Sometimes someone is so ill they are put into a coma to save their lives. That is what happened to me. I had two seizures before getting to the hospital and my left lung was filled with puke and had collapsed. I was spiking a high fever and phenomena was setting in already. The Doctor's decided that a coma was the best way to save my life. I was put into a drug-induced coma. Luckily I never needed a ventilator after they cleared my lung out.
Someone who is in a coma is unconscious and will not respond to voices, sounds, or any sort of activity going on nearby. Not even intense pain will bring forth a response. The person is still alive, but the brain is functioning at its lowest stage of alertness. You can't shake and wake up someone who is in a coma like you can someone who has just fallen asleep.
I can tell you from first-hand experience that you can't hear people when in a coma-like some believe you can. Reading to someone in a coma from a book is just for your own comfort, not theirs. All I remember from being in my coma was my never-ending very strange dream that I had.
My dream was unlike any other dream I ever had while sleeping normally at night. The dream was probably based on my brain functioning at such a low level and all the drugs in me but it was very eerie. I dreamed about people in my life, and some that weren't yet. I wish I could have remembered the imagery it was very creepy and when I woke up I was totally freaked out until I realized I was awake and where I was.
My dream drove me to question what really happens when you die? If I would have passed away would I have dreamed until the very last brain cell gave out? And then what? For me, being so close to death was not an empty time that I couldn't remember and ever since then it's caused me to rethink my prior beliefs. But to what?
Then there's the way I have felt since being out of the coma and hospital. As soon as I came out of the coma and the doctors started telling me what happened it was hard to believe it was so serious because even with the tubes sticking out of every orifice and then some I felt surprisingly well. I even left the hospital faster then they wanted me to. I really shocked my doctors especially since they still can't find out what caused all this to happen!
I remember reading stories about coma patients who claimed that being in a coma 'reset' their brains and bodies in a new way that hadn't expected. I felt this way too and after having people who knew me tell me this I decided to look into it. Unfortunately for me I couldn't find much. Most of the articles were just about comas and were all very similar. People awakening from comas did not feel this way, often having to relearn even the most basic of functions. I was very lucky indeed!
People may emerge from a coma with a combination of physical, intellectual and psychological difficulties that need special attention. Recovery usually occurs gradually....patients acquire more and more ability to respond. Some patients never progress beyond very basic responses, but some can recover full awareness. Regaining consciousness is not instant: in the first days, patients are only awake for a few minutes, and duration of time awake gradually increases. In reality, the coma patient wakes sometimes in a profound state of confusion, not knowing how they got there and sometimes suffering from the inability to articulate any speech, and with many other disabilities.
This is unlike the situation in my life where I awoke from my coma and was instantly able to continue my normal life. Of course, I was not in a coma for a long period of time. When I woke up I was up for good and didn't relapse back into unconsciousness. I was anxious to walk, speak and do everything I could to go home from the hospital. The doctors were very surprised at my state after being on death's door. I was not confused in the beginning but I couldn't remember anything that happened to me and had to be told what transpired that week and why I was at the hospital.
This is a statistic that really freaked me out! The most common cause of death for a person in a vegetative state is a secondary infection such as pneumonia which can occur in patients who lie still for extended periods. For me I got pneumonia right away from swallowing my vomit and an ultra-high fever so I was very lucky I had the best staff working on me at Kaiser. They saved my life.
So what I found out after researching this is that I'm a lucky person to have come out of it like I did. It was very hard on my body and I took a month to recover from all of it fully. Even the day after I came home I felt so much better than I had in years! I couldn't put my finger on it but when other's noticed it too it confirmed what I had thought had happened. I was somehow a new person! I even looked better and I couldn't believe it.! A lot of my old pain was gone and my wrist that I had pinched a nerve in before had healed! The numbness was gone and I could move my fingers again. It was like a miracle! I felt so well that I was being more active than I had before this happened to me! (Bear with me on the use of "!".)
The odds were against me and I survived. The fact that I didn't go into a coma on my own and they induced one is like arguing apples and oranges. A coma is a coma and they are very dangerous. I had several medical problems that alone could have killed me, but no. I had my dream during these goings on that must of helped my brain deal and I really believe this! I also think that the coma reset my brain, not unlike an electrical circuit can be reset. Everyone knows the brain runs on electrical impulses. My brain got reset to a time before my injuries before I felt so bad, it went back to a happier mental pattern in my life and all I can say is I'm super lucky and it's very awesome! I'm thankful I'm not learning how to tie my shoes again or speak. I'm truly blessed and will not squander this new chance I have been given!
Thank you, my higher power!
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