Have you heard people saying that a
near death experience changed their lives? I certainly have and always have been in awe as to the
results of such a dangerous situation bringing about such incredible changes. I always
thought that the experience applied to everyone. Not so.
On
July 3, 1999 I woke up in
the hospital. The first voice I heard was my son's and the first thought I had was where
am I? It took me a nanosecond to realize that I was in the hospital and I had tubes all over the
place. Naturally, my second thought was why am I here. I found out that I could talk. It was
about three months later that I remember having another memory from my time in the hospital.
My husband was seating next to my
bed and he looked beyond exhausted. The nurse come in the room and told us that the doctor was
going to take me off of the breathing machine. I felt panic and with my head I motioned no to my
husband. After that I lost consciousness again.
Going back to when I woke up. I
didn't know why I was in the hospital or how long I have been there. I thought I was miles away from
home in a dangerous and inhospitable place. The last thought I remember having before I woke
up in the hospital was that I was very tired and I didn't feel well. When I woke up on the
hospital and was more or less conscious, I asked what happened, my husband explained what took
place.
On June the 29th. I was in my math
class at 7 p.m. I wasn't feeling well but I decided that I needed to attend the class.
As soon as the Professor came in he looked at me and told me I didn't look good at all. An
hour into the class, he told me that I should go home because I was looking worse than when the
class started. He was genuinely concerned. I didn't need too much convincing. I
called Richard and asked him to come get me. I got home, told Richard that I didn't feel well
but couldn't actually say what I was feeling. We turned in for the night. On June the
30th, Richard tried to wake me up like he did every morning and I didn't respond. My breathing
was shallow and I was incredibly cold. He was petrified but managed to call my doctor. My doctor
told him to call 911 and have them come pick me up and take me to the emergency room immediately. My
husband complied.
The paramedics got here (my home)
and started to work on me. In case that I was unconscious due to an overdose of any kind of
drug, they shot me with the medication they use for drug users, which will bring you back as soon as
it hits your chest. There was no response on my part. It took four of them to get me out
of bed, even though I was only 118 pounds at the time. They brought me out to the living room.
They placed me on the stretcher and it took all the paramedics and the police officer to bring me
down the stairs. All six of them! (This has to do with how small the area between the door and the
stairs is on top of my weight). They rushed me to the hospital (2 blocks away from my house) and I
arrived as a code blue, and at all of this my husband was beside himself with no idea of what was
going on.
For more than twenty hours he waited
in the waiting room without any information on what was happening. He didn't eat, or sleep, and he
didn't sleep for five days after that. My son was also very upset but he is a lot better than my
husband in hiding his feelings. Specially because I ruined my son's birthday. I was in a coma
as he turned 21. My husband was so beside himself at the end of the 20th hour that he didn't
let go until he got answers.
He was told that I had a collapsed
lung and that my heart was attempting to give up on me, that they were doing their best to
stabilize, and save me. They also told him that I was in a coma and they had no idea what had
caused it. They also didn't know for how long I may be in that state, but they hoped I would
come out of it very soon. In the meantime, I had gone through all kind of tests to determine what
was happening to no avail. Sometime during those first three days I had a spinal tap. Believe me
when I say that as of today I have back problems.
My husband says that he tried
everything he could think of to get me out of the coma and at the end o the fifth day, he told me
that if I didn't wake up he would go to get himself a blond. As per his account, that did it.
I opened my eyes and I said "I'll make your life miserable if you do". After that I was in and
out of consciousness You know the rest as I am able to tell this story. I came out of the coma
and after a very lengthy and painful recovery wrote this account.
Remember that I mentioned that I had
a collapsed lung and that I had to be placed on a machine that would breathe for me for the first
three days? That was my main concern. I knew that the asthma had damaged my lungs, but the long time
effects of a collapsed lung were unknown to me. I was also afraid that the collapsed lung would
contribute to the deterioration of the asthma, which in turn would contribute to the deterioration
of the lung and make an already vicious cycle even worse than before.
I also was concerned about having
heart problems from that day on. I knew that if my heart continued to give me trouble after I came
thru, every shot I got for asthma would be the equivalent of playing Russian roulette as the shots
for the asthma are adrenaline.
Fortunately, there is no apparent
permanent damage to the lung or to the heart. Nonetheless, as everything that has to do with
health, I have to be careful with nutrition, diet, exercise and life style.
As far as having a life changing
experience goes, it didn't happen to me. What has happened is that my family, my health and my goals
have become stronger and I appreciate life more. My awareness has changed over a period of
time. My goals have slowly changed and so has my overall view of life. I love my husband and
my son even more than before for what they went through during that period and the months it took
for me to recover. Without them, I would have given up.
A situation like a coma, will
definitely change your life and the way you look at things, all of the sudden things that were
supposed to be important lose their significance to be replaced by an incredible desire to live.
