I'm your typical American guy, born and raised by parents who never left the USA. I can remember them telling me throughout my childhood to be thankful that I was born in America. Back in 2003 my mother passed away and joined my father who had passed a few years before. Both of my parents died of cancer and had a rough ride to the end.
During my 20s I had done some traveling to Central America and met my first wife there. We have two children and were married for six years. I enjoyed Latin America as a vacation destination and only dreamed of what it would be like to live there. Fate had it that my mother's passing and my divorce were not far apart. I was left feeling very alone, frustrated with my lifestyle, and decided to sell my business and move offshore.
I moved to a Latin American country that will remain a mystery throughout my story. The reason for the mystery is that I in no way want to identify certain characters in the story, and disclosing the country would potentially risk doing so.
I've always been a person who had very good luck with health. Outside of some stitches as a kid, I'd never been sick or hospitalized. This wasn't a result of healthy living, quite the contrary. Every day began with a cup or two of coffee and a cigarette. My diet and behavior were anything but what the doctor ordered.
During the first year I lived offshore I remarried and had a daughter with my new wife. I enjoyed living in a new country. The culture was completely different than anything I had ever experienced. I felt important; being an American in most Latin American countries will get you some attention. There is also a feeling of liberty that came from being in a country where you don't fear being pulled over every time you go out. The cost of living is also less.
It was about six months after I moved that I had my first problem with my health. A pimple formed on my leg and was extremely painful. After a week it was obvious that it was more than a pimple, but like most men I said no to going to the doctor. I lanced what could best be described at the time as a boil and an unbelievable amount of puss was discharged. This relieved the pain, but the area remained abnormal. An area about the size of a penny turned black, and then later was easily pealed off like a scab. This left a circular open wound.
I have some knowledge of medicine and knew that this sore was bad. The black scab was actually necrosis, or dead skin; there was no way this could heal on its own and stitching a circle isn't easy. I went to a dermatologist who prescribed antibiotics and some patches that went over the wound to help it heal. This one month long ordeal left a scar on my leg that looks like a gunshot wound, a big gunshot wound.
I was able to identify the infection that caused all this trouble as staphylococcus aureus.
Over the next few years the same thing reoccurred, sometimes bigger, other times smaller. I have over 20 of scars now from staph infections. I also had a run in with scabies, a fun little parasite than itches beyond belief and attacks males in the genital area. The doctors were accustomed to seeing these sorts of things and the locals seemed familiar as well. I just chocked it up to being part of living in a 3rd world county and moved on.
My story gets a little cloudy from this point on and is difficult to tell because I don't remember all of it. The story has taken me six months to piece together using my memories, my wife's memories, and circumstantial items like emails and my work.
The last thing I remember was getting a lump under my armpit. I vaguely remember trying to squeeze the lump, thinking it was a pimple. The next piece of time that I remember is what I refer to as "A Dark Place".
Apparently I continued trying to pop the lump, and eventually lanced it. Over the next three days my behavior became erratic. I became weak, so weak that I stopped smoking cigarettes because I was too tired to reach for the pack. My wife and a friend that was staying with us both tried to get me to go to the hospital, but I refused. My wife brought a nurse to the house that started an IV on me and gave me some B vitamins through the line. On the fourth day after I found the lump my wife brought a doctor to the house. He checked my vitals and told my wife that my heart was about to stop. The lump has spread down my arm and my side to my waist.
Somehow my wife managed to get me into a taxi and hauled me off to a private hospital. Upon my arrival they demanded money, which my wife came up with, somewhere around one thousand five hundred US dollars. I was making phone calls to friends and associates back home begging for someone to get me airlifted back home. None of my friends were able to come up with the thirty thousand dollars necessary to do this. Keep in mind, I remember none of this.
I was immediately diagnosed with septicemia, meaning the infection had spread to my blood. If you know anything about septicemia and staphylococcus aureus, you know that it's a miracle that I'm here to share this story with you.
The infection was attacking my heart and kidneys the hardest. The doctors came at me with a catheter that they wanted to insert into an artery in my chest. Apparently I put up a good fight, but was later restrained with leather straps and put to sleep. A breathing tube was inserted as I had also developed pneumonia from the infection.
Surgery was performed on my side to allow for drainage of the enormous amount of puss. The small staph infection had become cellulites before going into my blood stream. After surgery I was placed in the ICU and remained in a drug induced coma for five days.
My memory begins in a very dark place. You see, there was no transition from the day of the pimple into anything. The day of the pimple is just the last memory I have of before. This dark place was very difficult to describe for the first few months after my recovery. I could picture it, even feel it, maybe even paint it, but I could not describe it in words. It wasn't until watching a movie with the typical alien abduction scene of a guy on a table being probed that I was finally able to compare the dark place with something.
Imagine the fear that Hollywood tries to portray when they create that scene for you. A person is taken from a deep sleep, nothing before, awakening to a group of strange looking, but somewhat human looking creatures. The creatures use bizarre instruments and insert them into the most painful places while the subject lays helpless, restrained and sedated by a strange force. That fear that you might experience watching such a scene is what I lived for 5 days.
I call it the dark place because it started on a street, walking with my wife. It was a black and white world, cloudy and dark, the kind of dark that occurs just before a really bad thunderstorm. The buildings and people looked so strange, like another country, even more different than the 3rd world county I was in.
