Excerpts from my book:

Today is the day, it is a year after the day I died.  Or I guess nearly died would be the correct description. I was in respiratory arrest and nearly unconscious. I don’t have any idea how I even woke up that morning. I never should have been able to open my eyes. I knew the night before I had a pretty good upper respiratory infection going on, so that night I decided I was going to use my oxygen concentrator just to give me a little bit more oxygen while I slept. I assume that is the only reason I woke up on this morning a year ago. If I had just turned over, to go back to sleep that morning, I would not be here anymore.  A lot of people over the past couple of years have been in this position. I survived, many didn’t. But I sometimes question whether it was a good thing. I do wonder if I am really one of the lucky ones.

I called in sick to work on Monday and Tuesday of that week, when I woke up Wednesday, I knew something was different. I got up and tried to get to the bathroom, just that short walk left me sucking air trying to breathe. I made a phone call to a friend who told me that maybe it was time that I call 911 when I explained to him how much of a problem, I was having breathing that morning.

I decided I would call an ambulance or drive myself to the hospital but first I had to do a few things. I needed to make sure the windows in my house were closed because it was supposed to get hot and I needed to be sure the air was on for my furry animals. The process of closing the 8 windows in my house took way too long and took way too much energy. I barely remember but I am pretty sure I had to stop to try to get a good breath of air into my lungs a couple of times. That should have been a warning sign to call faster. But I just continued my list of things I wanted to do before I left.

If I was going to go to the hospital, I might want a bag in case I have to stay and I might want some things with me. In hindsight I didn’t pack nearly enough and I would have to ask friends to deliver things to the hospital to try to make my stay there a little more tolerable. I packed some things and then, just like you always want to wear clean underwear in the event you are in an accident, I decided that I needed to brush my teeth before going out. After all, I had woken up about two hours before this point and I couldn’t let morning breath affect those who would be treating me in the hospital.

When I got into the bathroom to brush my teeth, that was the first time I saw myself that morning. That’s when I realized just how much trouble I was in.  I looked dead. My skin was grey, my lips were blue, it was like looking at my own corpse in the mirror. I didn’t realize until that point, I was suffocating to death.

After rinsing my mouth of toothpaste, I grabbed my bag, I grabbed my phone. I dialed 911.

I told the dispatcher I couldn’t breathe and gave them my address.  I even told her that I had planned to drive myself to the emergency room but that I feared I would pass out before I got there. The ambulance is only a couple blocks away so it only took a minute for them to arrive outside.

As I tried to walk out of my front door to meet the paramedic, he asked me if I could make it to the rig parked right in front of my house. I handed him my bag and my phone since I was still on the line with emergency dispatchers.

I don’t have a large yard but that morning the ambulance may as well have been at a marathon distance from my front door. Even with the help of the paramedic I couldn’t walk to the ambulance door. I almost fell on the front lawn. I stopped to try to breathe.  Somehow, I managed to walk the additional steps I needed to get in the ambulance door.  I think the paramedic after seeing my grey skin and blue lips was pretty desperate to get me into the rig, he probably pulled me the rest of the way.

I don’t remember a lot from that point on. I heard the paramedic say that my oxygen level was at 65. I remember telling them which insurance group I was with. I recall the paramedics discussing which hospital to take me to and them deciding on going where I asked since my medical records would already be available to the doctors. I finally had oxygen given to me. Nothing in my life had felt so good. I seemed to be getting some oxygen into my system for the first time that morning without the struggle. I closed my eyes, I heard the siren and suddenly I was at the hospital. The trip was only 7 miles, I don’t remember a second of it.

Upon being rolled into the hospital emergency room I heard the paramedic mention that they had managed to get my oxygen level up to 80% on the way into the ER.  I actually felt a little comforted with that number. Being someone who deals with upper respiratory infections every year, the 80s is a common place for my oxygen level to be especially when I am sick.

Suddenly there were nurses sticking IV’s, grabbing clothing, putting my bag somewhere in the room, and then the tests started. Of course, the Covid test that we are all so familiar with today was one of the first things they did. I was eventually sent for a Cat Scan. I was entertained by the nurses who discussed how they were going to get me onto the scanner bed. I told them that I could walk and I would be fine, I would just get up and sit down on the scanner bed for them. I think I generally surprised them that I was capable of doing just that.

