Joe's POZ Blog

It is the middle of the night and his breathing becomes labored. As I lay next to him, I can hear his body gasping for air. Very gently, very slowly, yet I can hear it. For the last 2 days, Stephen has had really intense hiccups, which many times interrupt his ability to breathe. When they are most intense, his breathing becomes like someone gasping for their last breath. I can only imagine the signals fighting for dominance, in his body, between the hiccups and his lungs laboring to breath.

But I can hear the battle raging and it is frightening. The hiccups come in short rapid bursts that prevent his lungs from drawing in air. During each short pause between hiccups, you can hear him gasp for a breath, yet as soon as he attempts to breathe, another hiccup interrupts the process and the cycle repeats. A few times the cycle was so long and labored, that I was sure that he would collapse from a lack of air. Then, just as quickly as it came, the episode ended, until the next one.

So here I lay, in the darkness, once again privy to this battle. I fear anything that involves Stephen's lungs, because he has had pneumonia seven times and been hospitalized too many times to count. As I listen to each labored breath, I fear it may be his last. Reason tells me that he will be fine, but the fear of the unknown seems so strong, here in the darkness. I feel powerless, knowing that if he has any real difficulty that the most I can do is to summon assistance and then wait for it to arrive.

I wait and soon his breathing becomes normal again. I listen for a while longer just to be sure, yet it retains its steady rhythm. I start to drift off to sleep, thinking of how precious life is and that many times it seems to hang only by a thread. I reach over and rub him and he purrs his familiar sound that he does, whenever I rub him in his sleep and I know that he is fine. My last thought, before sleep overtakes me is I wish that the only thing I feared at night was the darkness.