Out of body experience, who needs one?

Every now and then I get asked if I had an out of body experience. Pretty sure I did not. There were no thoughts or “dreams”, the reality is it was like there was nothing. No time,  no light from heaven, no flashback on my life, nothing like that movie Sublime.  Honestly, when someone asks me that I just say “I don’t think so”. I think some people look to those who have been near death thinking they may have a link to what the afterlife could be like. And I am not saying that people haven’t had these experiences, I am just not one of those. I just can feel the disappointment of someone who really hopes I have something exciting to tell.

For me I think it was in a way an escape from myself. I have a tendency to live in my own head. My thoughts and anxieties never stop. I never learned to shut it down, so I think this was to help my healing process. Stress never helps heal.

Yes, I have had some nightmares. Some have been about the ambulance ride, seeing people working on me, but all in silence. Also some of my heart stopping, having a visual on my heart in my chest just stopping for some reason this one is always in black and white. Which is strange because I usually dream in vivid color.

For me I think it was in a way an escape from myself. I have a tendency to live in my own head. My thoughts and anxieties never stop. I never learned to shut it down, so I think this was to help my healing process. Stress never helps heal.

 

Brain Freeze

While the nurses on my team did CPR on me, the EMT’s finally showed up and got me into the ambulance I was taken to the hospital. One of my super amazing teammates went with me. Thank god she did. The EMT’s gave me several epinephrine shots and used the defibrillator on me. When we got to the hospital I still did not have a strong heart beat. To this day I swear I feel like such a dick for putting people through this, but I am grateful they were there for me.

When they got a heart rate and got me as stable as possible they went ahead and did brain cooling on me. When I was told this, I thought the put coolant in my blood, like a car’s cooling system, Transformer type thing. Silly imagination, it was not at all like that. People who visited me during this time told me that I felt like ice. Kind of eerie that before I was considered to be living or dying, I was in a cold death like state in order to give me chance to live. I am not sure how long they did this to me, but the outcome at this point was not good for me. It’s pretty amazing what putting someone on ice can do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBa0H96s10o&feature=youtu.be

 

 

Horrible catheters and potty humor

Let me tell you a little history about me and catheters, I hate them. I have had 2 kids and both kids I had to have C-sections with both of them. The first one was probably the worst. After the surgery which they lay your organs out and remove your baby sow you up and off you go. Well, you have the catheter in so here comes my nurse, she tells me I have to walk before she removes the catheter (evil).  I got out of bed and tried walking down the hall, I thought I was going to pass out. She, after my husband told her I was going to pass out took me back to my bed and removed it. Then I went to take a piss, that hurt like hell! I held onto the handicapped bars and screamed. Now the second time the nurse was a godsend, She had me hit my morphine drip thingy took it out and then helped me to the bathroom. It still hurt but I wasn’t feeling like I was going to pass out.

This brings me to my catheter after my cardiac arrest. Now, I really didn’t know how long this has been in… I will say they went ahead and removed it (I don’t remember that part). So, these memories came back, I maybe had those first catheters like an hour to two hours for the C-sections. All I can say I wasn’t looking forward for that first piss, especially how long it had been in.

My nurse who I called Big Bird, (apparently from the stories told we were not a good patient/nurse pair, which I am sure I will have more stories of this relationship) she “kindly” came in and told me I had to pee, not only pee but pee in one of those toilet cup things. Fearing the knowing of the on slot of pain I know is going to happen, I told her I didn’t have to go. She then said “you will go”, I said “no”, after a few back and forth jabs she finally  says, “if you don’t pee I will put the catheter back in”. My worst fear, she won… Ugh!

Now I get out of bed with the help of my husband. I am pretty sure that my legs were jacked from being confined in the bed for I don’t really know how long. I get on my wobbly legs with my little bag of fluids on wheels, and make my way to the bathroom. Now to give you a little visual I am ass naked under the hospital gown, hunched over and moving very slowly. This hospital room is pretty spacious and it is a long way over to that bathroom… I press onward with the threat of the catheter being returned to my pee hole. I am sweating and in pain, finally we make it to the toilet. My husband sits my atop the toilet and leaves me to do my thing.

I sit for a moment, knowing what is about to take place. Here we go, I let loose and it feels like fire and razor blades, flowing out of my urethra! I am sweating bullets holding onto the handicap bars for dear life hovering over the toilet seat. Finally it stops and I realize that I have over filled the pee cup thing. Glorious, maybe my firry, razor blade pee will spill onto her shoes. I make my way back to bed and pass out. Unfortunately, I passed out and I don’t know if my pee ever made contact with Big Bird shoes.

 

 

 

Out of control

This is something that really bothers me, this is the point where I am completely out of control. I have no say in what is going on with my body. It’s so weird to think back on something like that. People tell you what happened and you have no idea (and I wasn’t even drinking). Also, there is a sense of embarrassment,  in the way I would never willingly put people that I care about through something like that. If your drinking and black out or whatever, people tell you the stupid things you did, you can just kinda laugh it off. This isn’t something you can just laugh off, and I do feel like a dick at times for scaring people like this. They saw me die.

Often times I wonder if I felt anything, did I feel something coming on? Did I struggle for air? When my heart stopped, did it hurt? These are still such bizarre questions for me to think about, because I really have no way to answer them.

This is my first post.

This blog is started to really get out what I have been going through the last two years since my cardiac arrest May 28, 2014. To my friends and family who might read this, I love you and a huge thank you for supporting me through all of this. This is my process of working through this.

Those who don’t know me or the event that lead up to this. I play roller derby and I had decided to start back up after taking time off to move and having my daughter. Now I don’t remember much, I think I went to derby 101 and then went to Phoenix to visit friends (I don’t even really remember the trip). I went to my first actual practice, I am sure I was excited to get back and be with my friends/teammates again. From what I have been told I had the cardiac arrest during the warm-up part of the practice.

From what I have been told when I first went down it looked like I was having a seizure, so the thing to do when someone is having a seizure is to let them do their thing. Well, I wasn’t coming out of it and I was starting to turn blue. So the amazing nurses that I skate with went into action.