For the past week I have been a cross between Rip Van Winkle or a drowning person with all the yawning and gasping for air I’ve been doing.  You could also imagine taking a fish out of water and seeing its eyes bug out as the mouth and gills frantically search for any aqueous substance.  Put a dark brown wig on that little fishy, substitute water for air, and…gasp, you now have an accurate picture of how I feel/look.

I once read that a person yawns when his/her brain is not getting enough oxygen.  Supposedly sleepiness sometimes triggers yawning because the expenditure of energy is drastically reduced during rest.  The actual yawn, as I understood it, is the body’s way of telling the person it is ready to stop expending energy and rest already.

I’m not sure if that is what my body is saying, but after a chest X-ray, spirometry test, and blood work nothing seems to be obviously malfunctioning.  Everything is normal, everything except for the fact that I can’t breath without needing huge gulps of air and am easily winded by simply talking.  If sleepiness really is the culprit, I’d much rather nod off or have trouble keeping my eyes open.  It’s a little more obvious and a little less scary.

Put me to bed or pull me out of the water, ’cause I’ll do whatever it takes to get my breathing back to normal.  Allergy medicine was suggested.  Tried it.  Still can’t breathe.  What gives?

Until I get it figured out, this sleepy little fish will be dreaming about large, oxygenated bubbles ready to fill her lungs with copious amounts of air.