The summer of 2021 — July to be exact — was one of the most memorable summer months in a very long time. It was the summer that Godzilla attacked my home state of Mississippi.

If you ever questioned whether the natural events that take place here on planet Earth are in any way interconnected, any doubts you may have had along that line should have vanished when Godzilla walked his dusty ass through Mississippi in July 2021.

What is this Godzilla of which I write, you ask?

Godzilla is the nickname meteorologists gave to a huge cloud of dust from the Sahara Desert in northern Africa that blew across the Atlantic Ocean to fuck up my respiratory system for all eternity. The moniker “Godzilla” was chosen because this cloud was one big mamma-jamma, and because it attacked the U.S. Gulf Coast and the southern United States like a beast.

When Godzilla decided to kick my ass, he did it with a vengeance.

It began about midday in the middle of the week. I’m at my home, working on a freelance writing assignment, and I started to feel a scratchy sensation in my throat. I really didn’t think that much of it at the time; I simply upped my consumption of liquids, thinking my throat was just dry. But over the next several hours, the coughing got worse.

By the next day, I couldn’t draw a decent breath without setting off an extended, painful fit of uncontrollable coughing. When my son arrived home from work in mid-afternoon, we loaded up and took me to my doctor’s office. I’d emailed the doc earlier, told him what was going on, and requested he see me, which he agreed to do.

We get to the doctor’s office and my son must go inside to get a wheelchair for me. At this point, I was lightheaded and dizzy from coughing so much. In we go to the doc’s office. The nurse checks my vitals, including the oxygen level in my blood. She looks at the reading (84% on room air) and immediately runs out to get the doc. He comes in, takes one look at me, and says to my son, “Take her to the Emergency Room. Now.”

So…load back up in the car, go to the local Emergency Room, and sit in the waiting room for two hours, coughing and hacking and trying to barf up a lung. They finally get me into the back, check my oxygen level, and inform me that my breathing is not supplying me with adequate oxygen.

Uh…no shit, Sherlock…I hadn’t noticed…

Anyway…lots of breathing treatments, medications, some IV fluids, debate over whether to put me in the hospital or not, and they finally decide to send me home around 2 in the morning. Get home, crash into the bed, lights out ‘cause I’m whooped at this point.

Next day…Godzilla comes back for round two.

The coughing started again in the late afternoon on the day after I homesteaded in the ER for most of the night. Within a few hours, I was once again gasping for air. My son packs me up and heads back to the Emergency Room.

They don’t fart around this time and take me straight to a treatment room upon my arrival at the ER. Again with the breathing treatments, some IV fluids, and medications. They also put me on oxygen. Well…as soon as I started snorting that oxygen, I began to feel better. (Moral of the story: oxygen is our friend.)

So….

Thanks to Godzilla, I’m now on oxygen 24/7.

All because of a cloud of dust.

Ain’t that a bitch.