Skip to main content

Past the butterfly wall.

Spontaneous pneumothorax is a collection of air or gas in the space between the lungs and the chest that "collapses" the lung and prevents it from inflating completely. Spontaneous means there is no traumatic injury to the chest or lung. There are two types of spontaneous pneumothorax: primary and secondary. Primary spontaneous pneumothorax occurs in people without lung disease. It occurs most often in tall, thin, young people.
I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket but I can't answer it. We are in the middle of rehearsal. It is not an uncommon event. We continue to play. The strap of my saxophone cuts into my neck. The nylon is rough against my skin. I look out of place. Everyone else is dressed casually; shorts, shirts, shoes optional. There I stand, a button down shirt and slacks. I'm entitled to dress up a little. It's my birthday.

My phone vibrates again.

I always used to roll my eyes whenever I saw those scenes in movies. The phone call. The bad news. The dramatic reaction. Knees buckling, struggling to stay composed. It just wasn't believable. Surely people wouldn't actually react that way. People could be level headed. Keep themselves together. People are strong, they don't just go straight to pieces.

You can't break people with words.

We stop the song and they discuss whether or not we will play it on Saturday. I check my phone. David has partial collapsed lung, going to ER. A shock runs through my body as I read the words. My chest tightens and my head starts to spin. I feel the words come from my mouth but can't remember thinking about them. My body disconnects from itself. "Oh God," I say. "I need to..." I take a step back. "...I'll be back." I stumble into the front yard and thoughtlessly drop my saxophone onto the sofa on my way out.

For what may be the first time in my entire life, I am honestly afraid.

I feel sick as I listen to the ringing of my phone. As I listen to her explain everything so far. As I sink down against the side of the house, phone clutched to my chest. I am crying, unashamed. People get hospitalized every day. Lots of people. Hundreds. Thousands. But only one of them is my brother. Literally my closest blood relative. I am filled with regret for not being closer to him.

Happy birthday, to me.

Comments

Unknown said…
Hi http://greenday1001.blogspot.com.br/
September 22, 2015 at 7:09 PM
Unknown said…
Hi! Any updates? It has been so many years.
September 30, 2018 at 7:13 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Side effects include constant irritability, being an ass.

It was a typical day in MUS 307 . A typical day where nobody pays attention to anything the professor talks about. A day where people play shitty flash games instead of take notes. A day where people sit and refresh their Facebook newsfeed instead of follow the slides. A day where people roll their eyes and go to sleep instead of listen to the music examples. A day where people get up and leave ten minutes before lecture ends instead of having the God damn decency to stay the whole time and pretend to be interested. I mean, if you're going to be so unaffected by the music we're studying in class then why the fuck did you take the class in the first place? Fuck it makes me mad. And I haven't even started talking about that fucker who sits in the back and tries to whistle along with every song that gets played in class. Alright, dude, we get it: you are just too cool and you know everything about jazz, ever. You know every standard ever written and everybody's so...
4 comments
Read more

So, I mean, there's that.

So I went to church again. I slept through most of it but I woke up to hear this: "Oh Lord you are holy indeed. You are a fountain of holiness." Dang, I thought. That is pretty holy. I saw The Nightmare Before Christmas again recently. That is still one of my favorite movies. I never get tired of watching it for some reason. I remember the first time I saw it quite clearly. I was about 5 years old at the time, I think. My dad and I were in the Albertson's video store looking for something to watch as was our Friday night custom. I walked through the aisle, glossing over the scary movies as quickly as I could without looking like I was scared. My dad pulled me aside with a video in hand. "What do you think about this one?" He held up a cover with a skeleton on the cover and 'nightmare' in the title. "It doesn't look very good." I said nonchalantly. "It looks lame." I rolled my eyes and turned away, playing it cool....
Post a Comment
Read more

Pseudo-science (like psych).

I consider myself a man of science. I try to approach problems and deal with them logically, using observations previously recorded to handle new problems. So of course my interest was piqued when someone I knew posited that men are needier and more complicated than women. An interesting theory. But to properly examine it, one must understand the concept of sexual selection and its two aspects: male competition and female choice. Which brings us to point one: men are needier [in relationships] than women. This is true. In a natural/primal setting, the males are generally love-'em-leave-'em kinds of guys. Their main objective is to reproduce as much as they can. Humans, in their infinite wisdom, have decreased the emphasis on this to the point where it has become a footnote in male purpose. Civilization dictates that, instead of finding a partner for the sole purpose of reproduction, males find females for life companionship. With the effective removal of their natur...
5 comments
Read more