Twenty years ago today, I lay there wondering why six men in scrubs
were surrounding me.
A soft-spoken doctor walked into the room off
the main lobby of St. Paul Hospital in Dallas carrying a long silver steel rod with a very sharp
pointed end.
As he began poking between my ribs below my left arm, he said, "I'm sorry,
Mr. Hickman, this is one of our more barbaric procedures."
Each of the six men grabbed part of me. I gulped and held my breath.
No sedative, no anesthetic.
He grunted and pushed
the steel rod between my ribs where a collapsed left lung waited for air.
I cannot describe the pain.
Also, I cannot describe the
slurping sound I did not hear, but felt inside as I
gasped and suddenly had air surging into my left lung.
One Lung Is Not Enough
Less than an hour before, I had pulled into an HMO health center because I
had not been breathing well. A quick x-ray showed a collapsed lung.
My lungs were so bad, I didn't even know one of them wasn't working. I
had no idea when it collapsed or how long I had been walking around with one
lung. Normally, lungs collapse in car accidents. Mine had collapsed from
wear and tear and cigarette smoke.
The doctor called for an ambulance, and when they said it would be 15
minutes, he loaded me into his personal car and headed for the hospital
A collapsed lung could not
wait 15 minutes.
Oh, and did I mention, 20 years ago today I also quit smoking.
Worst Mistake I Ever Made
I had smoked two packs a day for 30 years, three packs during a
brief stint with low-nicotine so-called "Lights.'
As a child I was fascinated with
smoking. Huck Finn made a corncob pipe
and I made a corncob pipe. Penrod and Sam smoked sawdust. I smoked sawdust. And corn
silk, dried grass and leaves, and grapevine. I even tried floor sweep, but only once.
Super Yuck!
I was already hooked by the time I sat in journalism class at
North Texas State and puffed away like all the other future Edward R. Murrows. We boasted about being
the only department who could smoke in class.
Super Stupid
Within five years I was trying to quit.
Nothing worked. I paid people to sit in a little room full of smelly cigarette
butts and shock me with electricity every time I took a puff. I
didn't respond to aversion therapy.
I paid a psychiatrist to hypnotize me. I
could not be hypnotized.
I checked into a motel, had my wife take all my clothes, and spent an entire
weekend with no cigarettes and no way to get any. On Monday, I got dressed and bought a carton.
I was taking 1,800 milligrams of theophylline a day and having a
positive-pressure machine blow albuterol into my lungs to breathe. I took
steroids to dry congestion, and some days when
the humidity was high, I could barely breathe at all.
A pulmonary function test showed my lungs were
30 years older than the rest of me.
I prayed I could live long
enough for my daughter to remember me.
But as time passed, I gave
up. I told God I could not stop smoking unless somehow
He
made it easier. I asked Him to please make it easier.
It's Time
I slept well at the hospital with a tube running from my lung into a
plastic jar. I felt better immediately. In three days the doctor pulled out the
tube and said I could go home.
I almost cried. I wanted a cigarette so bad, I knew I would buy a
carton before sundown.
Then the strangest thing happened.
I coughed.
My shoulder felt funny.
I coughed again, and my entire left side blew up
like a balloon. I called
the nurse. She said, "Try not to cough. You're inflating your entire body."
The chest tube had been removed too soon.
In a few minutes, a tall man walked into my
room carrying a long silver steel rod with
a very sharp pointed end.
This time it took only two nurses to hold me as
he jabbed the rod into my upper chest.
I slept well at the hospital with a
new tube running from my lung into a plastic jar for
seven more nights. Though not Catholic, I carried my plastic jar to mass. I knew
God was at work.
Wow, I can breathe!
The extra seven days without cigarettes gave me
a chance to quit smoking for good. I still wanted a cigarette
every hour of every day. But as the days passed, and I began to breathe a little
better with less medicine, I also began to realize I could
quit.
I began eating like a hungry hippo and gaining
weight. My doctor said not to worry about it until I gained 75 pounds. I gained
only 30.
As years went by, I always remembered my last
cigarette, on the way to the HMO clinic with only one lung.
The date:
January 31, 1987.
Twenty years
ago, if that lung had not collapsed and the doctor had
not goofed up and pulled the chest tube early, I likely would
not have lived more than a couple of years.
God gave me ten days in the hospital
to make it easier for me to live.
I'm still not as old as my lungs, but I'm still
breathing.
I believe my granddaughter
will remember me.
And I thank God
so much for that.
