People may be contracting COVID-19 but they are dying from ARDS. I am a survivor of ARDS. Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. When they live, they are ARDS survivors. When they pass their lungs fail and they drown. I am an ARDS survivor. I don’t really care if you’re tired of hearing about it from me; I have an interesting perspective.

I am not trying to scare you. It’s just that I am a survivor.

Not one single person from infant to centenarian is safe from this. Especially you beach goers.

We are in this together, singularly.

We will meme our way through this but it is going to get worse before it gets better.

Four years ago (March 12, 2016) I was intubated, asleep, shut down, shut off from the world, much like we are shut down right now. I stayed in a medically induced coma for 23 days straight.

If we think this virus is going away in six weeks, we are mistaken.

After I was discharged, the challenges hit me in the face… I had gotten the strength to walk again, and feed myself but I did not have the strength to stand for more than 10 minutes. I could not lift a gallon of milk. I could not lift my leg up to step out of the shower, baths were better, but getting up out of the tub took tremendous effort that meant Tony would have to lift me up to get out. I could not go up and down the stairs to do the laundry. I crawled upstairs to my bed every night. The hole in my neck from my tracheostomy hurt. I could not prepare dinner for more than a few minutes because I was just so damn weak. I was scared. I wanted so badly to be healthy and be a working functioning adult. I was depressed. I was detoxing from a month worth of Ketamine and Propofol. I was alive. Barely.

Tony and I panicked and we lived in this state of panic for months. We considered moving into his parents house because we needed help with basic needs like cooking and cleaning.

I woke up from the coma April 3rd.

And was released from the Hospital April 15th.

I returned to work August 6th.

I was fired February 24th.

I missed work often. They weren’t willing to deal with it. I had severe PTSD, suffered from delirium, my GI tract was a mess from being on antibiotics for 40+ days. I had very little working short term memory. I was manic but no strength to carry on, and wildly depressed about it. I was emotional all the time. My hair was falling out from the trauma and malnutrition I had experienced. Not to mention I could not take deep breaths in. When I did, it felt like my lungs were being shredded apart. I did breathing treatments and deep breathing exercises but most of all, what I needed was time. Time to heal. Time to find who I was now, because it certainly could no longer be who I was before. I should not have returned to work. I should not have forced myself. I needed the money. I had bills and expenses; I had debt!

This was all caused by a virus that resulted in respiratory failure. Sound familiar? Sounds like it’s happening everywhere?

My husband felt like he sold his soul to the devil to bring me back from the dead. He could not speak to me for 23 days straight while I was intubated. and at that time was told he would never speak to me again. He was told to prepare himself and my son for the worst.

After I returned home, Tony had to go to work like nothing had happened. The problem was he didn’t want to leave my side. We were full of emotions and we were happy to be alive. But we were scared. We did not want this to happen again. We had together and separately experienced such a trauma. It was not easy to try to return to normal after this.

I do fear it will happen again, I live cautiously but not in fear.

I am four years out and still have PTSD, not as badly as before. I had to expand my team of medical professionals in order to carry on in a healthy manner. I see my primary care doctor regularly. I see both a psychiatrist and a counselor, I follow positive entities on facebook and Instagram. But also for the record, no one needs to have been through a trauma to go to a counselor; they are seriously helpful.

My point in all this is I am one person and this affected much of my life for a very long time. And still does. The ripple effect of life after the coma has taken years to heal. Not just for me, but for my family as well. What I experienced four years ago as a single person is what the whole world is experiencing together right now. It is harrowing. Each person that survives this illness has a major road to recovery ahead of them. The healing doesn’t just affect the person with the illness, it affects everyone around them. At this point it has obviously affected the entire world and my point is we need to give healing a significant amount of time.

After my trauma, changes began to take form personally for me, my family, and my friends. I hope changes and maybe an entire revolution is taking place before our very eyes, and even though tough times are ahead, we can weather this storm and come out better off than we were before.

Changes since my coma:

• I am no longer in a rush. Life is so short. Ben Franklin said, “Haste makes waste.”  I take my time with things now, and I do not rush in my car nor in the grocery. I even tell other people often, “no rush.”
• I try very hard to be kind  to everyone and when people aren’t kind to me, I kill others with kindness. I have learned from this that EVERYONE has a story or trauma or tragedy. No one deserves to be treated poorly. I will be thankful for everyone around me and the stories they carry.
• I will try everyday to have a positive outlook.
• I appreciate and love every minute and every phone call with my brothers, sisters, nieces, and nephews. Family means so much more now.
• Knowing my dad sat by my side through it all makes me respect and love him even more. We are closer now.
• I’m closer with my husband and our love has reached an unconditional level of honor and admiration.
• Speaking of unconditional love, friends came forward to be my family and they have solidified themselves as family in this event. We have unwavering love and admiration for one another.
• Every moment with my son feels special.
• I am full of gratitude to the point where it is annoying. An example is how much I thank my current boss for giving me a job
• I am a much stronger advocate to take care of myself… mind, body, and soul.
• I got Dottie the dog, and she has brought us a serious amount of responsibility and joy.

I am sure there are many other ways in which the coma had a positive effect on my life. My life has been the lotus from the mud, but so has everyone else’s, that’s how life is. My mom always said, “that’s life.”

It took time to heal from my trauma, but the healing did happen. Didn’t Maya Angelou say, “every storm runs out of rain.”

We as a nation are still in our coma. In fact, it’s only just begun. But I strongly believe with time, and love, we will get through this together. We must remember healing takes time.

Love,

Amanda