Oxygen Sickness
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Oxygen sickness is a condition affecting angels. It occurs when an angel is in an environment that is too high in oxygen. This most commonly occurs when an angel leaves their home environment of the dewdrop peaks to travel to lower altitudes.
Transmission & Vectors
Oxygen sickness is not contagious. However, its sympoms closely resemble those of heaviness, another condition that also affects angels but is contagious. As such, angels will tend to avoid other angels exhibiting these symtoms until it can be confirmed which of the conditions that they have.
Causes
Oxygen sickness is caused by an overexposure to oxygen, or being in the presence of air with too high of a quantity of oxygen. It is most likely to occur if an angel tries to travel to lower altitudes, but it can also be caused if an angel spends too much time in an air pocket, bubbles of high-oxygen content air that float around the islands.
Symptoms
The most minor synptom of oxygen sickness is coughing, which can vary in intensity. It will cause one's breath to become irregular and shaky. The longer the exposure to the excess oxygen, an angel's muscles will begin to twitch and spasm. They may start to lose vision, their eyesight swimming with black.
Continuing to stay in a high-oxygen environment can start to cause internal bleeding in an angel's lungs, causing them to cough up blood. In extreme cases, the brain will begin to bleed as well, causing tears of blood both hindering the eyesight and giving a terrifying appearance.
On continued exposure, an angel will begin to experience amnesia. At this point, treatment becomes much more difficult and dangerous.
The last stage of the condition, if all other signs are ignored, is death. How quickly the symptoms progress depends on how much excess oxygen is in the air, but it typically lasts long enough for a proper response to occur and for the environment to be properly adjusted.
Continuing to stay in a high-oxygen environment can start to cause internal bleeding in an angel's lungs, causing them to cough up blood. In extreme cases, the brain will begin to bleed as well, causing tears of blood both hindering the eyesight and giving a terrifying appearance.
On continued exposure, an angel will begin to experience amnesia. At this point, treatment becomes much more difficult and dangerous.
The last stage of the condition, if all other signs are ignored, is death. How quickly the symptoms progress depends on how much excess oxygen is in the air, but it typically lasts long enough for a proper response to occur and for the environment to be properly adjusted.
Treatment
If an angel only reached the earlier stages of the condition, simply resting in an environment with the proper amount of oxygen is sufficient for recovery. However, if internal bleeding had begun, a bit more medical attention is neccessary. Healing Amyth is often used to treat such injuries, but this takes a long time to do.
If an angel had begun to experience amnesia, however, the treatment to reverse this is much longer and more involved. It takes months to years of both magical healing as well as therapy for an angel to gain their memories back, if they are able to do so at all.
If an angel had begun to experience amnesia, however, the treatment to reverse this is much longer and more involved. It takes months to years of both magical healing as well as therapy for an angel to gain their memories back, if they are able to do so at all.
Prevention
While the condition can be avoided by simply staying among the clouds, some angels still wish to travel to lower altitudes. They can do so safely oxygen-expelling masks, which they wear over their mouths and noses to filter the amount of oxygen entering their resperatory system.
That must feel terrifying, particularly if other people avoid you because it might be the contagiou version! Thankfully it is reversible at the early stages.