Dooley Noted: 1/31/2014
After a four-month battle with cancer, my father is in remission. No more chemotherapy. No more radiation.
Sometimes I feel I became a doctor, just because it hurt so deeply that I couldn’t help with my father’s health.
I didn’t realize then what I know now. The choices you make are your own. Information can be received, and what we do with it is our call.
I want my dad to be able to breathe. He struggles. He struggled for years, and now he’s at the zenith of struggle.
When he can’t breathe, I can feel it. I’m connected to the man that gave me life to such depth that I can feel when he struggles, from hundreds of miles away.
I know movement is a behavior. I watched him breathe for 18 years, living in his home. I learned to breathe by watching him.
So, I struggled to breathe, too.
He was driving a few days ago and coughed so hard that he passed out behind the wheel. My angel of a sister was with him, and paramedics rushed quickly to his side.
He stopped breathing. He can’t get air out with a chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, exacerbated by pneumonia.
That entire afternoon, I was feeling myself struggle to fully exhale. It was his trouble I was feeling.
Knowing breathing is a behavior, I did breathing drills all day – more than usual.
You can change behavior. The way you breathe can change.
I’m always hoping that cross-country connection we share might help his behavior, since he won’t work to change his own.
It’s not probable. I hang on possibility and hope.
But if this can help a reader to consider changing the breathing behavior, then it’s worth all effort.
Little ducks watch parent ducks. Breathing is a behavior.
You breathe better, and everyone around you has a better chance of breathing better.
They are watching.
As always, it’s your call.
– Dr. Kathy Dooley