![]() One of the children was a fecal smearer, which could interrupt a “dive” as they all filed out for the tank to be cleaned – which could set off another child, who’d violently bang his head against the wall. There, Kim found a window into other peoples’ lives. ![]() As the children watched TV, the bored caregivers and parents, wearing only cotton clothing and liberated of their potentially flammable glasses, underwire bras and belts, began to talk. ![]() Her son called the tank “the submarine”, and he wasn’t far off: when the hatch was closed, the dim, warm space, lit only by flickering episodes of Barney and Sesame Street outside the portholes, could almost have been underwater Kim, 15 years on, likens it to confession. Although the experimental treatment was not FDA-approved and has no proven benefits, it was a last resort Kim was willing to try. The theory behind hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) goes that if damaged cells need oxygen to heal, immersing a patient in pure oxygen will accelerate healing. Kim’s son had ulcerative colitis, a condition that caused him great pain, and the constant vomiting had left him underweight. T wice a day, every day for almost a month, Angie Kim and her then-two-year-old son would enter a hyperbaric oxygen tank, and be sealed inside. ![]()
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