The Truth About Waking From A Coma (Its Nothing Like The Movies)

Confusion. Terror. Panic.

It would be hard to choose which one of these words sums it up best.

How Its Portrayed

I’ll never forget watching the show “House”. There was a character in a coma in this one room who had been out for a year or something silly like that.

House would go into his room, sit on his bed and talk things out with his comatose body.

And then, in one episode, the man woke up from his coma and the hospital was all in a buzz. House walked into the room to see him, almost sad that he would be leaving.

And the man was standing! Getting dressed! He turned to tell House that he was getting out and going home!

I wanted to laugh.

I was angry.

My eyes watered.

Why couldn’t it have been that easy?

First Thoughts After Waking

It may sound like a cheesy romance movie but this is the truth. I opened my eyes, tried to look around, and all I could see was my wife’s beautiful smiling face, directly above me as she watched me come back to life.

My wife is not one to be flashy. A natural beauty, she doesn’t wear makeup or jewelry or do crazy things with her hair. However, when I woke up, she was all made up, wearing earrings and her hair was nicely styled.

What did my crazy mind think? “This must be my OTHER wife.”

Yep. That’s what I rationalized. I simply must have two wives and this was the one waiting for me to wake up. Thank God I couldn’t talk.

Soon after, a nurse came into the room and said “How do you feel? You’ve been asleep for 24 days!” She seemed happy and genuine… but I had a tube down my throat and was completely paralyzed.

I didn’t answer.

You see… In my mind:

• The hospital was on a boat in a lake
• One of my nurses was a 12 year old boy with pink hair
• I was seeing amputee children hiding around my room
• I was hearing horrible music that didn’t exist (audible hallucinations)
• Other people were sleeping around me
• I was kidnapped
• The hospital was harvesting my organs for profit
• Everything I looked at moved on its own
• Snakes were crawling on the ceiling
• People were walking outside our window on the 10th floor
• And the list could go on and on

And every one of these hallucinations are still burned into my memory.

The Physical Wasn’t Much Better

Keep in mind that before this happened to me, I was doing CrossFit 3-5 times per week. I had just hit a personal goal of dead lifting 400 lbs.

And now:

• I could barely move my fingers and it would wear me out
• My legs were dead. One would stay dead and limp for 6 months
• My feet felt like blocks of wood
• A machine was breathing for me
• I had lost 65 lbs of muscle
• I couldn’t scratch an itch, point to anything, or even reach for my wife

I was paralyzed by weakness.

The Frustration Would Drive Me Insane

Eventually, I managed to lift my hands a couple of inches off the bed. This was celebrated by my sweet Felicia and the nurses because now I should be able to tell them things I needed.

Oh I’ll never forget the misery and frustration.

My eyes were blurry and I wondered what time it was. So I tried to point.

They noticed my point and the guessing game began. And they guessed everything on that wall except for the clock.

“The glove box? This sign? The needle disposal box? The sink?”

They couldn’t have been more frustrating if they’d tried. I finally just closed my eyes and looked away. They assumed I’d hallucinated.

Another time they brought in an alphabet board so I could point to letters. What an amazing idea!

Excited, I struggled to lift my hand and point to some letters. Easy right?

Wrong. Aiming was impossible. And with no way to say “No, that’s the wrong letter” as soon as I touched the wrong letter they would all start guessing words using my mistake as their guide.

Then, as I just stared straight ahead, the tears would start rolling down my cheeks… and I couldn’t do a thing about it. Couldn’t even wipe them away or blink to make them stop.

“What’s wrong?” they would ask, so concerned and trying to comfort me. “But sadly, there was no way I could tell them. I would just sit and let the tears roll, the simplest of messages completely lost because I touched the wrong letter.

I have people ask me “Did you see any bright lights when you died?”

My answer is always “Listen… if I went anywhere, it was Hell.”

In Conclusion

I share this part of my story because I want to mitigate your expectations if you have a loved one in a similar situation. Hollywood has lied to you!

But even if your’s isn’t so bad, don’t let Hollywood convince you that your loved one is going to pop out of bed one day ready to go home.

Recovery, especially recovery of this caliber, requires an insane and intense amount of patience from both the patient and the family. Not to mention the nurses.

Being on the nursing side of things, I could recognize a hallucinating patient nearly instantly. I would sit with them and comfort them and help them work through it.

There is no point in telling them “It’s not real.” They see it. They hear it. You’re more likely to convince them that they’re seeing ghosts than you are to convince them it’s in their heads.

Even now, 7 years later, I remember every one of them just like any real memory in my head.

I started this post with 3 words and I’ll end it with 3 more that you will have to master if you want to recover for yourself or help a loved one with their recovery.

Patience. Mental Fortitude. Toughness.

Thank you so much for reading my post.

Read my full story here! From Coma to Comeback