After returning to the emergency room, a doctor showed up, whom I hadn’t seen yet, he asked me when I had been diagnosed with Covid. I don’t know if I even answered because up until that point, I still was thinking it was just an upper respiratory infection. So, I told him, “ I guess now” and the doctor walked away.  I remember seeing him one more time a couple hours later he told me that I was in very critical condition. If I didn’t improve quickly, I would have to be put on a ventilator, and I was very sick.

The last sentence didn’t even need to be said, the sheer fact that I was in the emergency room I knew I was very sick. I am not the type of person to run to the doctor every time I have an ache or a pain. I definitely don’t willingly go to the emergency room without a dire situation. I even usually wait a full week after getting an upper respiratory infection before calling the doctor because it is more likely that I can get medication for it, since it’s been lingering that long.  So, I knew I was very ill.

I wasn’t living in a media blackout or anything. I knew having to go on a ventilator was pretty much a death sentence, at that time very few people ever made it off a ventilator. I thought about my life in the time I had before being moved to a room. I thought about all the things I had done. I knew at that point I really didn’t have a bucket list that I needed to do. I had been around the world a couple of times. I have lived all over the country. I had three specific and different careers. I was over 50.

I knew if the situation developed I would say no to a ventilator and if oxygen couldn’t save me then perhaps my life has run its course. I would dearly miss my pets, but I decided that I would say no to a ventilator. I had no desire to be put into a coma and having tubes shoved down my throat to breathe for me.  If this was going to be my end, I wanted to go conscious and aware.

To this day I am not really sure what all of the medications I was given were, I was just given little cups full of pills every 12 hours or so. Along with my regular medications I have no idea what I was taking. I do know I was put on the Remdisivir protocol. I only know that because I saw the IV bag on the fifth and final day of the regimen. I am not normally the type of person to just take medications without knowing exactly what I am putting in my body.  The treatments weren’t discussed with me. I didn’t have any idea what was being pumped into my system. I had no idea the effects they might have on me.

Throughout the past year I learned all kinds of things about Remdisivir and none of it was good. There is even a class action suit happening against the company that made the drug. Apparently, some of the batches had glass shards in it, others suffered severe kidney or liver damage resulting in deaths and injuries. I don’t know why I was spared those things, at least to this point. I have no idea if this drug has any long-term side effects.

There are a lot of reasons I am very careful as to what kind of drug is put into my body. You see…I am a red headed genetic freak of nature.  In order to be born to parents who both have brown hair I was blessed or maybe cursed is a better word with all of the recessive biological traits of both parents’ genetic strains. I don’t react very well to the side effects to a lot of medications. So typically, before I will agree to take any kind of medication, I need to know what the side effects are and I usually will decide as to whether or not I am willing to risk those side effects. In the past I had side-effects not even listed on some medications.

If I knew then what I know now about the Remdisivir I would have said no. I was too sick though I didn’t get the chance to agree or disagree.  I was really at the mercy of the doctors, who, as history has shown were at the mercy of the CDC, ultimately Dr. Fauci and his directives.

The Vaccine

With tears in my eyes, I got the first shot of the two-shot series. Then three weeks later I got the second one. Nothing happened after the first shot, so I didn’t feel as if I needed to be as worried about the second in the series.

I was just about to leave after that second dose. when I remembered that I needed proof of the vaccine for my employer who was basically illegally requiring that we provide proof.  I also needed the proof for the cruise line and probably the airlines.  Either way I asked the nurse quickly if she could print off the record for me.

As I waited in the lobby for that piece of paper, I felt strange.  It hadn’t been more than 10 minutes but suddenly I felt very weak.  I felt as if my legs were going to give out.  I sat down just in case.  I immediately thought to myself that I need to just suck it up.  I was psyching myself out. I was just expecting something to go wrong so I must be experiencing a self-fulfilling prophecy.  I pushed myself to just ignore the problem. I got my proof from the nurse and I headed out of the office to my car.

