I am sure I awoke before the sun in anticipation of just what could be waiting for me in the weaning from my electronic lung. To breathe on my own again. What would I give? What would I do to be free from this man-made machine to which I owe my very existence and with which I had the most extreme case of a love-hate relationship there could ever be. It was like God - the breath of life... and the devil - the chain of my imprisonment.

Before I was to begin the weaning, the Respiratory Therapist (R.T.) came in with a spirometer to measure my ability to breathe whatever that may be. If I were in my previous health, the maximum air I could have drawn in with one breath would be around 5000 cubic centimeters -- which, ironically, was probably what I was holding in my lungs while I waited underwater for my rescuers to save me. It was good for about 60 seconds of consciousness. (Athletes could do better, obviously, and underwater divers better still).

She held the small device in one hand and my tubes leading to the respirator in the other. On her signal she removed my life support and inserted the respirator and said quite emphatically, "BREATHE!" And my face winced as I tightened every muscle in my neck trying desperately to pull air into my trachea and paralyzed lungs. "AGAIN!" she said and I was fighting for a breath as though I were going under water for the last time.

She quickly replaced the respirator tubes and pumped four or five "sighs" in me and my frantic expression of drowning became a peaceful reflection of relief. I looked at her intently and mouthed silently, 'How much?' She looked at her spirometer then looked over at me with compassion and said, "150."

My eyes rolled back and closed in disbelief. Would I ever be able to breathe on my own? Would I ever find the key that unlocked the chains of this respirator? At that moment it became clear to me, I was in a very serious condition.

She gave me a while to collect myself then Dr. Bregman came in explained the weaning procedure to me. They begin by slowly depriving me of air -- first by the hour, then longer -- and in the meantime I would be retraining whatever muscles I had left that worked, to expand my lifeless lungs and supply me with enough oxygen to keep my blood supplied.

'What is the least I can get away with?' I was translated to say.

He said, "If you can move 800 cc's per breath on a regular basis in your sleep, then we can talk about removing the respirator. It's now set on ten breaths per minute. For the next hour, we will set it on nine. During that hour, you make up for the tenth breath. Do whatever you can and find out what it takes to move air into your lungs. I'll have a nurse stay with you the entire time."  He reached for a knob on the respirator and turned it saying, "There you go. I'll see you in an hour."

On the wall at my feet there was a big round clock with a long red sweep second hand. It reminded me of the clocks in my school classrooms that I used to watch waiting for the recess bell like a drag racer waiting for a green light. With this clock I could count the seconds between breaths and know exactly when each breath could come. At the setting of nine breaths per minute, I knew I'd be getting a breath every 7 seconds.

And sure enough, like clockwork the breaths came. For one long hour I watched the second hand circle the numbers and notches 60 times, counting every breath. Surprisingly, I was only a little uncomfortable. I was unable to draw any breaths of my own but I knew there would come a time when I would have to.

In precisely one hour the doctor came in, set the respirator back to ten breaths per minute, and asked me, "How'd it go?"

I mouthed, 'Okay.'

He said, "Good. I'll see you this afternoon and we'll do it again."


After seeing I did okay being given only nine breaths per minute for one hour, the next morning and afternoon the respirator was set at nine breaths per minute for two hours for each shift. I wasn't making up for the tenth breath, I was learning to do without it. This would ultimately never work because eventually, I would HAVE to learn how to take a breath on my own. An R.T. began coming in daily to work with me and to teach me how to move my diaphragm. My tendency was to try to breathe by tensing my neck and shoulders, the lowest muscles I could move.

"You'll end up with a neck like a linebacker if you keep doing that," she said. Her name was Faith. She was a tall, pretty young woman with long blonde hair in big curls. She had the most gentle bedside manner and spoke so softly and kindly to me. "Pretend you have a box of Kleenex on your stomach and push it up." As a trained singer, I knew all about breath support and breathing with my diaphragm. But before, I could feel it move. Now I could not. Regardless, I moved every muscle I could feel and prayed that my diaphragm would follow suit.

The accordion in a beaker that raised with every breath of the respirator before it was given to me, also raised whenever I inhaled. This way, I was able to see to what degree I was moving my diaphragm and, with the markings on the glass, get a rough idea how deep my breathing was.

And so it began. With the imaginary Kleenex box on my stomach and my eyes on the beaker, I started my daily exercises of inhaling. Try to imagine yourself learning to tread water, having never even swum before. You splash and kick a few times until you begin to sink and grab your buoy. This is what I did. I'd try a few times and rest. After waiting a few minutes, I'd do it again but I wasn't really worried about drowning, my buoy was always there. Within a few days, the respirator was set to nine breaths per minute all day and after a few more days, eight. The entire time I was practicing my inhaling at my leisure, having yet to be really tried.

The day Dr. Bregman set the respirator to seven breaths per minute, that is, one breath every nine seconds, I felt the loss. I wasn't comfortable. I was going to have to work -- pushing that Kleenex up, kicking and splashing -- just to have a feeling of right minded consciousness. So, in between the respirator breaths, I would tense up every muscle from my neck down and draw a breath or two, however small they may be. Otherwise, I would have the feeling of drowning, a loss of air. God created our subconscious in such a way that we fight to stay alive. If kicking will keep our heads above water, we will kick until exhaustion overrules our strength and we are forced to give in. With me, however, the setting WOULD NOT BE CHANGED until the time appointed. So if I stopped breathing, I would be in the terrible discomfort of nearly passing out every nine seconds.

After an hour of this workout, I was given a few "sighs" and the machine was set back up to eight bpm. I was exhausted. This was real work. I'd become an athlete in training. It made me think of the film Rocky when he had such a hard time at the end of his run to climb those long steps the first time he tried. But he did because he had to if he expected to beat the champ. Now I had to learn to breathe if I expected to "beat" the respirator.

That afternoon it was set to seven bpm again and I had another hour workout. The next day it was set for two hours for each session. Gradually, as before, the sessions would become longer until it was set that way all day except for now when I slept, it would be set back to eight.

I was not longing for each sunrise because the first order of the day became to lower the setting of the respirator and I had to start right off kicking and splashing. By the time the setting became six bpm I could willfully draw a 350 cc breath. This was an improvement but a long way from 800. Furthermore, the 800 cc breath had to be in my sleep. I couldn't move anything in my sleep which is why they returned the setting to eight at lights out.