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This is the fourth life-threatening experience I survived. This one I actually died for a couple minutes.
In September 2018, I got admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. I was in there for about a week and a half. After being discharged, I went home to recover. I had some X-rays done in the weeks after which showed my lungs were clear and I was pretty much over the pneumonia. Yay! But I didn’t see what was coming about a week later.
On October 30, 2018, it was my 37th birthday. I started my day like any other. Everything was pretty routine. My aide Kathy came in the morning, I got into my wheelchair and had my tea like I do every day and I got on my computer. That night we planned on meeting up with my friends at Olivers, which is a local restaurant down the street from my house. My nurse, Sharon, was supposed to have the night off to prepare for Halloween the next day, but she came to work anyway and accompanied to dinner. Which turned out to be a good thing.
Fast forward to around 7pm. We were all having dinner and it must have laid something inside throat, some sort embryo.... wait no that’s a quote from the movie Aliens. So anyway, jokes aside, my friends and I were having dinner and everything seemed to be fine. I had French Onion soup, and it was great, Olivers makes great French Onion. After about two hours, we said our goodbyes and Sharon, my mom, and I headed back home. I got on my computer and thanked everyone for the birthday wishes on Facebook, then played a driving game called Forza Horizon 4 until around 11:30pm when I decided it was time for bed. In 2018, I was still using a mask over my nose with my vent. I used two, one during the day and one at night. I usually had my mom switch them because I never felt comfortable with anyone else doing it. So I shut down my computer and sat back in my chair to get ready. My mom switches the mask to the night one, but it doesn’t go on the right way the first time, so we take it off and do it again and it goes on right. And that’s the last thing I remember before waking up in the ICU with a tube down my throat. I was like “what the fuck?!”.
Rewind to what happened after the mask went on. My mom went and sat down and Sharon came over and said, “okay are you ready?” No Answer. Sharon came around and saw I was just staring straight ahead with nothing in my eyes and I wasn’t responding to anything. Sharon checks my pulse and I don’t have one and I’m not breathing. She goes to get the oxygen tank and, of course, the valve is broken and it doesn’t work. She comes out of my room and tells my mom, who’s on the phone with 911, they need to get me on the floor to administer CPR. So they do that and my mom continues explaining the situation to the dispatcher while Sharon tries to keep me alive. It takes the EMTs 3 minutes to arrive along with Police and Fire Rescue. They get me on a stretcher and take over for Sharon in the ambulance. The EMTs didn’t leave right away. They sat in the driveway for about 20 minutes to stabilize me. They lost me three times in the driveway and gave me three shots of epinephrine. My EKG would start and then flatline each time. Finally, they began the drive to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis, Massachusetts. Along the way, they used an automatic compression machine to continue CPR. They lost me another three times and gave me three more epinephrine shots. They get me to the ER and a doctor comes in and takes over resuscitation attempts for another 15 minutes. By that time, my heart had been on and off for 45 minutes. The doctor gave me one more epinephrine shot and then told my mom there was nothing else he could do. My mom decided I had been through enough and gave him permission to discontinue resuscitation. He pronounced me and left the room for a minute. My life ended on the early morning hours of October 31, 2018.
My mom called my brother James at UMass Amherst to give him the news. Right after hanging up, something totally unexpected happened. The doctor comes out, and he’s pale. He says “I don’t know how to tell you this but he’s back” My mom is very surprised, relieved, and likely confused at this then realized “oh shit! I have to call James back” lol. She calls him immediately and tells him I’m back. My mom, Sharon, and my aunt Tricia could come see me in the ER room. My mom tells me my blue eyes were glowing like she’s never seen before. They asked me to look at certain people in the room and I could identify each person. The doctor still didn’t think I was going to pull through because of the time my heart was stopped. I had to have brain damage. The nurses were telling him I seemed to be totally alert, and I was following every command they gave me. They eventually admitted me to the ICU, but they induced a short coma just so my brain and heart could recover from the trauma. It was thought that I had a sudden respiratory failure, but they don’t know exactly what triggered it. They also couldn’t explain why I came back because I was physically dead. I experienced something they call “Lazarus syndrome,” which is named after a man in biblical times who also came back from the dead. It’s a rare phenomenon that has only occurred a few dozen times in medical history, as far as what has been recorded. It’s something that can’t be explained.
