3 What did you see?
I have been thinking what and how to write on this question, I suppose this whole exercise in blogging is supposed to be cathartic but parts of what I saw were not worth talking about , some were frighting, some were bizarre and some very personnel. There was a long ongoing scenario that lasted many days or minutes since time has no meaning in coma. Do you dream or hallucinate (maybe) in a coma absolutely and outside stimulus gets built in to dream. As example "shaker vest" (see previous post) was built into dream as mother waking me up. One of the nurses in ICU had a beautiful stone that she wore (in the last few weeks my wife tells me it was a hair band that she would take off and wind around wrist like a bracelet) it wound up in my coma as a thing of magic, when I wanted something to change in my coma world either from distaste or fear, I would see the stone that she wore in real life, I would use in the coma as an escape mechanism. Another ICU nurse had a tattoo that was about two inches wide encircling her arm she became a kind of guide or symbol of authority in my coma world.
When I was a kid I would stay at my grandmothers house in Lincoln, in my coma world I went back to Lincoln of the 1950s and in great detail. Most of the details were perfect and no way to know sense I had not been there in many years. I have had a chance to check with my mother and older friends from Lincoln, I don't know what to think of this but there it is and I accept it as just another strange part of being in a coma. I would go to a bar where everyone knew me and evidently had a problem of drinking to much (since I don't drink that was an interesting manifestation). I had my rounds and my impression was I was a policeman walking a beat. I would stop by the newsstand, go to the pool hall, walk past the theater, walk by the Sears catalog store on the square, cross the street and visit the old guys sitting on the south side of the courthouse one being Rosier (Rosy) my grandfather. I would go back north cut across the tracks at the train station and go to a bar on Sangamon St. in the day time (that may have been called Ray's?) where you sat on beer crates and kibitzed. I would get drunk and maudlin and the bar tender who was my friend would get me home. There my "guide" would talk to me about past lives, her life and second husband and the loss of a child. It would be time to get back in uniform and start my day over.
I had an ongoing vision of me working on the Hennapin Canal that runs through Central IL. Man-made channel connects the Illinois River with the Mississippi River. Canal shortened the distance for river travel by nearly 500 miles.Discussions of joining the two rivers date from 1834 construction began in 1890 construction of eastern main line began in 1894 completed in 1907 canal was 155 miles long. I saw my self working a boat and mining.
I also found myself looking around the State school at Lincoln, IL. I felt I was observing rather than a worker or resident. I was looking as if from height and was able to move at will in and out unfortunately I had to use my escape mechanism more than once since you can't close your eyes, your in a coma dummy, then I had to look or go away. Since time has no meaning I could have looked for days or seconds. Still don't know which. I think that this comes directly from when I was a young kid and my Aunt Sara Smith took me to where she worked the Lincoln Developmental Center. I remember going into the men's dormitory the overwhelming sadness of that place. It has been 50 years plus and I still remember the sights and smells.
As I was waking up in ICU unit at different times (I think that you are not at the same level of coma all the time it seems in retrospect that you rise and fall from or to conscience) I was able to hear and see at times although I couldn't respond or even voluntarily move and with a tube down my throat I couldn't speak. A few words on what you hear and see in coma that are real. I have some very real hard feelings towards Dr's who talk about you in the third person, telling your wife that even if you survived what would be left. We should send him to long term care facility, maybe hospice, maybe Indiana Ventilator Hospital. All of these things and more you hear but can't respond. You are shouting in your mind but nothing is coming out it is extremely frustrating and yes frighting, what if ? Your escape mechanism doesn't work because this is the real world. Cindy heard me and somehow convinced the Dr's that I was still there and if they would give me a chance I would use my mind and drive to help myself. They moved me to a step down unit for a few days to see what would happen.
- Cindy would stroke my hair and I remember the touch
- Being handled in a rough manner hurts, you are not able to see who but the rough touch hurts.
- Having your hand held helps, it is the touch with the real world.
- All hospitals have routine, in other words they work three shifts per day , in each shift there is a routine, when you are washed, when you get med's, when you are turned to prevent bed sores, who is working on you. When this routine is broken for some reason you know it and normally didn't like it. Yes, I know I was in a coma.
While in the coma you see many people some who you know, some who you don't have a clue who they are, some are dead relatives in my case my grandmother on my dads side who passed 30 years ago. My mother telling me to go back? People of authority and friends all who have some input that helps you make decisions go-no go, left - right, forward- backward, etc.
You see the nurses somehow, when I woke up and was in a different room I recognized the ICU nurses as they came to visit, especially the nurse with the stone bracelet and the nurse with the tattoo's.
For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
NEXT
Answer Questions 5-7 from Post 10-13-08
When folks have heard what happened to me, they have questions and amazing enough they are all about the same regardless of coming from old or young, man or women, educated or the less educated, believers or non-believers.
