Hear, hear for your "trust me when I of choice changes in a minute when your breathing is taken away." You experienced that difficulty breathing much more than i, yet a lesser difficulty made my options so much easier for me too. It's a joy more than most any other to be feeling to breath easier again.
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”