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  2021-01-06

  When lungs fail

  I wish I had a sound of the oxygen concentrator my mom was on for a full month, but at the same time I'm glad that I don't. After spending 8 days in the ICU due to COVID, my mom was finally sent home only because the hospitals were full in the Fort Worth area, and there were other people much more sick than her. In a normal year, she would have been in there at least another week or two, but they got her a concentrator and sent her home to be taken care of by my Dad, sister, and me. The sound the small motor made, producing the oxygen my mom's lungs weren't capable of getting. The high-pitched beeps that sounded when the battery was low, or if the cannula in her nose wasn't properly placed on her face--all of it is probably permanently etched in my memory. The sound that I've submitted here is an excerpt of what a nebulizer sounds like when it's turned on. In addition to the sound of the oxygen concentrator, we'd hear this sound at least twice daily as my mom inhaled her lung medications with the nebulizer, accompanied by a lot of coughing as she recovered fully. I'm grateful that she recovered and is still doing well, but I don't think I'll ever be able to hear a sound like this without remembering what the month of January was like this year for our family.