There wasn't any pain. Isn't that weird? I almost died, I was in a coma for 3 weeks, I had emergency c-section and ECMO, but I was never in any pain. Sure there was discomfort but nothing I can call painful at all. It wasn't until a couple of days after they woke me up that I figured out why, I had a fentanyl patch on my right arm. A patch that got progressively smaller in order to wean me off the pain killers.
I had just had a baby, after which you can have vaginal discharge (bleeding) for up to six weeks. I was still bleeding when I woke up. They had me in one of those net/mesh panties so I could wear sanitary napkins. Someone had to change those for me while I was in the coma. To lift me up and pull them down and change the pads. That is such a weird feeling, knowing someone had to take care of me like that. My pubic hair was clotted from all the blood and after I woke up it took a very kind nurse to help me work out the knots with a sponge. Gives the word sponge bath another meaning to me anyway. After I woke up I couldn't sit up, let alone lift up my hips so they could change the pads for me. So two nurses would come in to help me and even though they were so professional and I am just in awe of everything that they do, it still felt like a funny moment so I would usually try and say something funny like 'yeah, these mesh panties are super sexy!'. My husband, bless his heart, would usually leave the room when the nurses had to do stuff like that. I wouldn't have minded if he stayed, he's definitely seen all of me, but I also didn't mind that he wanted to retreat to the waiting area.
Because I had a c-section and hadn't moved for over three weeks, I couldn't just sit up. That requires using your abdominal muscles and mine were just too weak and sore for that. Everyday I had a physical therapist visit me in my room, also an occupational therapist and the speech therapist. There is something called 'the log roll', and that's where you roll from your back onto your side, and from there you sort of prop yourself up on your elbow and use your hands to sit up in a sideways fashion. I was so weak that when I tried that for the first time I rolled on my right side, and I had to have help to bring my legs to the side of the bed and then I could put my right elbow under me, and that was it. I couldn't bring the rest of my body up. The physical therapist put a sort of belt around me to hoist me up. I would sit for as long as I could tolerate and do exercises with my arms and legs. Putting my hands in the air, moving my legs from side to side. All this is very challenging when you're covered in wires and leads and if you accidentally move something you shouldn't have, a machine beeps and a nurse comes in to check on you.
I was so anxious to get out of the hospital as soon as I could that I did everything the therapists told me to do. I did exercises in bed. I was so tired and so exhausted, and everything was monitored, my oxygen saturation, my breathing, my heart rate. It usually took only a few minutes for me to get winded and would have to stop to catch my breath. All I wanted to do was just lay down, on the soft pillows, pull the blanket up and fall asleep. But I knew that I had to move my body, I needed to be well to take care of my babies. I wanted rest but needed work.
My speech therapist was a wonderful woman with a thick German accent, how wonderful is that, I loved her. She made me eat ice cream, and I hated it, food had lost all taste to me, I didn't want it. She would make me sip water, teeny tiny sips and she would hold her fingers against my throat and feel how I swallowed. She said she had x-ray fingers and could tell if I was doing it right or not. I actually didn't like doing the exercises she told me to do, saying AAAAA and EEEEE, and sucking air through a device to see how I was progressing. My husband would tell me to do the exercises and I didn't want to, and I'd sort of growl at him because my voice was just so raw still and he'd smile and say ''good job, doing your speech therapy, except that's not exactly the sounds you're supposed to make...'' and I'd laugh and be all resentful and then I'd do the stupid exercises.
I don't know why I was so reluctant to do the speech therapy, I was fine with putting in work for the physical therapy. Maybe because I felt my voice really wasn't improving at all, and it was so frustrating.
To be continued...
Showing posts with label coma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coma. Show all posts
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Difficulty
I'm finding myself having difficulty writing here. But I'll keep going anyway.
The thing is there have been some big days now, my daughter turned one, a fact that is jarring for me because I had only known her for 11 months... I turned 32 yesterday, my 31st birthday I spent in a coma... Today it's been a year since they woke me up from the drug-induced coma...
I've been having flashbacks. Imagine if you will, that you're looking at your life, just turn your head right now to the right or to the left and look at what you see as a picture. Now imagine that you see something out of the corner of your eye, or you smell something different, which immediately propels your whole existence into question. The image that you are seeing is not certain in your brain anymore, you can't know if it's real or not, if you really are laying in a bed somewhere making this up in your head or not.
