“Kristy, we need you to cough honey, cough again…. “
*distant sirens, machines beeping, doctors talking, awkward sensation in my throat*
“…Kristy, it is the 25th October and you are in the PA hospital, can you tell me your full name and date of birth?” Mind racing a million miles – Twenty what? I did NOT come in here on the 24th, what the hell is going on?
Seven years ago today, I woke from an induced coma due to a severe chest infection which began as a simple flu virus in my nasal passage. In life so far I have come to learn, life changing events induce a type of fear in us that leaves us no choice but to tackle it head on….This is my personal event I had to beat that I have chosen to share with you.
I laid there semi paralysed in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) bewildered, shocked, confused, but not alone. Amidst the sea of doctors was my partner,darting towards my bedside with a look of fatigue,relief yet familiarity swept across his face. I read this to be a good sign but after answering the doctors’ questions I had one important of my own .I turned to my partner and asked, “What is going on? What has happened to me?”
Several weeks prior…
I woke this morning with no voice, feeling fine but cannot even make a squeak. Hmm, strange. Two weeks have passed and I have a roaring cough and consistent sniffles forcing me to visit the local GP. GP diagnosis,“You have bronchitis”. A week of antibiotics and I feel better, back to myself. I am going to go for a light run to get out of the house. Back from run and no cough, I feel fresh and recharged. The feeling passes, my cough at night is keeping the whole household awake but during the daylight I feel fine.
Another week flies by, I wake and am feeling good and today I get to compete in my sprint triathlon. I am excited; I have been training relentlessly all winter for this race with the help of my partner, personal trainer and nutritionist. Oh yeah, I am feeling fit and strong today, I want that gold medal.
Race complete, high fives are been shared with my best friend, some of my fellow work staff and my partner, a sweat and salt water stained race suit half unzipped, timing chip on left ankle, visor hat holding back wet sweaty hair while I hold my cup of post-race powerade in the right hand and my slice of watermelon in the left, *uncontrollable coughing erupts*. Through broken coughs and attempted giggling I reassure others, “I’m fine, just post-race fatigue guys, no sweat, I got this guys” My partner is staring at me right now with a face that is both deeply concerned yet wants to tear through me with a ripping lecture. I cheekily smile back, But I won a gold medal, love meeeee.
We have rinsed off, packed up our gear, collected my gold medal at presentations – the most important part, eaten a feast at the local café and am on our way home. Grrrr, why is this cough not going away? Lecture commenced. The partner is driving and bellowing that he should not have let me race and that I am still not well and need to return to a GP……blah blah blah, oh look a butterfly, mmm damn cough shut up, oooh good song, woo hoo gold medal. (Yes, my mind wanders off like this often)
Tonight I will not sleep nor will anyone else in the house due to my roaring cough that is constant and unbeatable by any old wives’ tale home remedy. I move into the guest bedroom in the attempt to let at least one of us get some sleep tonight. Eventually daylight comes, and the sound of a new 14 week old puppy busting to be let out to relieve himself, wakes me from my interval mirco sleeps I manage to have between coughing attacks. Up I stand still coughing, I feel breathless and exhausted from minimal sleep to take the new fur child down to the lawn.
*Darkness*
I am laying on the front lawn with a puppy licking my face. I deliriously scrambled back upstairs to my phone not feeling all to alert, but I manage to dial my partners number. No answer. SHIT! Think Kristy, who can you call ? … *Panic sets in* I am calling my best friend.
*Darkness*.
I would come to learn later that day that my best friend answered my call and through my weak message had realised I needed help and fast. She had contacted the gym reception and managed to alert my partner. As he made the mad race home through peak hour traffic, little did he know he would walk into the house to find me unconscious and barely breathing on our bathroom floor clutching at my mobile phone barely breathing and our new puppy barking at me in between licking my face and nibbling at my fingers. The ambulance with lights and sirens arrived promptly whisking me away to a local hospital where I would have a chest x-ray, told I have had an asthma attack, given some medication and sent home within an hour.
That afternoon, my concerned partner did not want me to be left alone and so the best friend was called in to babysit me. She finished off one of her many university assignments while I continued to lay on my new bed that had been made in the lounge-room, coughing intensely struggling to breathe. Eventually my partner’s mother who had driven 3 hours, arrived to take over the babysitting shift from my best friend. Coming from the country lifestyle, she bought along with her some fresh eculaptyus leaves and attempted to try relieve my discomfort and open the airways with some traditional DIY remedies, but to no success. Another long night passes where I am left with no sleep, an intense building pain through my back and chest from the copious coughing that still continues and a general desire to be able to breathe. Daylight comes around slowly and off to my GP we go ready for when the doors open to the medical centre. As soon as the GP takes a glimpse of me, I am immediately whisked into the emergency room and placed on oxygen and told I am to go to the hospital immediately. My partner’s mother gathers my things and we race off to the same hospital that had sent me home the day prior. My private health details could not be found in the system due to a spelling error by the receptionist and I am left struggling to breath in the foyer due to them not allowing admittance until a large sum of money is paid as a security deposit for the room. Eventually I am checked in only to be reviewed by a doctor and told I need to go to the public hospital as the chest specialist that I will need to see is based at that location. By this stage, my grandmother arrives and takes over the babysitting shift, driving me to the next hospital.
