Pnuemonia, resp. Failure. Died and brought back

[tiffjo]

DEC 13 of 2013 i was partying with some friends and the next thing i know i was in the most horrible dream that i have ever had. I heard my brother talking to god about taking him instead of me. The next thing i know im looking at my brother laying next to me in my hospital bed with a drill to the top of his head. And then the doctors looked at me and said that i could wake up that my brother had saved my life for his. That was the 19th of Dec. I woke up in my bed and the first thing i said was where is my brother. He was fine of course but he went home to nebraska. Although i didnt believe it. I couldnt walk and my hands didnt work all that well. I only had a 10% chance of waking up and they thought id probably have a good chance to be brain dead so my problems im having are ok. But after i woke up i was still hallucinating. I got this message on facebook (but didnt have my phone) from someone telling me that someone was trying to reach me from the other side. I was so confused. I went home 2 days before Christmas which was awesome considering my family was together at the hospital in panic not to long before that. when i got home i could barely walk still. I was okay with that. Then i started hearing voices, and seeing off the wall shit. Nothing i could ever imagine. Its been almost 3 years im 23 now and everythings back to normal except the voices happen still. Gives me goosebumps. I dont think thats normal. Is it?

[muncii]

tiffjo- I'm no expert but yes I think it's very normal.

As I've posted here before, it has been a curious sort of comfort to me, to find that lots of experiences are common to people who have been ICU patients, including, and especially, having periods of being really very psychotic. Hallucinations, delusions, paranoia (you really believe that people are going to kill you). Difficult to tell what is real and what isn't, that is frightening in itself.

You had a traumatic experience, suddenly going from being perfectly healthy and normal, to very sick and near death. In that kind of extreme situation, your mind is affected, not just your body.

Don't be too hard on yourself, it can take ages to get over it (if one ever does, fully) I think your flashbacks of voices and hallucinations will lessen over time. Talk to your family and doctor about it, and if you are going through a particularly difficult period, why not ask for some temporary medication?

Good luck with your recovery.

[tiffjo in reply to muncii]

Thanks it feels good to know im not crazy at least.

[muncii in reply to tiffjo]

PS tiffjo- rest assured you are not crazy. Also, you are young, and will get over it. You have all your life ahead of you!

[angelrock in reply to tiffjo]

You not crazy, just give it time, I am still asking questions even now - a year after being in ICU. Still can't fathom why or how I got to be in there, I was suffering from septic shock and had to be sedated for eleven days following major surgery with a ruptured appendicitis and blood poisoning.

[Brea58 in reply to angelrock]

I as well went from being perfectly healthy to waking up in and induced coma for several weeks.

Things have not been any better for me. I developed gangrene while in the hospital after my 2 month period. Had to get my toe amputated two weeks ago. I have to have a pic line in to get rid of the infection in my right toe.

Had to go get a biopsy in my lung,which they found nodules on, to only find it grew much bigger.

Waiting on the results from the biospy to find if it's cancer.

When will it end?

[Brea58 in reply to tiffjo]

I have the same thing your experiencing. My memory is still hazy. I can't remember anything.

Also my cognitive thinking was impaired as well.

It's getting better. My doctor said it takes time, that I would eventually be back to normal

[eddie1968]

I had post operative acute respiratory failure and my SpO2 levels crashed post op. I kept blacking out due to hypoxia and was quickly took to ICU as I was deteriorating fast and was intubated and put into a coma then attached to a ventilator for a month. Strange and bizarre dreams and horrible hallucinations and paranoia on waking up for days. I also had a tracheotomy in place so could not communicate and had no strength to write stuff down. What you dreamt about is probably of no significance really, just your brain in a disorganized and erratic subconscious thought pattern. The drugs they use for painkilling and maintaining coma are powerful and have odd side effects - usual culprits being Propofol and Fentanyl. Hope you recover.

[Brea58 in reply to eddie1968]

I experienced the exact same delusional episodes, I was living in a different dimension! I was believing everything. When I found out, it took me awhile to process what happened

to me.

It took me awhile to figure out what was real and what was a delusion.

I was telling stories to my family about crazy, crazy things that I don't remember at all.

I can only imagine the drugs they giving me . What a horrible experience.

I told my family, they should of just let me die for i will not allow anyone to put in a hospital again. It was most frightening the way I acted.i have no memory of anything before I went in or the whole time I was in.

[rrahman]

I had similar thoughts which I swear were or felt unbelievably real to me! But though I got over it I wonder if there were any truth of any it. Some of the things I remeber were things I consciously suppressed from my past. But theybwere heightened. Weird.

But I think you have to look at why it is you think you thought of those things - I have a feeling there may be something underlying perhaps?

Hope it helps.

[Brea58]

Agreed!