It's an awful awful feeling, and not much I can do when it overwhelms me. I just repeat to myself ''this is real life, this is real, you are not in the coma anymore''. I also have the need to inject humor into my situation and say ''if this were some fantasy concocted by your brain wouldn't the children always be perfectly well behaved, the house spotless and you'd cook gourmet dinners every night?'' Which is certainly not the case let me tell you ;)
But it is a panicky feeling and I just have to ride through it.
I'll write more frequently, it helps me.
To be continued...
The thing is there have been some big days now, my daughter turned one, a fact that is jarring for me because I had only known her for 11 months... I turned 32 yesterday, my 31st birthday I spent in a coma... Today it's been a year since they woke me up from the drug-induced coma...
I've been having flashbacks. Imagine if you will, that you're looking at your life, just turn your head right now to the right or to the left and look at what you see as a picture. Now imagine that you see something out of the corner of your eye, or you smell something different, which immediately propels your whole existence into question. The image that you are seeing is not certain in your brain anymore, you can't know if it's real or not, if you really are laying in a bed somewhere making this up in your head or not.
It's an awful awful feeling, and not much I can do when it overwhelms me. I just repeat to myself ''this is real life, this is real, you are not in the coma anymore''. I also have the need to inject humor into my situation and say ''if this were some fantasy concocted by your brain wouldn't the children always be perfectly well behaved, the house spotless and you'd cook gourmet dinners every night?'' Which is certainly not the case let me tell you ;)
But it is a panicky feeling and I just have to ride through it.
I'll write more frequently, it helps me.
To be continued...
Friday, February 10, 2012
Coma
I suffered from an identity crisis when I was in my drug-induced coma.
I was a Japanese woman, in my twenties. Living in Canada shortly after WWII. The daughter of Japanese immigrants. I lived in a small apartment, two floors up with a little balcony.
Weird, huh...
I did not have a husband, I did not have children. My life felt extremely empty and I felt very alone.
You know how when you're watching a movie and everything is just sort of going along and everything seems fine but then there's this undercurrent of something, like you just know that there's something sinister going on but you can't quite put your finger on it.
That's how I felt. I knew something was wrong but I didn't know what. I didn't know who I was and I couldn't grasp what it was that felt off for me.
In my coma dream I ended up at a hospital. I did not know why, but I knew I was in a hospital. The decor at the hospital was all white and glossy and minty green. The nurses wore hats and all the uniforms were very crisp and white. Everyone seemed to have a cup of coffee, all the time, I could smell coffee, always.
I thought that maybe I was in this hospital because I just had a baby? But I didn't remember being pregnant, so why would I have a baby?
I felt like I was in a fog, but not in a regular fog, where you don't know where you are or where you're going, but in an identity fog, I couldn't find me! It's like when you're trying to remember the name of a movie or an actor and it's right there, on the tip of your tongue but you just can't remember it. That's how I felt, all the time. Super frustrating and very scary.
In my coma dream I would sort of swoosh from being at my apartment and to being at the hospital. When I was at the hospital I could not move. I could see a corner of the ceiling and some monitors, just because that was how my head was positioned. And every time I would see that stupid corner ceiling, I was actually waking up from the drug-induced coma. And I would panic because I couldn't move, and I couldn't speak. And every time I managed to open my eyes, some very nice person, smiling at me, would come and administer more drugs and I would go under again.
I remember each and every time waking up, trying to scream to get attention, trying to scream that something wasn't right, I didn't know what was happening and it scared the bejeesus out of me. I thought if I could just talk to this person, explain that they were in control of my life and I didn't even know what my life was, if I could just talk to them, they'd let me wake up and figure things out.
It was a long three weeks in a coma. You know when you're dreaming and you know that it's a dream and you're just waiting to wake up. I had that feeling of waiting, but the waking part would never come. So I was just floating, trying to remember so hard who I was and what I was supposed to be doing, because this sure as hell wasn't it.
When they did finally bring me out of the coma I was smiling because I saw my husband, and I remembered him, and I was so happy to remember. But I was crying because in my coma dream someone told me that they had just offered my husband the choice of being spared all this fear and uncertainty, but instead he would not know me and we wouldn't have our children. How scary is that!
