I've always felt that I was indestructible. Then my respiratory arrest shook me to my foundation. I felt betrayed, angry and bitter. How could this happen? What had I done to deserve this? I had accepted that I was not able to walk, I had accepted that I had lost arm strength after an operation to correct a curvature of my spine, but I felt that I couldn't take any more. I became more and more withdrawn as it seemed my world had ended. I lost interest in everything-family, friends, even food and personal comfort. I had awful thoughts of suicide. Life became merely an existence that I had been imprisoned in.

Even though I was sinking into an abyss of despair, something in me was not ready to give up. I said to myself, "Wait a minute! You've never given up this easily before and you're not going to this time. There has to be a way around this problem." These thoughts became my theme for three agonizing months.

A couple of months went by before the idea came to me. One night, I noticed a valve in my ventilator circuit. This was a one-way valve designed to allow an extra breath to be taken between the inspiration and close on exhalation. All I needed was to take this valve and to adapt it to fit the hub of the inner cannula of my trach. My valve would allow me to breathe through the trach and then the air would be forced up through my vocal chords and nasal passages. I explained my idea to a psychologist I was seeing. She told a friend who knew Dr. Victor Passy.

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