What Do You Call a Day That You Almost Died?
I felt like I was a nobody.
On 23 April 2019, in a lovely resort on top of a mountain in Germany, I almost died. I had a hypertensive crisis, my blood pressure was 200/120, pulse was near 160 and I crashed. For about 10 seconds (but for what felt like an eternity to me) I saw nothing but a black void. I did not hear anything or feel anything.
After a while, I heard a German-sounding voice. I heard a lot of voices. I heard my husband vaguely saying “you are going to be okay, the ambulance is here. Kanna, go into the room, I don’t want you to see mama like this.” I heard my son saying “I don’t want to go in the room, I want to be with mama. I will be quiet. I am not scared.”
I was given blood thinners, rapid blood pressure reducers, stabilised, and sent back to the resort. The next morning, I crashed again. This time, I was loaded up on pain killers and my husband drove for 9 hours in lashing rain to bring me back home.
What happened after that can only be described as a slow descent into hell. I still don’t know how to explain it, actually, as there are so many elements. I can write a whole book but I’m going to first try to write an essay.
Before that, you must know that I have been living with invisible illnesses for about a decade — fibromyalgia…
