“I receive the gift of breath every day.”
A book that will completely change the days we breathe in the future!

The author is a level 1 respiratory patient who lost his or her own breathing due to a medical accident while receiving outpatient treatment for a mild cold at the age of 14 and has been hospitalized for 16 years.
A person who cannot breathe on their own and whose life cannot be prolonged unless someone manually presses the ambu-type device to provide ventilation.
So, with the help of the Ambu volunteers who work in shifts of four each day, I live a life where I receive a new breath every second.


But! When I think of such an author, it's difficult to conjure up words like sadness and grief.
The Ambu Angels who are with her 24 hours a day, 365 days a year describe her this way.
“A woman full of life, joy, and hope” The author is a 32-year-old young man with a passionate nature, and is an ordinary(?) person who always dreams and wants to love.
Even though she wears the same hospital gown every day, she is a woman who gets dressed up every morning to look her best each day.
Even though he is in the hospital, he is still full of energy and often bothers the people around him.
He is a person who tries to approach others as an equal human being, without being labeled as a patient, and who believes that just because one is physically weak, one does not necessarily have to be mentally weak.
I am just an ordinary person who tries not to limit myself within the confines of the hospital.

When I look back on those miraculous moments of survival, I see that God is always working through people.
Because I am experiencing God working through the friends around me right now, I can no longer refuse His invitation to be His conduit.
So, from now on, I will write about the amazing story that He accomplished regardless of my weaknesses and shortcomings.
--- p.14

Now, I am a patient with a level 1 respiratory failure who cannot survive without artificial respiration, and I am a long-term hospitalized patient who has been living in the same hospital for 16 years.
But there is a more important story left.
This is the story of a miracle that changed my life in a very special way one day while I was living as a long-term patient who could not breathe on my own.
The miracle began on a winter day about 11 years ago, when I was suffering from the pain of my last breath for a little over a month and was calling out to God with all my remaining strength.
From that day on, I could no longer breathe on my own, but instead was given the gift of breathing every moment of every day.
--- p.20

The inside story of why I suffered so much at that time was as follows.
The artificial bone implanted into the body through surgery caused a severe inflammatory reaction, and the inflammation was so severe that the skin melted and the artificial bone was visible from outside the body.
Those artificial bones started moving inside the body and destroying everything.
The heart and several major organs were crushed and ribs were broken.
Given the circumstances inside his body, it was only natural that he would not be able to leave the intensive care unit for over a year.
The ribs were gradually disappearing and the spine and rib cage were also collapsing.
To cover up such problems, several large and small surgeries were performed intermittently.
--- p.39

God, my soul…, my soul falls at your feet.
My merciful Lord, please heal this sick man.
Please remember the tears and prayers that soaked the sickbed.
My mind and body are in so much pain.
It's so hard, I can't stand it.
Lord, please look at me.
Please don't ignore or delay any longer.
It's not that I'm asking you to keep me from wandering down a useless path or to lead me to a better path.
There is no way.
So please make way.
I can't stand it any longer.
I'm so miserable that I'd rather be a maggot than be judged.
God, thank you for giving love to the world.
I praise the Lord for His love.
Please wrap me in love.
I pray in the name of my Lord Jesus Christ.
amen.
February 22, 2004 --- p.51

“I will go to the Lord right now.
“Thank you for accepting such a fool as your child.” As soon as I received the response, I immediately accepted Jesus as my loving Lord.
Only then did the dark days of fearing both life and death end.
From then on, whenever I felt sick, helpless, or frustrated, I could just cry before God with all my heart.
And each time I did that, God created peace and freedom in my fearful heart.
It is a true freedom that can overcome even the fear that death brings, so now I am not afraid even if death comes at any time, and I am not afraid even if I think that I must continue living toward an unseen future.

From then on, I was able to have hope again.
Once I believed that I was a child of God who received eternal love, regardless of my circumstances, that harsh intensive care unit was no longer a place where I could not survive.
--- p.61

The intensive care unit, where someone's pain and death become a daily occurrence, is a place where people who have lost their physical health can easily lose their mental health as well.
Even among the patients around me at the time, after only a month, they all started seeing things and talking nonsense. Perhaps it was the extreme pain and loneliness that drove people crazy.
But in that place where it was impossible to survive in one's right mind, I alone managed to maintain my sanity for over a year.
When I finally came out of the intensive care unit alive, my mother said this to me.
“You don’t know how much I prayed for you to protect your heart and save you.
So, I was always amazed and grateful whenever I saw you not losing your mind even in pain.
“It was only because my heart miraculously didn’t break that I was able to come out alive.” --- p.81

