Sydney Vita

One year ago today, my life was forever changed. I had a laparoscopic hysterectomy, a major surgery, but one associated with less than a 1% total risk, and I was at the very bottom of the risk assessment chart (increased factors include things like age, obesity, multiple pregnancies, prior health issues, etc.) I was told recovery would take about 7-10 days at most. As a first year PhD student at the time, I planned the surgery for the beginning of my “spring break” to ensure I wouldn’t miss any class. My surgeon had an impeccable record of over 30 years, surgery itself was textbook, and I was released from the hospital the following day. Within several hours of arriving at home, I developed a fever and began to hallucinate. The person who had been staying with me to ensure my recovery was annoyed by my hallucinations and left, leaving me on my own. I spent the next 3 days falling in and out of consciousness before I was finally able to call 911. (Sepsis and Surgery)

My blood pressure was 62/30. I had a fever of 104°F. My liver, kidneys, heart and lungs were all failing. I had emergency surgery, 2 blood transfusions, and spent the next week in a coma on life support. I had septicemia caused by Strep A, a notoriously antibiotic resistant bacteria. According to my medical records, the medical staff, the people here who came to the hospital every day, I was hours from death. No one thought I would survive the surgery. They didn’t think I would wake up from the coma. My emergency surgeon said that even 5 years ago, I would not have survived. Had I taken any longer to call 911, I would not have survived.

I woke from my coma on March 13, (a day I intend to celebrate as “Dia de los Inmortales”!) and spent the next few days in the ICU. I was hooked to 3 trees full of IV bags. I was hallucinating with ICU psychosis, I still can’t tell you all of what was real and what wasn’t. My feet had turned completely black from the vasopressers that kept my organs working. (I’m told my hands were black, too, but I don’t remember that. I do remember them being swollen and purplish.) They kept me restrained to keep me from pulling out my IVs or breathing tube. I had to communicate using a piece of paper upon which my boss wrote the alphabet and I could point at letters to spell. I had to learn how to breathe again, then to drink, then to eat. It was well over a month before I could eat of drink without choking a little.

On March 17, I was moved to a private room (still hallucinating). I had to learn how to sit, how to stand, how to control my bladder. It was when I was in the private room that I finally figured out I had been in a coma. On Monday, March 21, I snapped. It had hit me that morning, the gravity of what had happened. The fact that I was still hooked up to IV pumps, that I was still being fed through a needle in my arm, that the incision in my abdomen still hadn’t closed. I cried uncontrollably for hours. I got so angry when a nurse asked why I was crying and tried to have a doctor give me an anti-depressant. That anger is what made me decide I was getting out. NOW. On Tuesday, they told me I wasn’t well enough to qualify for a transfer to rehab. On Thursday I was too well to qualify. I was released from the hospital on Thursday, March 25 and, as I wasn’t well enough to care for myself, I stayed with faculty members for another 3 weeks. On May 2, I was finally allowed to come back to my lab.

Here I sit, one year later. I am not “fully” recovered. I may never be “fully” recovered. But I am doing better than I think anyone had expected, including myself. My hair has grown back (though I’m still enjoying it short!), my ass is recognizable as mine again. Though my toes still look a rough and one still has a significant ulcer, as of 2 weeks ago, I finally got word that I won’t be having any toes amputated. The neuropathic pain in my right hand and forearm still bothers me, but medication has helped. The same medication has been beneficial with the PTSD, too (I recently learned that the ICU is the 3rd leading cause of PTSD). (Sepsis and PTSD) I am currently re-taking the classes I had to be dropped from, as well as the classes I was scheduled to take this year, which has led me to realize that I have spotty retrograde amnesia that extends a few weeks prior to the first surgery. I still sometimes wake up screaming, I still have nightmares, I still have panic attacks, but they’re much improved. The most important thing to me is that I am back working in my lab full time, and have been for about 8 months.

I wouldn’t have wished for any of this to happen, I wouldn’t wish any of it on my worst enemy. But, all in all, I’m happier now than I was. It’s not that I was depressed before or that I had any kind of a death wish, but after having fought so hard for my life, maybe it’s that I feel like I’ve earned it? It’s easier to take joy, even pride, in the smallest moments.

Now, let’s get ready for Dia de los Inmortales!!!!