“I was in a medically induced coma for six weeks.
It was terrifying.”
Ever wondered what it’sactuallylike to be in a coma?
Well, the internet’s got you covered.
Here are some of the most fascinating and wildest stories:
1.
“I was in a coma for four days.
When I woke up, everyone was talking about the baby boy I had.
I had lost my long-term memory and didn’t even remember being pregnant.
My son was at the children’s hospital in the NICU.
I delivered him via C-section at 29 wks.
My husband said I was talking like a child when I first woke up.”
I remembered one conversation my mom had with a nurse while I was under.
My son was my third surgery.
So,my son was what surprised me."
u/PennyCundiff
2.
“A friend of mine was in a six-month coma after an accident.
“He said he just wanted to be told what was real and what was happening.”
u/Blameking27
3.
Trying to communicate with the nurses while intubated and drugged was very difficult.”
u/Tinman556
4.
She was a Rhodes Scholar nominee (I think, second-hand information) and quite brilliant.
She was still 25 mentally as if everything was just on pause.
Her body was really well-preserved; she’s really fun and cool and sort of the ultimate cougar.
Plus, she totally woke up to the internet."
u/horsman
5.
“I was in a coma for 11 days from a severe brain injury.
I dont remember being in a coma or waking up from a coma.
Im told that my personality changed afterward.
I had to rebuild most areas of my life.
It sucked, but it was probably a good thing.”
u/heyrainyday
6.
He never believed anything he couldn’t touch, no talks about souls, or anything similar.
You guessed it black hair, age, body all correct.
He had never met or seen this woman in his life.
His whole idea of life changed after this.
It still makes me think sometimes… Where was he?
He thinks all the people in bubbles around him were patients in the same hospital.
We’ll probably never know."
u/KayPet
7.
“I was in a coma for three days after a car accident where I hit my head.
There really was nothing.
It’s not even like sleeping because when you wake up from sleeping, you know you were asleep.
It is like blinking; one second you are doing something, then the next something totally different.
I remember saying, ‘You are super cute,’ but that’s all.”
“I believe that was before I went into the coma after the accident.
u/sharms2010
8.
“My friend was in a coma about 10 years ago for roughly three weeks after a car accident.
He felt like he was actually dying and his last few seconds just stretched on and on forever.”
“He mentioned that he could fly (in the coma dream) and that it was amazing.
u/Ask_A_Sadist
9.
“I was in a coma for four days from bacterial meningitis.
When I woke up, I was completely deaf!
I had to communicate with my parents and doctors with a notepad and pen.
u/austin_cody
10.
“If you have a friend in this situation, dont disregard them.
u/croatianscentsation
11.
Both of her best friends died instantly.
She was the only survivor, but they didn’t think she would make it.
She was in a coma for nine months and was in what is called a waking coma.
She retained normal periods of sleep and open-eyed wakefulness, but no higher brain functions.
These are common problems of people who suffer a TBI.
She went back to school after the coma, but her brain was still healing a lot.
She was held back another year because her brain was still not retaining anything.
Today she is a wonderful, bright 30-year-old with a college degree.
u/mortalcoil1
12.
“I was in a coma for close to six weeks.
When I woke up, I had to learn everything again.
I had most of my speaking abilities, but my motor control was horrid.
That took about three weeks.
u/nitzlarb
13.
“My mom was in an induced coma for three months.
When she woke up, she thought the hospital was trying to kill her.
She tried to get out of bed, and she fell on the floor because she couldn’t walk.
She was mostly freaked about how her feet had lost their form.
They were humped over from not being used.
Every muscle, she had to learn again.
She couldnt talk well or write at all.
She has different handwriting after re-learning.
She said she hated how perfect her hands looked.
Her nails and cuticles were perfect and clean from not being used.
I remember trying to brush her hair after she woke up, and almost all of it fell out.
And she almost died pretty much every day she was in her coma.”
“She had sepsis from a diverticulitis surgery gone wrong.
She is always dizzy.
But its been five years now, and her recovery has been miraculous.”
u/CherrySlusheez
14.
“I held my grandfather’s hand while he was comatose on his deathbed.
I spoke in his ear my feelings toward him and the effect he had on my life.
Even typing this now strongly reminds me of that experience, and it’s making me cry.
People can hear you.
Never lose the chance to say what you should probably say to them.”
u/Empyrealist
15.
“I was out for 45 days, no white light, no tunnel, nothing.
Woke up and couldn’t remember who I was.
For six months, I never really fully recovered, so I just started life again.
I get memories now and then they aren’t pleasant.
A woman came and sat by my bed for six weeks, turns out she was my ex-lover.
I couldn’t remember her.
I also didn’t even recognize my mother.”
u/Chris_Thrush
16.
