INSIDE

While I am in the recovery hospital, I have been reading a book about future human travel to Mars. It is more of a human science book, but not dry like a textbook. I cannot help but draw comparisons from an early chapter to my early chapter of when my health went haywire in January. As I write this, I have lost a month of my life to hospitals, procedures, a ventilator, a pacemaker, a breathing tube in my throat and trachea, and my body trying hard to regulate and stabilize itself. One month and counting, since no one has mentioned me going home quIte yet. My lungs are still weak, and my heart meds aren’t quite right. This is all ok with me when I stop and realize that I am eating solid food, I went outside for the first time today and felt fresh air and the sun on my face. It was glorious. I am up and about in my power chair, and although I tire easily, I am up for the whole day and sleeping well at night. When I compare now to early January, one month seems like nothing. I got this.

So…Mars. I have learned that we have the technology to get to the red planet, but the problem is us. The human body is frail and needs food and water, which, during a months long journey through space is going to be an issue unless we can grow food on the way and recycle enough water. This is not what hit me the most though. There is an entire chapter in the book devoted to the mental health of an astronaut when faced with months of isolation. No sounds of earth. No rain, wind, birds chirping, no voices of loved ones. No showers, no walking (no gravity), no running, dining out, meeting with friends, parties, and no background noise of your home. Listen, can you hear your refrigerator? All of that gone and replaced with cramped quarters, science experiments, and three or four other people, likely from other countries and cultures.

Due to people freaking out and showing signs of mild psychosis, astronauts undergo years of being together and months of training in small biosphere environments to see how their mental capacity holds up. Many cannot handle more than a few weeks of this training before becoming agitated or even showing signs of outward violence. It appears that we humans are conditioned to the sounds, smells, tastes, touches and routines of earth, and why not? This is the only long term environment that we have ever known. It makes sense that the brain would need extensive training, as well as the psyche, to productively function in an environment that is radically different than the one we are used to living in. Extensive training. In the intensive care unit in the hospital, I was stripped of my earth environment with no training. Food…stopped. Breathing on my own….stopped….hospital background where there are machines constantly beeping. Feeling terror if it’s a beeping machine in my room. An alarm goes off on my right and I wonder if I have stopped breathing. I lay still with several IV’s in my arms, a catheter which makes me pee, a bed that inflates and deflates every three minutes (I timed it) so I don’t get pressure sores. Compression boots on both legs that gently squeeze me every few minutes to help with circulation, a small tube up my nose that runs down the back of my throat so nurses can feed me, and a small tube coming out of the right side of my neck where blood is drawn every few hours. This is not to mention that I have multiple tubes in my mouth and down my throat that I can feel the bottoms of just above the point where I may choke. I am sedated, but alert enough to know exactly what’s going on. With the muscular dystrophy, I don’t move much at all. I am afraid that if I move my arms or legs, I may die. It’s an irrational thought but try telling my brain that. This is my environment now. I might as well be on a ship to Mars, only my situation is not nearly as cool. My brain fights against me while I attempt to block the dark thoughts that go off like more loud hospital machines: YOU flatlined for six minutes. YOU were just about dead, but you’re still here. You got shocked multiple times to slow your heart and you have stopped breathing more than once. Deal with it. Lay there with all the tubes and noise and deal. Live with it. Did you hear the nurses and doctors just now? Someone died one hour after they were airlifted in last night. Just after someone’s shift ended. Listen to that. There’s death on the floor. YOU are still here, breathing on a machine. Let that sink in. How long will you be able to tolerate that? You have no training for this environment Patrick. Learn as you go. See the clock on the wall in front of you? It’s kind of big for the room right? That’s for two reasons: 1. So you can contemplate how long a night is when you don’t sleep. Think it’s been a few hours? It’s been ten minutes. Live like this. Outside it’s snowing but you might as well be on the dark side of the moon buddy. Reason 2: The clock is big and clear because people have to call time of death in this room of course. Think about that as the seconds tick by and more alarms sound on your machines or in someone else’s room where nurses and doctors go running in. YOU have no training for this environment. Deal with it. Pass the time.

My friend Ben was an Army Ranger. Ben used to jump out of planes when U.S. troops occupied Kosovo in the 1990’s. Ben told me a story that once, he and other troops had to land and enter a swamp to do surveillance on a target. He stood in the swamp up to his eyes and did not move for eight hours. I asked him how the hell he managed to succeed.

“Well, I had training, but nothing really prepares you for it. Mosquitoes, frogs, other critters. Sun, wind. What you have to do is go deep inside yourself. Deep, deep inside yourself almost in a trance or meditative state. You would be surprised what you can will your body to do in stressful situations.”

In the hospital in those early days, I called on Ben’s words. They didn’t always work, but they helped. I began to train myself to realize that my situation was temporary. What’s one month of recovery when I think about the fact that I felt the sun on my face today? Outside.

I got this. ALL of your cards, notes, texts, and prayers have helped me a great deal. It’s nice to feel company on the way to Mars.

Love you all.

P.S. The book is called “Packing For Mars” by Mary Roach