Back to waking up in the ICU. Because of the drugs they gave me to put me into the coma, I remembered nothing about waking up in the ER or what I could have seen on the other side. Which is a bummer I’m curious about lol. I actually woke up on a Sunday and the event happened on Tuesday. Pretty much every family member of mine was there, as well as some of my nurse friends. Mary Kate, the case manager at Aveanna nursing and a good friend, was sitting next to my bed with tears in her eyes. I never saw her cry before... so I figured something terrible happened. She was happy that I was still here, but she was sad because she and my mom had a question to ask me about my future and they knew I might decide to let myself go. First, they told me I could not go back to wearing the mask with the BiPap because this could happen again and I might not survive it again. They said the doctor suggested I have a Trach put in if I wanted to live. The question they had was, do you want the Trach? I’m a strong-willed person and after going through that traumatic event, I would not let it be for nothing. I pretty much immediately agreed. Let’s do it! I choose life.
They did the surgery on November 6th. It was a pretty quick operation. They just cut an opening in my throat and through the front of the trachea and inserted the plastic or silicone tub in, then stitched up the incision on either side of the tube. When I woke up the next day, I didn’t think it happened lol. I felt little of anything in my neck, but they gave me a shot of Fentanyl so I wasn’t feeling much of anything anywhere. When it wore off, I felt as if I could breathe well enough even though I was. I wondered if I made a mistake. After a couple of days, they discharged me and then I went to rehab in New Bedford at Vibra Hospital. I ended up spending two weeks in Vibra and it wasn’t fun. Most of the nurses were very sweet and patient, especially Francesca (Frankie), who was pretty cool and great at her job. I’ve since reached out to her on Instagram, but I don’t think she’s supposed to be friends with patients due to Hippa. So Frankie, where ever you are, I hope you are having a great life and are still a health care worker. Patients deserve to be treated like a person and you do that. But there was a nurse, probably in her 60s, who took advantage of the fact I couldn’t speak yet, and neglected me and leave me in human waste for 6 hours. I can’t remember that one’s name, of course, but if I did, I wouldn’t keep it to myself. But that’s a story for another blog post...
Anyway, I was discharged on November 24 right after Thanksgiving and taken home in an ambulance. Sharon, Mary Kate, my mom, and a new nurse named Christine were waiting for me. They had to work on a care plan for this recent life change. It was then that I was told that mom called James the night of the event to tell him I was gone. I lost control of my emotions and broke down into sobs. Sharon and my mom said it was OK to cry. Over the next couple of weeks, I still felt as if I wasn’t breathing enough. The respiratory team from Boston Children’s Hospital came down to check on everything and I told them I felt like shit. They did some adjustments on my vent and almost immediately I felt better. They also tried to take down the cuff inside the trach so I could speak. With some trachs, they have a water-filled balloon to prevent leaks when sleeping. But when they remove the water, it opens up the airway around the vocal chords to allow you to speak. Well, I wasn’t ready for that yet lol. I started doing it during the day for short amounts of time to get used to having it down. On Christmas day, I gave my family a present by letting everyone hear my voice again for a couple of hours. In January, I met a new aide named Kayla, who changed our lives. I didn’t know at the time would become my best friend and then sister. I will do a quick blog about her sometime, maybe... Only if she’s okay with it and gives me permission. The day after, I took down the cuff and left it down all day and continued all week. My nurse Christine was so happy because now I could actually talk to her lol. A few months after that, they gave me the OK to drink and eat by mouth again, which was a relief. I was actually told I could’ve started earlier, but whatever lol. The doctors and respiratory team said they never saw a person recover from the trach surgery as fast as I did. The last few years since I don’t even know it’s there. It’s basically second nature to me. I can still travel and go wherever I want despite the trach even though we have a couple more things we have to bring with us. But we do it! I never thought I’d ever say this before, but I am so glad I chose life and had this done. I’ve met a lot of amazing people since, including my #1 bestie/sister Kayla. Thank you for reading!
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