* Frightening facts
Here are some facts: If I had to wear a back brace or cervical collar for any reason, I would not be able to breathe or swallow. I cannot sit or stand with a straight spine, yet there is nothing wrong with my spine. Since 2001, I have been forced to live hunched over and engage every possible compensatory posture simply to breathe and swallow. My jaw pulls open and the internal structures of my throat are pulled down with a force that is impossible to overcome.
X-rays taken in the ER at Cape Cod Hospital indicate a narrowed airway, yet were misread as “normal”. Keeping the same posture in which the x-rays were taken for longer than 45 seconds is physically impossible, if I wish to continue breathing. If I were forced (restrained) in this position, I would die of asphyxia. Should I have requested this kind of “test”? Is this what it takes for ER docs and a radiologist to read x-rays in consideration of the patient’s problem?
Consider this morbid scenario: I restrain myself at the waist into a straight-back chair, place a scarf under my chin just tight enough to close my jaw, knot it at the top of my head and tie the ends to the top of the chair. Now I cannot flex my neck. I then tie my hands together and secure them to the belt at my waist with one of those plastic lock fasteners. Now I cannot use my hands. I cannot use any of the “manual maneuvers” I have been forced to employ to breathe. I must tie my hands quickly, since restraint in a normal, sitting posture for the brief time it takes to do this is nearly impossible because I cannot breathe without applying the necessary pressure under my jaw to draw another deep breath. Despite the tie under the chin, my jaw is pulling open and my tongue down with it. I cannot breathe through my nose because my soft palate is pulls down with my head in a neutral posture. I cannot breathe through my mouth because the supporting musculature in the neck which hold these structures in place to allow normal breathing, swallowing, etc. is compromised. The muscle sheath (platysma) which “contains” the deeper structures in the neck is damaged, torn, and on the right side is actually torn from its insertion into the mandible. How do I know this? It’s my body, that’s how, and I have been forced to replace the function of this damaged support by external means, which by its very nature has caused damage of its own.
Picture it… simply sitting upright, in a normal posture, hands in my lap, but unable to move. I would die from asphyxia in a matter of .. what.. minutes? Yes. I would choke to death on my own tongue. Sounds extreme? Crazy? Surely not suicidal, since according to every surgeon who claims to have “examined” me, there is nothing wrong with me…. they could not find any “anatomical abnormality.”
Yet I know, with a certainty as absolute as death itself, that I will die if restrained in a position any person with normal anatomy can easily tolerate for hours without difficulty.
I included this scenario in a message to Dr. Der-Sarkissian on 11/27/06. His initial consultation in April 2002 included an option for surgical release of the platysma. He later claimed he could not find “anything tangible upon which to operate”, in spite of having diagnostic evidence proving his initial opinion and proposed treatment was correct.
Stumble It!
