I love being able to breathe. Now you’re thinking “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”  But it isn’t obvious.  Most of the time I don’t notice I’m breathing.  I take oxygen completely for granted.   And anyone who exercises knows it’s really easy to hold your breath.  We hold our breath when we learn something new or do anything challenging.  It’s like we can’t chew gum and walk at the same time.  Focused breathing is hard.  But breathing should generally be automatic.

The reason I’ve really appreciate breathing lately is because I started having layrngospasms. What’s that?  It’s when your vocal cords slam shut and you can’t breathe.  Much like when food or water goes down the wrong pipe, except you aren’t eating or drinking.  Most of the time you wake up from a dead sleep and (as I learned yesterday at my ENT) it’s caused from acid reflux splashing against the larynx—a normal occurrence that is currently really irking my vocal cords.  For most people, most of the time the larynx is a little more chill about acid reflux.

It’s terrifying. It sounds like I’m retching or like I’m a cat coughing up a fur ball, but there is no fur ball.  This is […]