Admitted quickly and hooked up to fluids and oxygen within 30 minutes of arrival. I will spend the afternoon and evening in that hospital bed feeling emotional, alone, breathless, sore and exhausted. Blood tests every couple of hours occur as doctors try to determine what it is that is beating my body down. Morning comes where my grandmother, mother, aunt and partner are at my bedside watching me curl into a ball screaming in pain and begging for some relief, the desire to want to be home but well again. The blood test unit has rolled into my room wanting yet again another several vials of blood but the thought of more pain, and more blood tests with no answers sends me into a hysterical spin. I wrap myself around my partner, clutching myself around him for dear life as nurses pull me away screaming and coughing in the attempt to get the blood test done…..curtains are drawn…
*darkness, silence*.
Weeks later…
“Kristy, we need you to cough honey, cough again…. ”
*distant sirens, machines beeping, doctors talking, awkward sensation in my throat*
“…Kristy, it is the 25th October and you are in the PA hospital, can you tell me your full name and date of birth?” Mind racing a million miles – Twenty what? I did NOT come in here on the 24th, what the hell is going on?
Over the weeks to follow, I called a hospital bed, home, I would lay there hooked up to several machines to monitor my heartrate, oxygen levels, fluids and other IV’s injected into my body, I learnt more about the time that passed during what felt like an amazing deep sleep though medically known as an induced coma. I learnt my family and partner were told after only a couple days into my coma that doctors were convinced I was going to pass that night and instructed my loved ones to start preparations for my funeral. Somehow a minor miracle occurred that same night that doctors could not explain but I had a turn for the better and they choose to continue to keep the machines powered and wait out how I would progress. Gradually, my body started to respond and pull through where eventually I woke gradually and the machines were slowly taken away, breathing tubes all removed from my chest and throat and cleared away from my bedside. I had to stay in ICU for close monitoring for a week or so following before eventually making another step forward and was stabilised enough to be moved to the cardiac ward where I would stay for a couple more weeks. The months and years that followed have been challenging and mind strengthening to say the least.
This experience not only affected me, but it affected all my loved ones to varying degrees. Personally I was accepting of the fact I had experienced such a life threating health issue but had fears to overcome. Fears to return to exercise due to feeling exhausted and unfit compared to pre-hospitalisation. Fears of germs and suffering the pain all over again. Fears of financial struggle, job loss, career aspirations flooded my mind. My first year post illness saw me catch any sickness around me. A slight sniffle from a co-worker would send me into a fortnight long flu the next day. This was disheartening and also worrying. The fear of been back in hospital fighting to breath was still too vivid and raw in my memory to not panic at the sign of any cough. I was open with my partner and close friends how I felt, I expressed much distress and emotion each time a flu struck me down that year. I fought within myself to want to train hard and be fit again versus the body feeling weak and vulnerable and fighting a fear that exercise will get me too run down.
Nearly a year on, after some major personal struggles that year, I started to focus my energy on how to overcome that fear. I learnt I could not just forget the experience and so I would not try to but instead I would choose to honor the anniversary of waking up that day in the ICU. I would seek ways to assist me in building my immune system back up and became open to changes in my life to do things I loved and enjoyed to maintain a healthy stress level. I attempted to minimise the stressors in my life and enjoy the small precious moments and treats. Sunday morning sleep in’s with my partner than to wake and take our loving boisterous dog for a waterside walk to a local cafe for a delicious latte and omelette along the bay became one of my favourite weekly routines. I wanted a career change and to use my degrees rather than stay in health and fitness. We made the move interstate. I wanted to grow up and become even more independent and internally successful and so I did and still continue that journey to this day.
The reactions of loved ones around me differed between each of them. My mother for example, a strong, protective woman chose to keep her feelings under control by directing people around and been fearful to show any signs of weakness. Not a woman who ever was overly affectionate or open to expressing emotion, my mother remained her regular self and kept herself busy by keeping that feeling of been in control as her driver to avoid expressing any raw emotion. This was not a sign that she did not care or worry, it was her method for coping with a situation she had no control over. My mother to this day is still someone who prefers to be in control at all times and when it comes to her children, she has learnt, she cannot control everything we choose or face in our lives but can only control the thought that she gave us enough fundamentals in growing up to tackle life’s challenges as they come.
My partner’s fear was different yet again to that of my mother, family or me. How he managed that fear was also unique. During my time in hospital, he refused to show emotion, he would visit every lunch after his morning clients to have lunch with me, update me on the world outside the 4 white walls, and return again after his evening clients to hand bath me, share a laugh, tuck me in before having to head home to an extremely excitable puppy who had generally destroyed something in his path that day. He never would share any of the politics happening around me with loved ones, finances, work etc. as a way to try and protect me from any further stress. He was always calm, confident and reassuring but never afraid to throw in a few stern mini lectures on how stubborn I could be. His life experiences had definitely proven to make him a good bedside companion, always remaining cool, calm and collected by any happenings that occurred, even confidently taking on the challenge to go buy some women’s “monthly” products when the body’s state of shock surprised me with one day. (He would kill me for sharing this part, but it was most certainly a laugh at the time) The man even learnt how to apply Libra Wings sanitary pads to a woman’s underwear…..not a skill most men will ever need to neither learn nor think of when they see women’s underwear in their hand. Overall, he chose to tackle fear head on, and not display the true emotion he was experiencing. Months and years past the incident, I would come to learn he did let his emotions out in private and felt lost as to what to do, sometimes resorting to snuggling up with new puppy for comfort or writing a letter to me that he would never post. Although years later, we have now separated, we are still in contact to this day and still share the same common fear of colds and flus deep down. It is not an experience either of us ever want to face again.
What did I learn from this experience? That each loved one and myself experienced a type and or degree of fear. Furthermore, I learnt that fear is ok. Fear can be used to help us propel ourselves into a life of challenge and new experiences. I believe I have beaten my fear…so how will you beat yours?
“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown” – (HP Lovecraft, November 1925)
Dream Big!
K.
