It's Weirdly Embarrassing Actively Dying in the Hospital Around the Holidays
Soooo about that… I was literally putting the finishing touches on my November blog. I closed my laptop and immediately had to be rushed to the hospital, where I ended up staying for almost a week because I was actually dying and my body was starting to shut down my major organs. LOL.
DECEMBER FAVORITES:
Favorite Album: Something Beautiful - Miley Cyrus
Favorite TV Show: Dexter
The part where I start dying
So let me set the scene for y'all. (For those who get grossed out easily, this may not be for you.)
It all started when I was wrapping up November's blog. It was around 10:30 p.m. that Sunday, and as I was finishing some editing, I suddenly couldn't breathe. It was instant, like nothing I have ever felt before. It felt like a truck had run through me, but I wasn't in any pain. I just couldn't breathe or finish a sentence without having to take multiple breaths.
Usually when this happens, I hop in the shower because it's normally mucus from a cold that’s coming on, and the steam helps clear it out. But this time it just kept getting worse. I got weaker. I started stumbling and was barely able to walk, I could barely talk, and I could barely complete thoughts in my head.
My friend told me to call the nurse triage line, and the nurse was like, "Yeah, you need to get to the hospital as soon as possible." She wanted to send an ambulance, but I didn't want to pay for that, so I had my friend take me and drop me off. Please tell me why I was on my insurance website seeing who was in-network before I went. Not me literally dying but still making sure it wasn't out of network.
THANK YOU RUTH. OMFG. YOU LITERALLY SAVED MY LIFE. Like, literally.
I arrived at the emergency room at Alaska Regional Medical Center. I got through the front desk, and they clocked my temperature at like 103 degrees with a super high heart rate. They immediately put me on fluids and drew blood, where they found I had a heavily elevated lactic acid level.
So... I triggered the hospital's sepsis protocol, and they immediately kicked into action because ya girl was dying. I was so out of it I thought they said I triggered their “substance abuse” protocol.
For those who don't know, sepsis is a life-threatening medical emergency where your body's response to an infection basically goes into overdrive and starts attacking itself. It can damage your organs, lead to organ failure, and become fatal if it's not treated quickly. Every hour treatment is delayed significantly increases the risk of death.
So thank God I caught it immediately and knew something was wrong, and thank God for Ruth for pushing me to call the nurse triage line because I almost tried to sleep it off.
The nurse immediately pumped me full of antibiotics, but because they were pushed so fast, I ended up throwing up everywhere... I was so embarrassed… I was even wearing a mask too. LOL. So that was fun. I am kinda pressed though because it was a Lululemon mask that I absolutely loved. The nurse asked if I wanted to keep it, but I was so grossed out and didn't want to deal with it, so I threw it away.
So I was sitting there, BBQ sauce on my titties, after the antibiotics, and my body started violently shaking. It was honestly so embarrassing because I was wearing Crocs, and they kept making this awful slapping noise against my feet every time I shook. The lady next to me called the nurse over and was like, "Is he okay?"
After that, they finally admitted me into the ER and put me in a room for better monitoring. By this point, it was like 1:30 a.m. or something on Monday. I honestly don't know because I was in and out of consciousness.
The rest of the morning was just me peeing in cups, getting what felt like endless blood work, and having imaging done on my chest and abdomen. Then they finally fed me around lunch. IDK what I was expecting from hospital food, but don't come to the ER hungry; I'll tell you that. I was 100% grateful for the food though, and I attached a picture so y'all can judge for yourselves.
At one point, they literally rolled my entire bed down for more imaging. I was considered high risk, which was funny because I was walking to the bathroom just fine. I felt like a Disney princess though, so I started waving at the staff pretending I was in a Disneyland parade.
Y'all, I was loopy. Give me a break.
Finally, the doctors came back and were not happy with my labs because my lactic acid levels continued to rise. They admitted me to the actual hospital for even closer monitoring. I didn’t just have sepsis.. I HAD SEVERE SEPSIS… which is the step right before septic shock/death.
