Rewind time a few minutes to get a prelude to these thoughts. 

 

Two of my kids are in hospital and another upstairs asleep with a similar issue. In the space of one weekend it appears that the whole family is being wiped out except for my wife, the rock. It’s not Covid, rather it is some other respiratory illness. First the baby is affected. A day later, it’s the middle girl and not long after it’s the big sister and I. I was helping out a lot in the beginning, taking the baby to A+E and looking after the other kids on the shift switch with my wife. But now that I’m out of action, how long can my wife look after the two in hospital day and night on her own? God only knows. Time is short. I need to get better. I need to support my wife and my family. 

 

I have been here before. This is a little different though. Sure I know what to do but time is of the essence if I am going to be of help to my family. When I began developing these protocols 10 years ago, it took me 16 weeks to recover. Gradually, my immune system has developed over that period and I have been able to decrease that recovery period to a week. I worry because I need to back up and running sooner. But there is nothing I can do nothing about that. I can only control what is in my power. With that I begin a course of natural medicine. 

Sleep, heat, meditation, fasting, supplements, rest, journaling and breath training form the basis of my action plan. I sleep as much as I can. Daily meditation and journalling help me make sense of the world. Hot baths and showers relax my body. My ‘immune boosting’ supplement regimen is deployed. I listen to my body’s needs for nutrition and I begin breath training. Unlike before, I am called to use my breath training a little differently this time. In my meditative dreams I remember a treatment I use to do as a kid. 

 

The treatment is a teaspoon of Vick’s vapour rub added to a bowl of steaming hot water. You throw a towel over your head as you place your head over the bowl to increase the power of the treatment. Breathing in the menthol and eucalyptus vapours, the lungs can’t help but open up and shift the infection. However, wheezing, coughing, heaving and spluttering ensue so be careful if you try this at home. As I performed this treatment, I was inspired to combine it with my breath training. I used many techniques over the treatment time all with a view to moving my breathing muscles, opening up the alveoli, shifting any possible infection and then bringing calm to my system. With the treatment and breath training, comes a natural meditative state. Subconscious thoughts arise and creative thinking sparks alive. 

 

In my last session, with each long exhale and eccentric contraction of my diaphragm I focused on squeezing the oxygen in my alveoli into my blood. The rebound of such a tight squeeze was a fit of coughing, wheezing and spluttering. My breath heaved and my body tries to force me away from the therapy as I inhale the mixture once more deeply into my lungs. My theory is that the age-old and wise therapy combined with some intelligent-modern breath training helps the muscles to move the deepest part of my lungs, thereby reducing inflammation and preventing a bacterial infection setting in. If the infection turns from viral to bacterial I know I’ll be in deep trouble. And that’s when thoughts of the inhaler pops into my head. 

 

I finish my treatment and go find one of the kid’s inhalers. A blue plastic gun-like holster, possessing the metallic cylinder of life-saving pharmaceuticals. I twist and examine the inhaler, looking at the detail of the edging all the while, dreaming about putting it in my mouth and shooting the drugs into my system. I imagine the drugs travelling into my lungs and immediately giving me relief and freedom from this virus. ‘Freedom’, I think. That would be beautiful. No more wheezing, no more coughing. I had a lifetime of it after all. I hate being back here. It floods me with memories of a childhood filled with terror and fear, wheezing and coughing and dreams left broken in me. Two puffs and my lungs will be free of their physical problems. Two puffs and my childhood fears consume me like a tsunami. I twist and turn the inhaler and I ponder thoughts of freedom. Freedom – such a strange word. 

 

In one sense of the word I am led to believe that it means I have the power to think, speak, and act as I like but is that the truth of it? All actions have consequences. Some actions leave us trapped in a circle of fear. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate is the seedling to more fear. It’s a vicious circle with no way out. I have been there before. For the guts of twenty years I took that inhaler. What began as two puffs for relief turned into two puffs ‘just in case’. A small difference you may think. That is until ‘just in case’ turns into a couple of times per day. Always watching, always fearful of the next event. I’ll take it just in case. The inhaler is not freedom, the inhaler is slavery. Which brings me to the second meaning for Freedom: the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved. A negative statement, yes, but maybe a more accurate one. My mind jumps again. This time it’s to the scene from the 1995 movie, Braveheart, an all-time favourite of mine. 

The movie is a historical fiction genre. The general themes are true but not the events. In the movie, William Wallace was a Scottish peasant who rose up against the British monarch in retaliation for the death of his wife. Towards the end of the movie, William was captured by the British King and sentenced to death (*spoiler alert to one of the greatest movies of all time if you haven’t seen it!). Three times he is offered a way to ease his suffering. 

 

The night before his execution, the Princess Isabella, his lover, comes to William’s cell to beg him for mercy. If William swears allegiance to the British and begs for their Kings forgiveness, he will be spared in pain and suffering before his death. But William, a man of values and integrity, rejects the mercy offered to him for the good of his own people. The Princess, out of love for William, then offers him a potion to ease his pain and suffering. William once more rejects this offering of mercy too by spitting it out after she leaves. Finally, on the day of his execution, after much torture, William is offered a final chance at mercy. By speaking the word ‘mercy’, he can end his torture with a swift beheading. It takes William some time to muster the energy to speak. The crowd is hushed and the executioner is listening. With ounce of energy, William musters the courage to cry out ‘FREEDOM’. He is tortured once more and then executed. 

 

Mercy, you see, would have meant that ‘all that I am is dead already’, according to William. ‘Every man dies, not every man lives’. 

 

Freedom, therefore, is not about thinking, speaking and acting as I want. For doing so forgets that every choice has a consequence. Sure, I am free to take an inhaler when I wheeze and cough but through a circle of fear, the inhaler leads me back to wheezing and coughing again. And over the course of a long time, I wind up in daily feedback loop of fear – inhaler- temporary relief – fear again. This is not freedom. This is slavery. The same slavery that the British monarch would continue to foist on the Scottish people if William asked for mercy. Instead, he lived and breathed that fight and he was willing to die for it in pain and suffering. 

 

Rather Freedom is more aptly defined as “the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved”. In this sense Freedom is built on a virtuous life with integrity. The idea of being Free recognises that your choices have consequences and it is those consequences which ultimately earn your Freedom. Pharmaceutical interventions like inhalers are certainly a powerful and sometimes necessary step to keeping you alive and breathing. I recognise that and I am forever thankful for it. However, it does not lead to freedom. A virtuous life filled with integrity is the path. 

 

Natural remedies, sleep, nutrition, meditation, heat, breath training and their likes are a tough and long road to recovery from a respiratory virus and any other illness. But they are also the path to freedom. After 20 years on this road of education, experience, pain and illness I finally reduced my recovery period down to less than a week. 5 days after being knocked off my feet with a respiratory virus I am back up on my feet and able to help my wife. I am not fully able yet but I am getting there. This is Freedom to me. Choosing to squeeze that trigger; feel those lovely drugs flood my system and help me to breathe once more is always tempting. But for now, I am strong enough in body and mind to continue on this path of Freedom. 

 

Love, 

Leo