Hullucinations and ecmo

I thought today I would tell you about some of the hallucinations whilst on Ecmo. I have been thinking a lot about my time on there a year ago now. Things that were real seem unreal and things that weren't seem more real.

To me ECMO was not just a tube in my neck and groin, ventilation was not a tube in my mouth or neck. I was in a huge fish bowl, it was gel like water, the nurses and doctors were mermaids. They would come into my fish bowl and one day they told me I had to come out and when I did I couldn’t rest anymore, I had to wake and breathe. If I would still breathe I could still get a transplant. Suddenly I was dropped from the fish bowl and I had to breathe. This was when I was being taken off the sedation and the ventilator was taken out in real like. I remember trying to breath but feeling like I was drowning, like the water form the fish bowl had seeped into my lungs this gel like stuff and I was suffocating. But I carried on, drowning but trying to breath, panicking and the doctors saying in a serene and echoed voice just breath, breath and the voice's were getting higher and higher, in what sounded like a song.

Another hallucination, I remember lots and lots of blood, I was sat bolt up right and there was blood fighting out my tracki, everyone was panicking, saying if I carried on bleeding I would die soon, there was to much blood everywhere, so I was moved, other patients were just staring at me and I looked at the pleading them to stop it as if they could. This was just a hallucination, but to me I swear there was blood everywhere, but at no time did I bleed out that profusely, although there was blood filling my tracki.

I had so many more hallucinations after transplant it was hard to know if were real or not. What was real and what wasn't. Some times the real seemed more unreal and the hallucinations more plausible, despite there ludicrously. For a long time I didn't know what ECMO was until my family explained it wasn't a fish bowl. The vulnerability when you’re that sick and the weakness of your own mind, understanding the simplest of things if impossible. I remember my family telling me the news of the world had shut down and I couldn't understand why they were telling me this and what significance it had to me, Had they printed something bad about me and about transplant? Stupid I know.

After transplant, I couldn't bare to watch TV for a while, I just wanted to stare into space, but as soon as I did, I was watching the news the whole time, waiting to see if they would talk about a car accident, someone being knocked on he head and never waking. I Was waiting to find out about my Angel, desperate to fit all the pieces together, if what to me was a very confusing and broken story. I understood nothing of what had and was happening to me and I myself was a distant ghost of myself.

Tomorrow, was the day I received the gift of life, where I had to learn to relive, to breathe, to understand, to grow.

It wasn't the easiest of journeys, but now, now I have to say I would never have expected my life to be as amazing as it is.

I've also been thinking about my friends on the transplant list, will they get there calls? Its so hard being friends with other CFers, its the most amazing thing being able to connect with people who understand you but when you are watching them die Its so scary and hard. I have broken my heart over many friends who didn't make it, but I wouldn't stop being friends with such amazing people, there lives and friendships mean so much to me. I just pray that there calls come and we can stop this happening, needless death, because others just don't think about organ donation. My wish for this week, for everyone to just think about it, to make there decision, let your family know, whatever it may be. I hope others get this opportunity I was so lucky to be given.

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