wisecracking and independent young lady. She loves to go fishing, hates shallow people, solves a Rubik’s Cube in 35 seconds, prefers true-crime novels to “Twilight” schlock and recently developed a thing for ice hockey players. Veronica’s a wicked Photoshopper, a talented drawer, a makeup artist and (unlike mom) a math whiz. Until six weeks ago, her main obsessions were “Grey’s Anatomy,” the Stanley Cup, Instagram, her new cartilage piercing, an actor named Evan Peters and the hope of getting a learner’s permit.
Just before Mother’s Day weekend, however, she started having what appeared to be respiratory trouble. She “couldn’t get a good breath” and began gently gasping and sighing for air every few minutes. Two trips to the ER later, she had been administered ibuprofen for “costochondritis” and then albuterol to open up her airways.
The problem is that all the various tests and exams indicate she’s getting plenty of oxygen. Her lungs, heart and vocal cords are all “normal,” and yet she describes a chronic feeling that she’s “drowning.” Every day begins with gasping beyond her control, multiple times a minute, nonstop, every hour of every day, until she reaches a point of exhaustion at 1 or 2 in the morning.
After a brief respite while sleeping, the day-mare starts all over again.
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