I had never been admitted past the emergency room before, so I had no idea what to expect. By the time I came back from my last imaging session, they had already moved all my stuff up to the sixth floor and had thrown away my pudding cups that I was saving.
The way I was so sad over those pudding cups that the nurses actually felt bad and brought me more for the trip upstairs. It was honestly so sweet of them.
This room was NICE though. It had a beautiful view of downtown Anchorage and the mountains, and I had the room all to myself. They took such good care of me, and honestly, the food was phenomenal. I'll include pictures of all my meals because I know some of y'all are gonna be curious.
The only downside was that since they still had no idea what triggered the sepsis, everyone wore PPE around me, and any visitors had to wear masks too.
Y'all... I was DOWN BAD.
The hospital is not a place to rest. I couldn't sleep more than two hours at a time because someone was always coming in to give me fluids, antibiotics, blood tests, blood clot shots, doctor visits, or the IV machine would start screaming with that awful beeping sound that I hope I never hear again for the rest of my life.
I was exhausted. I only let a few people visit because all I wanted was sleep. I had to take it whenever I could get it.
By Tuesday, I started to smell, so I finally took a shower after the nurses gave me shampoo and soap. It was way harder than I expected because I could barely bend either arm thanks to having IVs in both of them, but I MADE IT WORK because I was not about to keep smelling like a hospital/BO.
Unfortunately, my labs were actually getting worse. PERIOD IKTR! My lactic acid climbed to 2.7, and the staff still had no clue what was causing the severe sepsis. Every bacterial test came back negative, and my normal viral panel (COVID, flu, pneumonia, etc.) all came back negative too.
So... they had absolutely no idea what my body was fighting.
By now they were pumping me full of Vancomycin, this super strong broad-spectrum antibiotic, because they were basically fighting blindfolded. At one point the doctor asked if I was doing heroin or meth because he was completely stumped.
I was like, "Y'all have taken enough of my blood. Go test it if you don't believe me."
By Wednesday morning, my lactic acid dropped from 2.7 all the way down to 0.4, which meant my body was no longer fighting for its life. LOL. Bruh, please tell me why it went down quickly like it never happened.
I was finally able to go home, which I was SO happy about because I just needed to sleep. It all happened so quickly! One moment I was fighting for my life, and then 24 hours later I was home?
But... the story doesn't end there.
I got sick again during Christmas. Then again after New Year's, where I ended up at urgent care. Then AGAIN in early February.
O.M.F.G.
I was really going through it at the beginning of the year. I was just constantly sick and basically bed-bound.
For a few months after the hospital, I started having panic attacks at night. I'd sleep on the couch because I just couldn't be in my bed, and I genuinely thought that was going to be the night I died. I couldn't catch my breath, nothing I did seemed to help, and all I could do was lie there and hope it would pass. This happened many, many times…
I remember getting blood drawn in March and sitting in my car afterward crying because it felt like I was right back in that hospital room. Still to this day, the doctors have zero clue what triggered the severe sepsis, but they have concluded that it was the right virus at the worst time, as my body was sick in September, October, and November, and it just couldn't fight anymore.
So yeah...
I was not okay this last winter.
There is something about almost dying that really puts life into perspective because... WTF.
Like, when you think about it, I was lying in a hospital bed, banking on the medication working and fighting off whatever was inside of me as my body kept getting closer to septic shock. Because what if I had been too late? What if I had just tried to sleep it off? What if I hadn't trusted my gut?
I laid awake for months replaying that night over and over, thinking about how different the outcome could have been. Many of those nights ended with me crying myself to sleep with the anxiety. Even writing this, I am getting super emotional reliving those moments.
Thankfully, I have had time to process everything. I am better now, and I know it sounds cliché, but I really am living life to the fullest most days because it can all be taken away in an instant.
So go ask that person out. Go on that trip. Do the thing you've been putting off. Have an adventurous and fulfilling life because you, too, could just be sitting in bed one night and your body suddenly decides it has had enough.
I just got lucky this time. But what about the next time?
So that is where I'll leave y'all for this blog. I have really missed writing, and after everything that happened, I finally feel inspired to do it again.
