Half way through my first treatment, I was told I could go home for the night if I didn't spike a fever after the anti-biotics were disconnected. The doctor also wanted to stop the anti-biotics because my Liver was doing some funny things. Don't ask me what. So anyway, they took me off the anti-biotics and waited for a few hours, checking my temperature every half hour, to see if I could go home. Unfortunately, I was getting a fever and it was getting higher every time. The last time they checked my fever, I told them I felt extremely uncomfortable and to get me off whatever it was they were giving me through the drip. But it was just ordinary saline. I remeber feeling hot in my heart. Yep, my heart was feeling hot. And I don't mean warm, I mean burning. Pretty soon, I started to shiver uncontrollably. This is the bodies way of cooling itself down. A nurse and my fiancee got some warm hand towels and wet me down with them but my shivering got worse and all I wanted was about 10 blankets on me. Pretty soon, I just fell asleep.
I don't know how much time went past but I remember my fiancee trying to wake me up. I could hear her, but I just couldn't respond. She was shaking me and yelling my name but I couldn't do a thing. It's as if I was paralysed or something. Next thing I know, I wake up and there are a whole lot of doctors standing around me, the sheets were soaked and I had lost all sense of reality. I had absolutely no idea why I was in hospital. I actually asked them what I was doing there. That's when I remembered that I had Leukaemia. It didn't feel real to me though. Being there. Out of nowhere, I felt a massive weight in my chest. I squinted and I told the doctors, "It hurts". Thaey asked me what hurted and I told them it was my chest. At that moment, the Septic Shock had started. My lungs stopped working and I couldn't breathe at all. I could feel myself dying. Inside my mouth dried up instantly as I heaved for air. The doctors all went into emergency mode and got the oxygen mask on me. The feeling of dying is very very scary. Those of you who are not afraid of it, BE AFRAID OF IT. I started to go into some sort of convulsion. My body was shaking uncontrollably, as if I was getting electrocuted. My main concern was to keep breathing. I knew if I kept breathing, I would stay alive. Finally, the breathing, which was so damn hard, took the last bit of strength out of me and I consciously decided to stop breathing and I was thinking, "This is it. I can't breathe anymore." I heard them yelling my blood pressure. 90 over 40 which is near death.
The stories you hear about your life flashing before your eyes when your about to die is absolutely true. I saw it all. But I also saw a part of my future which would have happened if I stopped breathing. I saw my funeral. A few people were there but it was my mother and fiancee that I noticed in black. That's when I decided that I cannot die before my mother. I cannot leave my fiancee alone. The will to survive for love is so intense that it can literally save your life. I started breathing again. It was hard, but I couldn't leave my family and friends. The doctors started talking to me. Asking me questions. I couldn't verbally answer them but I could answer yes or no by shaking or nodding my head. The one thing that got me back to normal was simply one question. The doctor asked me if I have any tingling in my body. I nodded. He told me that I now have too much oxygen in my blood and that I have to slow my breathing down. I tried but was afraid that if I slowed down, I would stop. I gradually slowed down and he commended me on a job that not many people could do so quickly before. I could feel my body slowly reducing the spasms it was having. The first thing I could do was actually have control over my fingers. I slowly gripped the bed sheets I was on. Then everything else started to feel normal. Through the entire ordeal, I could not open my eyes so I couldn't see my fiancee. The whole thing lasted 20 minutes but it was the longest 20 minutes of my life. The doctor asked me if I was ok and that he wanted to explain what happened. There I was with an oxygen mask on me, shaking from exhaustion and the doctor telling me that I had an infection in my blood because of no white cells. They gave me a strong dose of anti-biotics while I was in the septic shock and I remember that because the doctor said that he was going to inject something in my arm and that I might feel a slight sting.
I started coming back to normal. Other than shaking from exhaustion, having sensors on my chest and an oxygen mask on my face, I was Ok. I started wondering what time it was because I thought it was late at night. That's how much of a good sleep I had before the Septic Shock. Actually, I thought it was 4am until my fiancee told me it was 4:20pm. I couldn't believe it. I was asleep for about 15 minutes before the shock happened.
Anyway, a whole lot of nurses asked if I was ok because I made friends with a lot of them. I couldn't talk so I just smiled and winked at them. My fiancee came and sat down in the chair beside me and I saw her wiping away some tears. I just smiled at her, basically because that's all I could do. I couldn't really move.
Pretty soon, my mother rushed in with a worried look on her face (Obviously).She asked me if I was ok and my fiancee told her I couldn't talk. She wanted to know why but the little woman cleared everything up. A few family friends were there too and they started to cry but I felt fine except for looking like SensorMan. A little shaky and cold but I was feeling good.I don't like when people cry over me when I am feeling good, but I suppose I would cry if I had a son or daughter in that situation.
After a little while, they took me to intensive care for the night so they could monitor me. I was feeling really tired and spaced out for some reason. The most embarrasing thing about intensive care is that they give you the peewee bottle because you can't go to the bathroom with all this high tech stuff attached to you. I was dreading having to do a sit down thing, but, fortunately, I didn't have to. But I did have to do the piddle a few times during the night.
Next morning came and I had a male nurse come up to me and ask me if I wanted him to bathe me. I think he may have been gay because he persisted for about 5 minutes. I got out of it because the nurses told me it was time to go back to the ward. I mean, I can wash myself, even if I had Leukaemia. Just sit on the shower floor and wash. How hard is that?
Anyway, back at the ward, all the nurses were happy to see me, (who wouldn't be) and they were asking me all these questions about what it was like, etc....
I told them it something I wouldn't want to go through again.
So, the moral here is, always tell the nurses if you fell any kind of uncomfortableness. If you don't, it will get worse.
