Comatose

I have had multiple people ask me about being in a coma, so I thought I would share what I would remember from my experience.

As I stated earlier, I was admitted to the hospital on March 14 and at some point in time that night I stopped breathing.  The doctors intubated me, and made the choice to put me in a medically induced coma.  I remained that way for about 3.5 weeks.

While this was happening, I was having very vivid and violent dreams.  One dream I remember involved attending a wedding, after which the couple was murdered.  I somehow became involved in the search for the killer (I am a teacher - no connection with law enforcement) and was kidnapped and detained in the basement of a building.  The person who kidnapped me had tied me to a bed and I was fighting to get free.  I found out after waking that I had spent a portion of time restrained because I was trying to pull the tubes out, and because they were having issues with my blood pressure falling and it seemed to stabilize if they could keep my arms still.

A second dream I had involved me being asked to babysit, but I wasn't to let anyone know I had the baby.  I took the baby to a public restroom and tried to hide it in a hole in a carpet, and became absolutely frantic when anyone came near that spot.  I then decide to take the child to my mother's house, only to trip and have it fall from my hands and shatter as if it were made of glass..

In the midst of all of this, the action would stop and it would be like elevator doors would open.  I would see someone I knew.  Sometimes I could hear what they were saying, sometimes I could just see them, but I recognize people from my life for brief moments every once and awhile....and then the elevator doors would close again, and I would be plunged back into another one of these dreams.

I had my trach put in and transferred hospitals during this time and don't remember it.  Shortly after Easter I woke in the new hospital and saw my parents staring at me, and they told me how long I had been asleep and I thought they were lying to me.

It was a challenge to function when I first woke up.  I didn't have a speaking valve on my trach, so I had to write everything down.  My writing was a hot mess and looked like that of a kindergartener.  Someone had sent me a tiny stuffed dog, and my mom put it in my hand.  I became so fixated on it that it was all they could do to get it back away from me.  And to top everything off, I decided to get up and walk around with no one to help me, and fell flat on the floor in the middle of the night.

I used to joke that I wanted to go home and sleep for a month - I will never do that again.