I can no longer "smoke" anymore in my life, to my understanding, without having these adverse effects happen in my body, as seen with two scary moments I have had within my last two experiences. My leg starts shaking out of control, I start to feel cold, the breaths grow further and further apart, I feel like I keep having to clear my throat, I drink a great amount of water, and the overall "euphoria" transforms itself into an exacerbated anxiety attack, particularly of fearing of blockage of my airways.
From this seemingly forever-lasting fear, immediately, under this influence, my mind started breaking down every single possibility to explain why these things were happening. My mind jumped to a point in my life, where Mom and I went to a doctor to test if I had any sort of throat irregularities at all. Under an x-ray, I swallowed this barium compound and had my tract closely watched through a computer screen, and as observed, I had no irregularities within the esophageal lining. However, it might have been prescribed that I might have had some symptoms involved with gastroesophageal reflux disease as a reasoning to explain my slow eating habits and a difficulty to swallow.
I had not thought of that very much until just now with these harrowing moments last Saturday and last night. Immediately, after that memory recall, I analyzed my life to these "scientific" reasonings of what could be going on inside my body. I broke down that some things within my life, whether I truly realized it or not, might have been convulsing the acidity of my stomach. I started thinking about the increase of coffee I have had since the past couple of months after a recession of a good number of months. I started thinking about how much more I was "smoking" recently, and how this smoke I was pushing into my lungs with these harmful chemicals now affects me in a way to a harmful, adverse affect. Even right now, my throat is trying to fuck with my mind. I kept burping for no reason, as I had yet to eat anything that night at all. I was desperately searching for answers online, for explanations to my state of mind, and as already scary enough as it was to just try to tell myself to "be calm," it was somewhat more troubling basing these online "facts" and trying to base if some of those things could happen to my own body.
In the midst of the paranoia, the "light bulb" moment, the saving grace, came with jumping into the hot shower, and just to have the humidity and hot water fill up my lungs and my throat was an incredible experience. Not only was hot water cleansing all the toxins and microorganisms all over my body from all the contact from throughout the day, but now all the hot vapor was figuratively pushing away a lot of negative emotions and literally pushing the throat linings open again. I was gleaming, singing some A. Collective lyrics again in my head ("Open up your/Open up your/Open up your throat...), and just felt saved.
After the moment of self-savior, it was incredible to see how I can base an entire lifetime just by this experience. Had I really, legitimately just (now evidently and now securely) self-diagnosed myself with acid reflux from a very deep moment? I started thinking of some other causes of these feelings associated with a possibly acid reflux with my throat:
*dry weather
*environmental changes (we are going through weeks of 60 plus-degree sunny weather and 6 degree snow within the same week)
*Also to mention the increase of other influences in the past weeks now.
I started recalling some other moments in my lifetime that might have had some positive influences (have I always slept better over on the east coast? at the beach? camping this summer?), and now I am wondering if a whole lifetime of choices can be put into perspective from some scary moments. Will I want to live somewhere with humidity? Is it really, truly smoke that affects my throat to do these things, or (heaven forbid) another factor with what I am smoking? Should I look into other forms of ingestion that do not involve the use of combusting these harmful chemicals?
OK, with given situation, I am starting this social experiment to try to test my own hypothesis. Some new variables to try...
*humidifier in room
*decreased use of alcohol
*no coffee
*deeper breaths
*more hot, herbal, non-caffeinated teas
*"alternative methods of smoking"
*sleeping semi-upright
The greatest success I think I will ever feel in my life right now is if I can prove myself right, based upon these experiences and these diagnosed reasons, that my throat will feel better and that my body can take care of itself if I can just understand more and more how MY body was made to work.
And that, I think, is why science is really trying to come back into my life once again. Or, maybe, for the first genuine moment in my life.
I am unsure how I can even forget so much sometimes.
-c
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