As my consciousness began to cloud over and I felt like I was on the verge of death, a story my mother often told me flashed through my mind like a kaleidoscope.
“On-yu, if you are to die alone, never seek out a family that cannot help you.
“At the last moment, be sure to call on the name of Jesus, not your mother, and go to heaven in peace.”
I gathered all my remaining strength and called out the name of the Lord, “Jesus!”
To my surprise, at that moment, the clot that had been blocking my breathing hole popped out and I began to breathe again.
'Oh... Lord, isn't it time to go to heaven yet?' --- p.92

It's always sad to see someone's end.
But perhaps it was because I believed in Jesus, who conquered death? Seeing him never once frightened me.
However, among those countless deaths, there were some that I simply could not understand.
While many patients, suffering unbearable pain, consider death, which finally comes as a respite, as a tragedy, I, who quickly think of heaven whenever I feel tired, found it strange that he wanted pain more than death.
Everyone will inevitably die someday, so why do people so desperately want to avoid it? Is it a fear of the unknown? Or perhaps a longing for the life they have left? Perhaps it's because we all, having received life from the eternal God, yearn for eternity.

--- p.116

The once quiet hospital room began to become crowded with strangers.
This is because young people who heard the advertisement came to the hospital room one after another.
In the relay that started like a miracle, every time someone pressed the ambu, a new breath filled their lungs and overflowed up to the top of their throat.
Following the wind, my lost voice began to resonate again, and strangers were always listening to my voice, even noticing the slightest change in my breathing.
Even in the middle of the night, when I woke up and opened my eyes, I made eye contact with the people who had been watching me the whole time.
In the hospital where I had become accustomed to loneliness, I suddenly found myself living a completely different life.
--- p.129

In this way, miracles were relayed from mouth to mouth and heart to heart.
Living in this miracle, I welcome every special and new day.
When I open my eyes in the morning, the first thing I do is open my phone and check today's relay, and that moment always makes my heart race.
'What kind of friends will I meet today?' --- p.140

“God, I can’t live like this.
“Please take me away.” Whenever I prayed like this, my heart could no longer feel God.
But on days like that, I always experience a miracle again.
"Hello, Onyu! I suddenly thought of you and stopped by." "Hello! I found out about the Ambu Relay a few years ago, but I'm just now signing up."
“Is it possible to apply for volunteer service today?”
Whenever I, tired, let go of someone's hand, unexpected people reach out to me first.
And in the end, in that hand that was filled to overflowing, I could always feel God again.
I remembered that the amazing love and miracles He gave me were always the same.
“Yes, there has never been a day that wasn’t difficult, but there has never been a time when I couldn’t breathe because no one was by my side.” I am definitely the most blessed person in the world, having been gifted with such consistent miracles.
--- p.145

There is one misconception that people who do not know about gentleness have.
I am worried that if I go to On-yu's hospital room to volunteer, I might cause trouble by doing the ambu wrong, or that the heavy and depressing atmosphere will be felt by my friend who has been hospitalized for a long time.
Never.
To put it bluntly, On-yu's hospital room is a healing space and a place of worship.
Volunteers talk to Onyu, offering advice on their worries and receiving comfort, and they leave with a bright smile, sharing overflowing blessings and happiness.
We eat delicious food together and share our daily lives.
The daily lives of volunteers, breathing together and separately, become beautiful songs that gently spread emotions.

--- p.199

“Jesus, even though I receive love every day, I have nothing to give.
And I can't even begin to recall the faces of all my countless friends.
But the Lord said, 'What you owe is what I owe.'
So may the Lord remember their love forever.
Just as you repay the benefactor of your life, to whom you owe a debt you cannot repay, please repay him even more with great and wonderful grace and love.” --- p.213

I always looked so brave in everyone's eyes, but in reality, I was always afraid.
I was afraid of pain, I was afraid of loneliness, I was afraid of the injustice of hospitals and doctors who took the life of a living person, and I was afraid of the world where such things happened.
I was afraid of my own helplessness, and I was afraid that my existence would make things difficult for the people I cared about.
In fact, I'm not completely free of fear even now, and I know that I will be afraid again someday.
But in the notebook of scriptures I picked up without thinking, in the humming of a friend I hadn't seen in a long time, the Lord confessed this to me over and over again.
“My beloved spoke and said to me, ‘Rise, my love, my beautiful one, come away’” (Song of Songs 2:10).
--- p.255

Sometimes when someone asks me if I'm happy, I always say I'm truly happy.
The most difficult moments in life have always become the most touching memories, and every moment of life will feel even more special in the future, so how could I not be happy?

But in fact, anyone can enjoy this special joy without having to go through a near-death experience.
I think everyone has probably felt it by now, but to begin with, all humans breathe as a bonus because of God's love.
So, I believe that our lives are all miracles, and as long as we don't forget this fact, we can all enjoy the happiness of living a life that is a bonus.

--- p.260