Reader’s Digest
110 september 2019
up just as the surgeon was starting to
operate on me. I saw a bright light
and masked faces hovering over me.
I remember my chest rising and fall-
ing, but I couldn’t take a breath. As
I woke, the pain hit hard, but I
couldn’t move or communicate no
matter how hard I tried. Well, except
for my fingers.
“Her fingers are moving,” someone
in the room said.
“There’s no way her fingers could
be moving. She’s out,” someone
else said.
I’m right here! I wanted to scream.
I can hear you!
“Maybe she’s having a seizure.”
Then another masked face ap-
peared right in front of my face, and
I remember a strange smell, and then
everything went dark again. They
wrote ‘mild seizure’ on my chart.
People have the wrong idea about
what a medically induced coma is.
They think it means you’re totally
unconscious, unable to see or hear
or respond in any way. But that’s
not how it is. For weeks after the
trauma, I felt like I was locked in a
nightmare, imprisoned in my body.
Sometimes I was unconscious, but
other times I existed in a state that has
no easy comparison.
I couldn’t focus on anyone or any-
thing, but I could hear sounds and
feel sensations. I was so hot all the
time that it felt as if my body were on
fire. I began having thoughts that were
almost hallucinations about lyingin a pool of water.
Occasionally, I would hear a fa-
miliar voice, and that brought some
comfort. Whenever Sean came into
the room, he would call out, “Hey,
honey, I’m here.” I know that only be-
cause he has told me so since then,
not because I remember it. He says I
would open my eyes and look around
like I was looking right through him.
I was too out of it to think, Oh, that’s
Sean, but I did sense the familiarity.I relished when someone would hold
my hand, stroke my head or comb my
hair. That was the good part.
The dreams were the bad part.
Over and over, I had graphic night-
mares about being attacked. I now
know that the dreams came when
the nurses were cleaning my wounds.
Although I was heavily sedated, my
blood pressure would spike, and they
would see my face grimacing. Even
in that state, I recognized the pain,
but I couldn’t process it, so my brain
turned it into the only thing that made
sense: assault.
A medically induced coma can’t
take away all the pain—nothing can.“YOU’VE BEEN IN A
COMA FOR ALMOST A
MONTH,” SEAN SAID.
THAT STUNNED ME.
I STARTED CRYING.