When I awoke, my husband held my hand and told me that I had been asleep for a little while but that everything was going to be fine. Just seeing him and hearing him and feeling him, I knew that he loved me and he would always be with me.
They woke me up the day after my 31st birthday. Does that mean I'm still 30 ;) Anyway, I think we'll have a big celebration on my next birthday, I should get two cakes, yes?
After I woke up, I experienced some hallucinations, some delirium, some things that I still feel like happened, but now know that didn't. I'll get into that next.
The worst part of waking up is not knowing whether or not you're still in the coma, and just dreaming something new.
To be continued...
I was a Japanese woman, in my twenties. Living in Canada shortly after WWII. The daughter of Japanese immigrants. I lived in a small apartment, two floors up with a little balcony.
Weird, huh...
I did not have a husband, I did not have children. My life felt extremely empty and I felt very alone.
You know how when you're watching a movie and everything is just sort of going along and everything seems fine but then there's this undercurrent of something, like you just know that there's something sinister going on but you can't quite put your finger on it.
That's how I felt. I knew something was wrong but I didn't know what. I didn't know who I was and I couldn't grasp what it was that felt off for me.
In my coma dream I ended up at a hospital. I did not know why, but I knew I was in a hospital. The decor at the hospital was all white and glossy and minty green. The nurses wore hats and all the uniforms were very crisp and white. Everyone seemed to have a cup of coffee, all the time, I could smell coffee, always.
I thought that maybe I was in this hospital because I just had a baby? But I didn't remember being pregnant, so why would I have a baby?
I felt like I was in a fog, but not in a regular fog, where you don't know where you are or where you're going, but in an identity fog, I couldn't find me! It's like when you're trying to remember the name of a movie or an actor and it's right there, on the tip of your tongue but you just can't remember it. That's how I felt, all the time. Super frustrating and very scary.
In my coma dream I would sort of swoosh from being at my apartment and to being at the hospital. When I was at the hospital I could not move. I could see a corner of the ceiling and some monitors, just because that was how my head was positioned. And every time I would see that stupid corner ceiling, I was actually waking up from the drug-induced coma. And I would panic because I couldn't move, and I couldn't speak. And every time I managed to open my eyes, some very nice person, smiling at me, would come and administer more drugs and I would go under again.
I remember each and every time waking up, trying to scream to get attention, trying to scream that something wasn't right, I didn't know what was happening and it scared the bejeesus out of me. I thought if I could just talk to this person, explain that they were in control of my life and I didn't even know what my life was, if I could just talk to them, they'd let me wake up and figure things out.
It was a long three weeks in a coma. You know when you're dreaming and you know that it's a dream and you're just waiting to wake up. I had that feeling of waiting, but the waking part would never come. So I was just floating, trying to remember so hard who I was and what I was supposed to be doing, because this sure as hell wasn't it.
When they did finally bring me out of the coma I was smiling because I saw my husband, and I remembered him, and I was so happy to remember. But I was crying because in my coma dream someone told me that they had just offered my husband the choice of being spared all this fear and uncertainty, but instead he would not know me and we wouldn't have our children. How scary is that!
When I awoke, my husband held my hand and told me that I had been asleep for a little while but that everything was going to be fine. Just seeing him and hearing him and feeling him, I knew that he loved me and he would always be with me.
They woke me up the day after my 31st birthday. Does that mean I'm still 30 ;) Anyway, I think we'll have a big celebration on my next birthday, I should get two cakes, yes?
After I woke up, I experienced some hallucinations, some delirium, some things that I still feel like happened, but now know that didn't. I'll get into that next.
The worst part of waking up is not knowing whether or not you're still in the coma, and just dreaming something new.
To be continued...
Monday, February 6, 2012
Emergency C-section
I was laying in the pre-op room in the hospital bed. There was a flurry of activity around me. Lots of people coming in and out of the room. Everyone talking over me, very few actually talking to me. A nurse asked me for my husband's phone number. I gave it to her but thought it was strange that they didn't already have it, I mean what if I were unconscious? They called to tell him that I was having an emergency c-section. He told them that he couldn't come until he had found a sitter for our son. I wondered if I should ask to speak with him but then I thought ''He knows I love him and I know he loves me'' so we don't really have to talk, I'd just get emotional or something.
