I just had one of those good feeling breakdowns tonight.
You know those kind where something good happened but you just can’t stop crying because the alternative to what happened would have been devastating?
Ok so i sort of had one of those.

All because Maceo coughed.
Yeah, because he’s been coughing i should say.

You might say, “So what? He’s coughing. Big deal…” or “Oh, does he have a cold?”
Well it is a big deal and no he doesn’t have a cold.

Let’s clarify this:
Have you ever had a chest cold or respiratory infection and you felt heavy in your chest and no matter how much you coughed, you just can’t get all that junk out?
Well, Maceo doesn’t have a cold or a respiratory infection but the sound in his chest  is the same and it has been for a while.
Why?
Well, due to his injury and having been intubated in the hospital (twice) certain reflexes have not been “turned on” in his brain or have been interrupted (by intubation).
One of these is called a gag reflex.
Stick your finger down your throat… yeah, that’s the one!

Well, my little man has not had the best gag reflex.
He also didn’t have the best swallowing reflex.
So, now put those together and tell me how easy it is to breath.
Exactly.

Well, my friends.
Maceo is coughing and swallowing up a storm.

The swallowing part i got.
It’s not easy to breathe when you can’t swallow your own spit.
We swallow all day, everyday without even thinking about it.

And the gag makes sense because if something is going down your throat but you can’t swallow it and you can’t cough it out, it could go into your lungs.
This is called aspiration.
This causes pneumonia.
This exact scenario happened to Maceo in the hospital.

Well Holly came home the other day and said that some doctor was really impressed with Maceo’s cough.
I didn’t really put it together.
Holly mentioned it again… and again… and then I finally got.

So what does it mean?
It means my little boy is healing.
It means he’s getting better.
It means he’s learning how to do the things that we take for granted.
It also means that my computer screen starts to get a little fuzzy as my eyes well up with tears because there is nothing i want more in the whole world.
When i finally realized what was happening i was driving.
Luckily i was at my destination and i could stop the car because i started having that breakdown i mentioned earlier.
That was about 30 minutes ago.
That was me in the grocery store parking lot crying in my car in case anyone saw me.

Let me just sum it up for you.
Have you ever had someone hold you down on the ground?
Like they are sitting on your chest with their knees on your shoulders and you can’t move and you can’t breathe?
Now imagine someone pulled them off of you and you didn’t have to worry for the moment about them coming back to sit on your chest.
You can breathe now.
That weight is gone.
You could get up and run but there’s no point because the threat is gone.
So you just roll over, and breathe it in and let it out.
And you cry until it doesn’t hurt anymore.

Then you go in the grocery store to buy your awesome wife some ice cream
and you go home and you kiss your baby.