Sharon De Pauw

It started out with intolerable pain in my shoulder. I was brought to the hospital by ambulance but the ER doctors had me sent up to a general patient floor (instead of ICU), and I went into respiratory arrest. A ‘Code Blue’ was called. My husband was called back to the hospital, to ICU. He was told by the nurse over the phone that I had ‘taken a turn for the worst’, and had stopped breathing. I was taken down to ICU.

When my husband returned to the hospital (ICU) and met up with the doctor, he told my husband that I was in septic shock. I was intubated and put on life support, and I lapsed into a coma for two weeks. At the end of two weeks, the nurse and doctor prepared my husband for the strong possibility that I could die. The next morning, I was awake when my husband arrived. The doctor told my husband: “Have I got a surprise for YOU!”

Needless to say, my husband was surprised, relieved and happy beyond words to see to that I had awoke from my coma. There I sat on my bed, smiling at him with this tube hanging out of one corner of my mouth. (Yeah, real attractive), One of the doctors other doctors ordered aggressive physical therapy for me because of the severe atrophy in my arms and legs. That’s my experience.