Waking up from a coma is an experience that a tiny minority of people have. We can only imagine how scary the first few moments after waking must be. When the reality hits you, and you realize you were moments away from succumbing to an awful illness or terrible fall, everything changes…
However, if we’ve never experienced being in a coma, we’ll never really know what it’s like. After all, the possibility of knowing someone who has survived something severe enough to land them in a coma is unlikely. Here’s what it’s really like to be unconscious for days, weeks, months, and maybe even years…
1. The Super Mario theme song seemed to be playing on a continuous loop during this survivor’s coma…
”I was in a medically induced coma a few years back for around a month or so. There was no ‘waking up’ phenomenon. One day I remember some flashes of light. Next day a few minutes. Etc. I was so beyond messed up on drugs they were giving me that I was hallucinating.
I had no idea what was going on for at least a week. For example, I was convinced the heart rate monitor was playing the Mario theme song, and they had brought me Mario to play. The nurse wasn’t happy after I kept asking to play.”
2. This woman’s coma made her so forgetful that she thought she was still with her high school boyfriend…
I was in a coma for a week after being in a serious car accident. I suffered 2 months memory loss from the day of the accident, multiple broken bones, fractured skull, broke my jaw and fractured most parts of my face. I woke up in ICU extremely confused and crying and thinking I was still dating my high school boyfriend, and I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t with me.
But what I do remember from the coma was that I was standing in a white room, it felt like I was waiting for something, but I didn’t know what. But the worst memory was when I was still in a coma, and I could feel people hold my hand, and I could feel the nurses bathing me, but I couldn’t move or open my eyes, I just couldn’t do anything, and it was terrifying!”
3. Imagine waking up from a coma and having no recollection of how old you are…
”When I ‘woke up’ from the 2 month coma I was scared. There was a Happy Birthday banner on the wall of the hospital so the first thought that came to my mind was. ‘What happened to me?’ The 2nd question I asked myself was, ‘How old am I?”’
4. Imagine being a vulnerable six-year-old in a house fire and waking up days later…
”When I was 6, I was in a house fire. I remember going to bed the night before, then I must have passed into a coma from the smoke inhalation because apparently the fire happened in the room I was sleeping in. My first memory of waking up I remember thinking everything was normal, and I had no idea that I had missed anything. Then I found this huge box of get-well cards and pieced together that I must have been under for a while.”
5. This survivor’s coma was so surreal, it might as well have been a scene in a movie…
”When I was 16 in 1998, I was in a coma for 3 days, I think. I’m from New York, but was spending 3 weeks on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. Sometime during week 2, I got sick, and ended up having 2 seizures. I was helicoptered to a hospital in Flagstaff.
When I woke up from my coma, I recall it being sort of like the scene from E.T.; I had tubes on/in me, I sat up in bed and started pulling them off of me. My parents, who had flown in [were] scared to death I’m sure [but they] calmed me down, which wasn’t too hard. I don’t remember much of the next few days. Apparently I read the same newspaper 3 days in a row.”
Imagine being in a situation where your hallucinations are relentless – it would be like never being able to wake up from a nightmare! Well, this next survivor experienced just that
Often when comas are depicted in the movies and on television, we are encouraged to view the situation from the perspective of the patient’s loved ones who are desperately hoping their family member/close friend will pull through. Well, this is what it’s like on the other side…
6. Even after recovery, the hallucinations were just “too real” to be figments of his imagination…
”I was hallucinating for 5 days straight 24/7. During the day, I was having loving and warm hallucinations while my family, close friends and loved ones were around me during visiting hours. But when they had to leave my visions because very dark and completely unbelievable however to me they were extremely convincing.
I’m not talking wavy shapes and fuzzy things. I’m talking genuinely convincing things that were happening to me. As a man of science I was constantly questioning them but It was just so real to me. To the point where I still question if maybe it genuinely did happen to me.”
7. It took days for this woman to fully come out of her coma…
”I was in a coma post-very severe seizure for 6 days. I didn’t suddenly come out of the coma, but instead had more and more time awake. Initially, I was drowsy and things were “fuzzy” and didn’t make sense. But then they made more sense, and I slept less and was more fully awake. It probably took about 4 further days to become properly awake.
I am a nurse and now see that in patients that come out of comas it is always gradual. Most comas are induced by medicines (we do it for pain management, healing, to be still) and these are gradual, as well as patients that have been in self induced comas. It differs from normal sleep.”
8. This coma survivor couldn’t remember anything about herself after waking up
”When I came to I couldn’t remember very much about myself or my life. And my memories for the month beforehand were just gone altogether.
As time passed I was slowly able to piece things together again, but it was really weird, I would just be eating cereal and then suddenly: ‘Oh yeah I studied psychology for 2 years at university!’ Then boom. A whole aspect of my life came back into my brain. This happened almost continuously for a couple of months.”
9. This coma survivor’s experience was so severe that she was a danger to her own family…
”My coma hallucinations were pretty bad, I kept trying to fight everyone, everyone (friends, family and doctors) was out to hurt or humiliate me to the point they strapped me to the bed so I wouldn’t hurt anyone or myself.
When I finally stopped hallucinating, I was so tired of running away, and fighting (think inception, or dreams, I felt I was in there for months), that I didn’t even care much for the fact I had lost an arm, I was just glad it was over.”
To say readjusting to life after having been in a coma is challenging would be an understatement. In some cases, it could be like starting your life over from scratch…
No one likes waking up in the morning – you probably feel a little groggy, hungry or grumpy. However, it’s unlikely that you are forced to tolerate the unbearable pain that this next survivor was forced to endure…
10. This coma survivor wasn’t expecting to feel such unbearable pain when he woke up…
”I was out for at least a week, then I started to come round for a few moments at a time. I remember looking down and seeing two catheter lines in both my arms and two in my chest. They’d ran out of space so they even put one in my foot.
As they slowly lowered the dosage of tranquilizers I woke up more and more, downside of that being that I could suddenly feel all the pain I’d been too doped up to register until then. That was fun.”
11. This survivor had to go back to square one after recovery…
”Apparently I was unconscious for two days, but forgot almost the entire week. The following month is just a haze due to painkillers and multiple surgeries. It almost felt like going back in time. I had just started my first week of college and was staying in the dorms.
Once I started having clear memories again I was living back at home, had no job, and spent my days doing nothing but wallowing in pain and depression. Like freshmen year of high school all over again, plus pain.”
12. This survivor could vaguely make out what was going on around him…
”I remember a few things that actually happened around me while I was under, like the score to a football game that someone must have been watching on my TV, and I recognized a nurse when I woke up.
I guess my main memory about waking up is I was just super confused. I didn’t know why I was in the hospital, last thing I remembered it was before Halloween and I was going to bed, and I woke up and I’d missed election day.”
13. Being in a coma was like having a never-ending series of nightmares for this coma survivor…
”I was in a medically induced coma for over a week. During that time I had four surgeries and severe sepsis. A couple of organ systems started shutting down. I had horrible hallucinations/nightmares.
When I woke up I didn’t know where I was, what city I was in, what day it was, and thought my parents were imposters. They would always ask me if I knew my name, the date, etc. and I was wondering how they expected me to know. I physically couldn’t move to hit the nurse call button.”
Being in a coma is usually not something that we even register as a possibility, but they can happen to anyone at any time. No one in a healthy and stable condition goes into a coma, so those who have woken up after days, weeks, months or even years of unconsciousness have survived quite an ordeal!
We wish every coma survivor the best, and thank those who were willing to share their experiences with the world.
” I was so tired of running away, and fighting (think inception, or dreams, I felt I was in there for months)”
source: viralthread
