The Sisterhood Of Collapsing Lungs

The supposed rare disease many women don’t even know they have until they can’t breathe

Photo by Europeana on Unsplash

I should have been suspicious when the clinic director returned in place of my nurse after my chest x-ray.

“Are you sure you’re feeling ok? Let me listen to your breathing.”

She puts the stethoscope under my clothes and urgently moves it across the entire surface of my back. Silence.

“Yeah, that confirms the x-rays. Your lung is collapsed, sweetie.”
“What?”
“You’re not getting any air on your right side.”
“Oh.”
“Who brought you in?
“I just drove myself.”
Her eyebrows crunch closer.

That March morning, my toddler had wanted to walk the newly cleared neighborhood hill. It was the kind of hill families climbed at the turn of the century with parasols and picnic baskets — gentle soft grass and a spectacular view of distant factories.

The owner had recently cleared the thick brush that had defined it for decades. In the process, he unearthed a hand-laid brick walkway stamped by Griffin Foundry in 1890.