She was slaying at work, proving herself again and again. How could she be dying if she was the company’s best exterior space designer? Bruce had just assigned her to a big job for a new T stop in Boston, and she’d spent the day in Beantown, all alone, watching people come and go, reading the pedestrian traffic flow report and staring at the ugly entrance. She was fine. Fine, damn it.
There had to be a mistake. She was just waiting for Dr. Bennett to figure it out.
Of course, there were days when she had to drink two cappuccinos to make it through the workday (but everyone had those days). Days when the thought of taking two flights of stairs to their apartment felt Sisyphean, and her legs felt like lead, and she felt dizzy and weak. But, hello! Hadn’t she also made it through a power yoga class? So what if she was short of breath sometimes? She could deal with it. She was dealing with it. She was on medication and had an inhaler. Not a big deal. So many people were in the same shoes.
No matter what she Googled, she could not find a case of IPF where the person had been cured. Not one.
That was fine. She would adapt to having a low blood oxygen level. No one could tell her she wasn’t going to live a long life. No one. She was freakishly young to have this disease . . . not the only one, but one of the very few. She joined an online forum and talked with other young people with IPF. They agreed; no one was planning any funerals, no sir.
Except all of them used oxygen. All of them had been hospitalized and intubated multiple times.
See? She must not have IPF. She’d never been intubated. Never spent a single night in the hospital.
Until she did.
Lauren had been having a completely normal day at work when she felt something . . . shift in her chest. Something weird, something she’d never felt before. A heaviness. A difference.
She pulled in a breath, but it was off. It was . . . wrong. Her chest jerked, and then fire flashed through it. Suddenly her back twisted in agony—was it a heart attack, did someone just wallop her with a two-by-four?
She sucked in air, but it wasn’t enough. Panic slapped her hard, and she tried again, but no, nothing. Was this a nightmare? Wake up! Wake up! Her chest was working, up and down, up and down, almost like she was choking on something, but deeper down. Oh, God, she was going to die.
She pushed back her chair and said, “Call . . . 911 . . .” and slid to the floor, buzzing with adrenaline, but utterly weak. Her hands flailed near her throat, pulling at her collar, and God, the pain! Her chest hurt like nothing she’d ever felt before, like someone had rammed an arrow clear through her. Her back was spasming in torment, and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe.
She fought. She fought like a wild animal in a trap, gasping in horrible wrenching sounds, her legs flailing, foot connecting with Santino as he tried to help her sit up. Her coworkers gathered round, saying things, putting their hands on her, but she couldn’t hear them, she was heaving and the sounds that were coming out of her—animal sounds, desperate and feral—drowned out everything.
Louise was on the phone, yelling. “My coworker can’t breathe! She has a lung problem and she can’t breathe! She’s dying! Hurry up, hurry up!”
“Somebody do something!” Bruce yelled. “Where the fuck is the ambulance? Somebody, help her! Jesus Christ!”
Josh. She was going to die without Josh. She fought harder, kicking, gasping.
Then Sarah was there; yes, yes, they were going to meet for lunch, but there was not enough air, damn it, she didn’t want to die. Sarah knelt beside her and held her hands, which were clawing at her throat. Bruce was sobbing and Louise was chanting, “Fuck fuck fuck fuck,” and all that seemed to be far away, because she was losing consciousness, oh, God. If she did that, would she die?
“Slow and easy, slow and easy,” Sarah said, her voice stern and calm. “Help is on the way. You’re going to be okay. Slow down, try to relax. Got an inhaler handy? Someone get her purse.”
Lauren locked eyes with Sarah, gasping like a fish out of water. Sarah was here. Sarah of the great sleepovers, Sarah who could do such good French braids, Sarah who cried so hard when Lauren’s dad died. She wanted to thank her, but all that came out was a high-pitched squeak.
“Back off,” Sarah snarled at the coworkers. Then the inhaler was in her hand, and she gave Lauren a hit, but it was hard to get the medicine into her lungs. Sarah repeated the action, then again. A little better breathing, but the chest pain . . .
“Josh,” she croaked.
Sarah pulled out her phone. “I’ve got this. You just breathe, easy and slow, easy and slow.” Her voice was calm and firm, and Lauren forced her brain to repeat easy and slow, easy and slow. “Josh, it’s Sarah. Meet us at the hospital. Lauren’s having trouble breathing. The ambulance is already here.”
Then the paramedics were in her view, and someone put a mask over her face, and there was medical talk, but everything was going gray. Sarah gripped her hand. “I’m right here. You’re gonna be fine. Stay awake, okay?”
Lauren fought against unconsciousness. It felt like a truck was parked on her chest. The mask was helping and smelled funny, but her chest, her chest. Your lung collapsed, said a part of her brain, but all she could think about was breathe, breathe, get the air in there, breathe, breathe, breathe. Then she was in the back of the ambulance, and they were moving. The paramedic talked to her, but she couldn’t hear, or wasn’t listening.
She forced her eyes as wide as possible, then felt the slip of her eyeballs as unconsciousness gained a step. No. Bite me. This was no gentle faint, no coughing fit, this was a battle, and she would fight it viciously, fight the suffocation, fight the grayness. No. No. I am not dying.
At the ER, doctors and nurses swarmed her. Patient collapsed at work, given three hits of albuterol, friend says a history of IPF, limited breath sounds both sides. Pneumothorax. Intubate. Then Lauren was floating, and a doctor was hunched over her face, opening her mouth.
Unconsciousness won, but it was okay, she was being helped, and then she was just . . . blank.
There were dreams, strange dreams and sounds of hissing and squeaking. She dreamed she could fly. She dreamed that she was lost and couldn’t find Sarah’s house, so she took an elevator down to a train but remembered that she was married and had to go home to Josh. She thought she was in Hawaii in their beautiful sunset house, but Hawaii smelled like flowers, and it smelled sharp and bitter here. She dreamed that she was in a tree house, but everyone had forgotten about her, and the ladder was gone, so she would have to live there, and there was no bathroom.
She dreamed her father was here, and she wanted to get on a train with him to go to New York City, but he said no.
She woke up, throat aching. She gagged. Josh and Jen were there, telling her it was okay, she was safe, she was getting better. Lauren tried to smile, but fell back asleep.