Sunshine Therapy By Mike Freeman

 Sunshine Therapy

By Mike Freeman

I broke my neck hiking with my dogs going down stairs that I have traveled up and down a thousand times. It was a serious fracture (C3) that left me completely paralyzed from the shoulders down and on a ventilator to help breathing. My anticipated 4 to 7 days in an intensive care unit at Scripps La Jolla stretched to 40 days due to complications of various sorts. Tubes ran in and out of my body delivering all my necessities for living.

God, family, and friends surrounded me as did despair and depression. The former helped me battle the latter. This was the beginning of a long struggle towards recovery and optimism.

The hospital room air felt stagnant. A small electric fan blew a refreshing life-saving breeze across my face. It was the only sensation I could really feel for weeks. 

As I fought through recovery it became time for me to get off the ventilator. I hated being on it because of the way I had to breathe with it. Getting off of it was something I grew to hate more, even though it was necessary.

One of my doctors sold it to me this way.” You're going to really hate me for a while but love me at the end.” We would start with a one hour period with the goal to get at least to 12 consecutive hours off the ventilator. 

I am shocked at how hard the first hour is. My diaphragm is weak as is my breathing. I feel like I'm breathing at a 24,000 foot altitude frantically gasping for life sustaining air. It feels like I am slowly drowning in an ocean of air!

The next day is a two hour effort. I have my sons throw towels over the clocks so I cannot track the time. We are watching documentaries about anything on my iPad just so I do not think about the agony of breathing. This sucks, I complain to everyone in the room, as I am beginning to think this is too tough, too hard to do.

Doctor Suffocation is relentless. He's right, I hate him! Day Three starts with three hours. Towels go over clocks, iPad fires up with music and later more documentaries. Anything and everything to take my mind off what I am experiencing. These efforts work only for a short while.

Day Four and this is not getting easier. My family is talking to me, trying to distract me. Towels over clocks, music blaring, I close my eyes and try to go to sleep. I open my eyes and try to enjoy the ocean view. I put comedy shows and movies on my iPad to laugh. All this and I still have three hours to go! I am getting desperate, I hate feeling like I'm suffocating.

Doctor Love comes into the room, sits down next to me, and says “If you do six hours today and continue to work towards 12 hours I will prescribe ‘sunshine therapy’ for you.” 

What is Doctor Asphyxiation up to? Now he wants to increase my agony by adding two hour increments each day until I get to 12 hours? What the hell is sunshine therapy? How is this motivation? I am starting to think about putting anonymous complaints and recommendations to fire Doctor Suffocation in the hospital suggestion box.

I ask him the obvious question. Doctor Suffertillyoudie explains, “I will order nurses and other hospital staff to take you outside where you will enjoy the sun on your face, the breeze in your hair, seeing clouds, smelling flowers, and enjoying the fresh ocean breezes.”

To my sensory-deprived mind trapped in a numb paralyzed body this sounds like heaven! How they get me outside I do not know or care. The COVID-19 pandemic is starting to fill hospital beds now and the hospital staff is feverishly working to manage the overwhelming chaos.

I complete the six hours of respirator-free anguish with the help of my family and friends and their many creative distractions. Now comes time for sunshine therapy. I wait.

A swarm of people come in to get me. I had no idea it would take a village. I need at least two nurses to attend to me and my vital signs, a respiratory therapist to manage my new portable respirator, and a couple of patient care assistants using a Hoyer lift to move me from my bed to a wheelchair. A few family members joined us as we parade down through the hallways using an elevator to get to the ground floor.

For the first time in many days I am excited. Just the movement of air across my face begins to refresh as we roll down the hallways. 

We continued our trek going out the hospital lobby into a garden area off to the side. People gawked at us along the way, especially in the lobby. Looks on their faces reveal their surprise, astonishment, and wondering about what we are up to and where we were going. Now this is starting to get fun!

Surrounded by fresh flowers and tall, leafy trees, we stop in a patio area. I fill my lungs with the ocean air, warm my skin with sunshine, and look up into wispy white clouds contrasted against a bright blue beautiful sky.

“Mike, you are like a new man!” one of the nurses says as he looks at my vital signs. I burst into a smile, feeling an invigoration and joy that has long been absent. I am alive again!

I cling to every moment and sensation. I know my time is short. The people around me laugh and celebrate with me, high-fives all around.

“Time!” one of my nurses sadly calls out. We all gather and roll me and my portable respirator back down the hallways and up the elevator to return to my now stifling, stale room.

I thank everybody involved, unable to express my full gratitude. As I am moving back into my bed from the wheelchair I asked my nurse where did all the people come from? My nurse replies,“Some broke away from their duties, some donated their break time, others just found the time somehow.”

I am overwhelmed. People I do not know, that are overwhelmed with their ICU duties plus the growing crush of COVID-19 patients and work, find a way to bring sunshine therapy into my day. Wow!

Doctor Hatemetillyouloveme checks in with me to see if I have received his prescription. He looks at me and says, ”No need to answer. I can tell that you have.”

He then orders my continued stifling of breathing to continue until I reach a continuous 12 hours. I asked for another prescription. Doctor Hypoxemia says he will see what he can do.

Each of the remaining days a ragtag group of superheroes show up to help me with my sunshine therapy. My attitude and recovery start to skyrocket. We explore different parts of the garden, each day a new adventure.

I reach my 12 hour respirator-free goal. The blessing of sunshine therapy continues to roll forward during my recovery. I start to wonder how a quadriplegic can break into a hospital suggestion box to remove certain complaints and recommendations regarding Doctor Lovehimnow.

I wonder, “Where do all these people come from? How did they find the time and heart to help a stranger? It is nothing for them but everything for me.”

Every day there are people around us quietly doing acts of kindness. Do we recognize that? Should we commend people for that? Should we participate in that? What do you think?