The dream, if you will, changed into a hospital like scene almost instantly. I was on a bed in a hospital, but where? They inserted things, stabbed me with things, I couldn't believe it, but they were really doing it. They couldn't hear my screams. My wife lay on another bed at the end of the room. They were torturing her as well, I could hear her screams. Then, she was gone. I remember them telling me she was gone, maybe coming back in a day or so.
Next, I was in a casino with my wife. Still black and white, still dark, but we were together. I looked at her and we reassured each other with a stare that everything was better.
With no warning I was back, being stabbed and choking; small, fast moving creatures fumbling around me. The fear was beyond comprehension. "Where am I" blended into PLEASE STOP and back to "where am I" every few seconds. This went on for what seemed like an eternity, but it was measurable. As soon as I was told that I had been in a coma for 5 days I was able to determine that the length of my time in the dark place was 5 days.
Suddenly there was a nurse, a nurse that was being so incredibly nice to me. She was there talking to me for at least two hours. I wasn't awake yet, or was I? I wanted to tell her that she looked so much like my wife. She was touching my forehead and kept repeating "you're going to be fine". I remember her telling me something; that I had to prove something. I even remember her mentioning 6:30am, and that "he" would be coming. She was trying to give me strength, insisting that I show "him" at 6:30am. I was trying so hard to say thank you to this kind nurse. She couldn't seem to understand me. She couldn't understand me, so I tried showing her with my hands, but she still kept thinking it was something else. She kept saying what, what are you trying to tell me? I wanted desperately to say thank you to her. I never remember 6:30am coming or the nurse leaving, the memory ends there and goes back into hell.
My next memory is when I met the doctor and he removed the breathing tube. I don't remember waking up, just the lecture he gave me about how bad my lungs were and that I needed to stay relaxed or he would not be able to remove the tube. I remember some gagging and pain, and then some brief conversation with the doctor. I still wasn't out of the dark place.
The next moment is the happiest, most clear moment of my life. I opened my eyes. On my right hand side holding my right arm was my beautiful wife's face, smiling at me. She said "Welcome Back". I had finally escaped the dark place and realized I was awake.
Everything from that moment on is a pretty clear memory. I spent another 6 days in the hospital and spent about a month recovering at home.
During those 4 days in the hospital some very questionable things happened. One of the doctors had decided to keep me in that coma until my wife informed him that I was the only one who could pay the bill. Later, after coming out of the coma, my wife discovered that they were dosing me with heavy psycho drugs like Klonopin and Phenobarbital because they suspected me of being a drug addict. I had to bring in an army of attorneys and discontinue all treatment. It's my belief that they intended to turn me into a money generating vegetable.
Leaving the hospital in a 3rd world country is a little different than back home in the US. The hospital had a security force of no less than 50 non-uniformed guards carrying pistols and TASER guns. They don't let you leave unless you pay. We didn't have the twenty thousand dollars they asked for. I ended up giving them around three thousand and signed a promissory note. They also kept some personal belongings as collateral. Eventually they let me go, but it was like a meeting with the mafia to get out. I spent a long time being more afraid of the hospital coming to get me than I did of getting sick again.
In case you're wondering how they stopped "staphylococcus aureus", it was a powerful antibiotic called Vancomycin.
I wrote this story because I wanted to share my experience. I believe the word coma is so vague that most people have no idea what is behind the word. I also think that most Americans have no idea what's across the border. I'm not putting the 3rd world or Latin America down; I'm simply sharing my experience with you.
I also want to be clear about the medical care I received. I'll probably never know what caused the dark place to exist. It may have been the infection, the drugs, or a combination. There were definitely some bad decisions made for the most usual reason of money, but this can and does happen in the US as well.
The doctors that treated me, regardless of their intentions, saved my life. For that I will always be grateful.
I believe that before the doctors, or the antibiotics, God was with me throughout the experience. He is with me today and today I thank him for my life.
I look at things much different these days. A simple sunrise has a completely new meaning, because I now know that each one is one less in the sunrises God will grant me. I no longer walk the Earth like an immortal, doing whatever feels good because there will be no consequences. I no longer think "that won't happen to me".
If I had to give anyone reading this advice, it would only be to have faith. If you cross a border, ask God for guidance. If you find yourself in the dark place, look for him, he'll show you the way out.
Oh, one more thing; the nice nurse. After a month of conversations I remembered her and told the story to my wife. The nice nurse was my wife. I was crossing the border from the dark place back into this beautiful world and just didn't know it. She couldn't understand me when I was trying to say "thank you" because, well, I had a breathing tube in me. She couldn't understand the hand gestures because my hands were tied to the bed. She was telling me to prove to the doctor that I could breathe on my own and that he would be arriving at 6:30am.
There have been many more dots I've been able to connect. The stabbing and probing I experienced in the dark place was more than likely reality blending into the coma. Seeing my wife in the dark place had something to do with her being by my side in the hospital for the entire stay. The memory of them telling me she was gone lined up with a story she told me of them asking her to leave the ICU. It seems like every time I tried to wake up, probably from the drugs like Dormicum wearing off, they would ask her to leave and then they would re-sedate me. This was clear to me when I saw 15 boxes of Dormicum on the hospital bill.
I consider myself traumatized and don't think that will ever go away. My faith in god and the warmth of my family and friend keeps me sane. Writing this article is something I've wanted to do for months and is also excellent therapy. I hope that this story helps someone out there; writing it helped me.
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