I Suction Myself

Long ago I used this video to show that it is possible to survive without a head.

The chicken died because it needed to be suctioned. The caregivers had been suctioning it with an eyedropper. The eyedropper was lost when the chicken died.

Suctioning is a process where a special instrument is used to clear an airway. The airway is basically vacuumed out.

Now I learned how to suction my mouth with a yankauer. (The AUER is pronounced like SAUER KROUT.) One of these things may have been used on you at the dentist. You may have been told to suck on it.

A yankauer suctioning tool

There is a deeper suctioning that I had when there was a tracheostomy tube in my neck. I wasn't able to do this one on my own.

Since I always did my own suctioning with the yankauer, I always had a clear airway. It was alright that I didn't cough.

I didn't cough. I somewhat do today, but it is still inconsistent. It slowly gets stronger. This will be hard for medical personnel to fathom, because it was said that if you didn't cough, then you were dead.

Nurses liked doing that  deeper suctioning on me. It usually makes a patient cough. Not me. I never coughed, but my airway was clear after.

I have a pretty strong diaphragm. This comes from years of choral singing and proper breathing. Lesser known is that sharply pushing on the diaphragm is performing the Heimlich Maneuver. My diaphragm is so well developed that I not need to push on it with my hands. I can just flex my abs.

With this brain injury came no flexing of anything. Breathing on my own came some months later. I quickly learned how to clear my airway when I got off the ventilator. I forgot all about that well developed diaphragm. Doctors will now say that played a big part. It might very well be the difference between what you see now and death.

Some years ago family described to a social worker that I coughed a lot. I didn't say anything. I was thinking. First of all, my airway clearing sounds like coughing. To me, I was blowing/exhaling hard enough to bring up the junk there. Two, I "coughed" a lot. There's no way my body could wait a few hours between suctionings from a nurse. As soon as I could, I suctioned myself.

I laid in bed and watched TV. With that yankauer in my left hand, I'd bring it to my mouth to suction. It was already on. It was always on in a hospital. I learned on a portable suction machine in a care home. I had to turn that one on. I could not move my right hand, so I did not use it.

Maybe I came out of a coma just so I could suction myself more frequently?

*  I currently am "semi-vegetative."
Vegetative is a coma, but the eyes can be open.
I do not swallow, which qualifies me as vegetative.
I am able to speak short sentences. (Due to that diaphragm?)
I use one finger to type.
I was in various hospitals and nursing homes between 2002-2006.
I currently live on my own with a visiting home care person.

I want to thank all the medical personnel, not just the doctors and nurses, but the RTs, CNAs, therapists, and people sweeping the floor. I thank family. I want to thank all who have written me. I want to thank everyone who reads and keeps me in mind-the collective conscious. I thank everybody.

I still pretty much am in bed. I do get up into a wheelchair for a few hours on most days. I don't have to use a yankauer anymore. I now blow my secretions into a tissue.