Sean Dapiran

Gardner
English 10H/0 Period
19 January 2014

Breathe In and Breathe Out

While in the small, white waiting room of my pediatrician, my mom and

I sat anxiously waiting. Time, moving slow as usual, made it seem like we
were waiting in there for hours, and after what seemed like eons, a small
peppy voice from a small old lady is heard calling my name. We stand up and
walk down the long, unending hallways until we reach a dead end. To the left,
there is a scary machine that looks like it is used to experiment on
specimens, and on the right, there is a door. The old lady pulls out a key and
opens the mysterious door, and we enter into a large room. Around me,
there are pictures of the human body ranging from the stomach, to the brain.
Now Sean, I have heard that you have problems with your breathing and it
seems that there could be some fluid in your lungs, said the old woman in a
learned tone. I nod and the doctor starts talking to my mom about this
situation that I am in. The words problems and lungs are lingering in my
mind and wont go away. What does this crazy lady think when she says I
have problems with my lungs, I mean they are perfectly fine, right?

As their conversation stopped, I felt like I was going to puke, and the
thought of having a lung condition was quickly being transported around my
body making me feel weak and defenseless. Sean, I am afraid you have
pneumonia, said the woman. Pneumonia. What is pneumonia? With a smile,
the old woman says, Follow me. With those words, hope flowed into my ten
year old body. My mom and I followed the lady through a backdoor, and we
walked for two minutes until we reach the Petaluma Hospital. Strange, I
thought, I thought the hospital was really far away from the doctors office.
Walking through the big doors which have the words Emergency Room on it, I
see many people dressed in white and blue doctors clothes walking around.
While taking heavy breathes after walking so little, I began to realise that I
might really have this mysterious pneumonia, and that the woman wasnt
really lying to me. I get assigned a clean bed and some white patient clothes.
Once they made me change into the stupid looking patient clothes, I knew
that I must be close to death, and that they were preparing for my the time
to come. My melodramatic ten year old thoughts were at it again. Of course I
wasnt going to die, right? The people around me must know a lot about
lungs, and they will try and help me get better, I said to myself. In fact, they
did know a lot about lungs, because if they didnt I wouldnt be alive today.
The knowledge of the lungs has been passed on through centuries.
Leonardo da Vinci once said that, The substance of the lung is
dilatable and extensible like the tinder made from fungus. This
documentation of the lung was made back in the 15th century. Not only did

he describe the substance the lungs were made out of he, grasped the
lungs important role as an organ that worked cooperatively with closely
allied organs and structures in the human body. Early anatomists were able
to find out that the lungs helped us gain oxygen for our body, but they,
stuck closely to a complexion theory of the lungs that also gave them a role
in the psychology of the human body. The early research of the lungs
helped develop a more in depth idea on what the lungs do.
Lungs are the body organs that help maintain a constant flow of
oxygen into our body. As we breathe in the air around us, the lungs convert
the air into oxygen that can be transported to the heart so that the body can
be replenished. When we breathe out, the carbon dioxide that our cells emit
is released into the air. Without the lungs, we wouldnt be able to function
and we would die of oxygen deprivation. This is the main purpose of the lung
in the body. What happens if the lung gets infected thought? Thats what
happened to me. Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung
affecting primarily the microscopic air sacs known as alveoli. This condition
was originally founded by Hippocrates, a Greek physician. This means that
this condition was founded a long time ago, and has been studied for quite
some time.
The doctors in the hospital knew about all these interesting facts, and
were able to help me heal through this experience. After a week and a half of
laying in a blank white room, I was able to be released from the hospital. I
stand for the first time without a machine reading my heartbeat. I breathe in

deeply, and then exhale calmly. I exit the building and one thought crosses
my mind, I survived!