I wasn't sure if I needed to pee or not and was almost going to ask the nurses if they needed me to go before the surgery but everyone seemed so busy that I didn't want to interrupt them.
Someone came and took my wedding ring, that upset me a bit, but it came off quite easily. I told her not to lose it.
There was a big clock on the wall, it seemed like it was just staring me in the face. All huge and obnoxious, ticking the minutes away. Everything was on hold because we were waiting for the anesthesiologist. I overheard two people talking, one said that sure this guy was on call but he probably wouldn't get here until 8:30pm, and someone answered ''this lady doesn't have until 8:30!''
This startled me because the huge clock was just 7:10pm or something like that. And I thought to myself, why don't I have until 8:30, what is happening?
I was asked some questions I think, I probably answered them though I don't really remember. I do remember nurses talking about who could go off and have dinner first and someone laughing, it was nice to hear laughter. Someone else said there was a chopper coming in with a senile guy with a broken leg, and they were discussing who would go deal with that.
Finally the anesthesiologist came and asked me a whole bunch of questions that I thought he should have known beforehand. He was on my left, holding my hand, and someone on my right was clearly pissed off at this guy and was snapping at him to get a move on already.
I was relatively calm through all this, I knew with an emergency c-section I would be unconscious for the delivery. I wondered how they would put me to sleep, if it was with a mask or with an IV.
They wheeled my bed into the operating room next to the operation table. They then did the whole sliding the sheets maneuver, it was very smooth.
Someone put a mask over my mouth and nose and that's when I really had difficulty breathing. I yanked the mask away and said ''I can't breathe''. This person put the mask back on me. I yanked it away again, struggling and saying ''I can't breathe''. He/she loosened the hold of the mask against my face, I was grateful for that. I wondered if this was just a feeling people got before they had surgery with general anesthesia, this feeling of not being able to breathe.
When I woke up I had tears in my eyes and a big lump in my throat. My husband was on my left, telling me that I had been asleep for a while. I saw the wall behind him, covered with pictures of our son and a little baby I didn't know was a boy or a girl.
I had been in a coma for 3 weeks.
To be continued...
I wasn't sure if I needed to pee or not and was almost going to ask the nurses if they needed me to go before the surgery but everyone seemed so busy that I didn't want to interrupt them.
Someone came and took my wedding ring, that upset me a bit, but it came off quite easily. I told her not to lose it.
There was a big clock on the wall, it seemed like it was just staring me in the face. All huge and obnoxious, ticking the minutes away. Everything was on hold because we were waiting for the anesthesiologist. I overheard two people talking, one said that sure this guy was on call but he probably wouldn't get here until 8:30pm, and someone answered ''this lady doesn't have until 8:30!''
This startled me because the huge clock was just 7:10pm or something like that. And I thought to myself, why don't I have until 8:30, what is happening?
I was asked some questions I think, I probably answered them though I don't really remember. I do remember nurses talking about who could go off and have dinner first and someone laughing, it was nice to hear laughter. Someone else said there was a chopper coming in with a senile guy with a broken leg, and they were discussing who would go deal with that.
Finally the anesthesiologist came and asked me a whole bunch of questions that I thought he should have known beforehand. He was on my left, holding my hand, and someone on my right was clearly pissed off at this guy and was snapping at him to get a move on already.
I was relatively calm through all this, I knew with an emergency c-section I would be unconscious for the delivery. I wondered how they would put me to sleep, if it was with a mask or with an IV.
They wheeled my bed into the operating room next to the operation table. They then did the whole sliding the sheets maneuver, it was very smooth.
Someone put a mask over my mouth and nose and that's when I really had difficulty breathing. I yanked the mask away and said ''I can't breathe''. This person put the mask back on me. I yanked it away again, struggling and saying ''I can't breathe''. He/she loosened the hold of the mask against my face, I was grateful for that. I wondered if this was just a feeling people got before they had surgery with general anesthesia, this feeling of not being able to breathe.
When I woke up I had tears in my eyes and a big lump in my throat. My husband was on my left, telling me that I had been asleep for a while. I saw the wall behind him, covered with pictures of our son and a little baby I didn't know was a boy or a girl.
I had been in a coma for 3 weeks.
To be continued...
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