“I was in a medically induced coma (with induced, full-body paralysis) for six weeks.
There were a handful of times that I distinctly remember where I ‘woke up’ in my head.
What was the experience like?
“When I would wake up in my head, I had no idea as to what had happened.
I started to panic and for a minute there, I thought I might be dead.
Then I realized that I was thinking, so that didn’t seem right.
I tried to move and couldn’t.
I tried to speak and couldn’t.
I tried to scream and couldn’t.
The next time it happened was when my best friend came to see me.
Again, I can’t move, I can’t see, and I can’t talk.
That kind of helped.
I had to calm myself down again so that I could drift off again.
Next was who the president was.
I answered Clinton, so I got that right.
Then they asked if I knew where I was.
I assuredly said, ‘Honolulu’ because in my dreams, I had been in Honolulu.
They appeared quite relieved when I came up with that.”
u/TheOpus
17.
“My dad was in a coma for about two months a couple years ago.
He said it was very vivid, and he walked across the country a couple times during it.
“I was in a coma for about two weeks following a cardiac arrest as a teen.
I was technically dead for over an hour, in fact.
People often ask me if I could hear my family talking to me or if I was dreaming.
The answer is ‘No.’
Repeat six or seven times.”
“The coma was not even blackness.
It just does not exist.
u/iwillcorrectyou
19.
“I spent two weeks in the coma and another 48 days.
Today, I’m a happy, healthy 17-year-old.
u/XxBURNB0YxX
20.
“My wife was in a medically induced coma for two weeks, about 10 years ago.
When she woke up, she had very wrong memories.
They were all based on conversations people had while in the room with her.
For example, she thought they flew her to Washington DC for treatment.
Somehow, she overheard this while out and her brain interpreted it to meansheflew to DC.”
u/kp1877
21.
“I was in a coma for three days following a serious cycling accident, medically induced.
I woke up with zero recollection of why I was there or what was said while I was out.
u/robyr
22.
“I was in a medically induced coma for two weeks, about three months ago.
I had nightmares the entire time from the medicine they were using to knock me out.
I thought I had been kidnapped by a nurse.
It was not fun.”
“I can’t say that I knew I was in a coma or anything.
This was not like that.
I was convinced it was all really happening.”
u/senorcoach
23.
“Back in the ’90s, my great grandfather had a stroke.
u/GoldH2O
24.
“I had a seizure and was in a medically induced coma for three days when I was 17.
To be honest, I dont remember anything.
When I woke up and was coherent; I couldnt recall anything from actually being in the coma.
They had even moved me to a hospital over 100 miles away.
It was really just nothing but black.
No dreams, no lights, no voices, just nothing.”
u/chazzybeats
25.
Well, time goes by and the woman wakes up, all of a sudden.
You’re the one that was so nice to me!”
u/noplzstop
26.
“I was in a coma for nine days.
When I woke up, I was still on a ventilator.
When they took me off the ventilator, my body didn’t remember to breathe on its own.
I literally had to relearn how to breathe.
I had to put all my mental focus on breathing.
It was really weird.”
“For all the people wondering how I slept, I didn’t for the first couple of days.
So, I started focusing on breathing again, but I was really angry about it.
My nurse came running over yelling at me to breathe.
I glared at her, and screamed in my non-existent voice, ‘I.
Good job,’ then walked away.
u/DROPTHENUKES
27.
“My wife was in a medically induced coma for four days.
She had a reaction to contrast dye, and her heart stopped for 20 minutes.
For nearly three months, she was confabulating about her long-dead parents.
She would speak about them like they were in the next room.
Or, she would say her daughter or brother called…but they hadn’t.
Over and over, she thought her mom was alive, then her dad.
Drove me nuts having to (gently) correct her many times per day.
Three months later, she began to come back.”
“The confabulations stopped, and now, things are reversed.
She can remember recent events, but her long-term memories are gone.
I don’t know what that’s like, but it must be awful.
She cries sometimes for her lost memories, but overall, she is doing very well.”
u/urgent45
28.
“About 20 years ago, my cousin had a severe head injury from a fall.
He was about 20 at the time and was in a coma for almost four weeks.
When he woke up, he fairly quickly discovered that his memory was eidetic.
Also, he could memorize images with just a few second’s glance.”
“His memory is still eidetic today.
u/cheezemeister_x
And lastly…
29.
“I was in a medically induced coma for approximately a week due to sepsis.
I thought I was 10 years younger.
I thought I had gotten into a wreck and that my fiance at the time was an abusive ex-boyfriend.
It took another month and a half for me to understand what happened.”
“I was in and out of surgery and died a couple times in that time.
I still can’t eat cheeseburgers.”
u/Shelliton
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