I felt as if I was walking through mud and struggling to do so. I again tried to rationalize that nothing was wrong it was just cold and windy out, so nothing was wrong I was just reacting to the weather. My plan that day was to go from the doctor’s office to the gym.  After Covid, I had worked really hard to get back some semblance of physical strength and aerobic capacity.

Before Covid I was capable of biking about an hour, moving to walking and adding in a little bit of jogging before moving to the pool and swimming a mile. That would require 35 laps of the small pool in that gym. After Covid when I felt well enough to get back into the pool, I was only capable of 2 laps. That was it, my capability of going any further was gone. I was having difficulty breathing but my physical capability was also shot. I focused on swimming first as that tends to be my strongest event. I worked for weeks to get just a couple more laps each time. I finally made it to a mile and then I started adding biking back in.

I had done well in the 5 months after Covid. Not only had I now managed to get back to being able to swim a mile in the pool but, I was also up to biking 45 minutes. I even was able to walk about a mile.  Now this was not all in the same day which is what I was used to but I was working on it. I was determined to get back to my old self.  Sadly, that will never happen.

My plan for the gym that day was to walk a mile and then try to swim at least half of a mile to start combining workouts.  What happened was anything but what my plan was.  I started to walk the track at the gym.  The track is 1/6^th of a mile long. I wanted to try to walk 7 laps and then move to the pool.  I had a problem, I only made it about half way around the track on lap 1 and my legs gave out. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t walk.  I thought that maybe I was having an off day and maybe I should just head home and try again tomorrow.

I had to use the railing on the track to support myself as I tried to get back to my bag. I struggled to get to my car. My legs weren’t working, there was a strange pain that I hadn’t felt before either. I got home that day and struggled the rest of the day to walk or to just get up from a sitting position.

I suddenly felt as if there was some kind of liquid on my arm. There was no water running, there was nothing dripping from the ceiling so what was it?  Then it started to burn. I grabbed a washcloth to wipe off whatever the substance was. But it was too late, there was an obvious burn mark on my arm where the liquid had been. This was the same arm the injection went into the day before.

I tried to wash off my arm and I was shocked at the fact that water mixed with whatever was on my arm burned as well.  I suddenly flashed to the scene in that Hunger Games movie where the water healed the participants from the fog burn.  I was experiencing the exact opposite.  Later that day I also noticed I itched. My underarm was on fire and I needed to scratch it every few minutes.  I headed to a mirror only to discover a massive red swollen rash throughout my entire underarm.  A rash I had never experienced before. I have eczema but most of the time the rash shows up on my chest or on my hands. This was a new place

I started to use the prescription eczema cream I have, the rash only spread wider and hurt more. Within a couple of days, the rash spread to my other underarm. My doctor didn’t have any idea what it might have been.  My dermatologist wasn’t sure either but I had another prescription cream given to me which at least took away the burning. The rash lasted for months. It occasionally returns.  Once the rash showed up covering my entire left shoulder and part of my arm.  Then more rash showed up on my right ankle. The rash is always the same, red, hot, burning, painful, and even with treatment with the prescription cream, it takes a long time to subside.

On the second day after the second vaccine, I went back to the gym and got onto a spin bike. It wasn’t three days earlier that I had managed to bike for 45 minutes.  I was in tears within 5 and I couldn’t go anymore.  My legs just didn’t want to work.  One day not being able to work out and walk, I can understand, maybe I just wasn’t on my game that day.  But two days in a row right after the vaccine and my legs aren’t working?  It doesn’t make sense.

I am sure I am no different from people who have an accident and become disabled in the middle of their life. I am sure I am experiencing some of the same emotions. I am not completely disabled but I am still I think experiencing some of the same emotions. Anger at so many things, hurt in terms of pain but also in terms of how this could have happened, embarrassed in how my body changed and how I am no longer able to do sometimes some very simple things, jealous of others who never got Covid and those who got the vaccines and didn’t have a problem with them. There are so many emotions tied up in me.

I am not special and there are a number of people who I am sure are going through the exact same thing as I am. I’ve learned that there are about 7% of people who have had a reaction like I have to this vaccine. There are 7% of us out there, some in much worse condition than I and some in not as bad of a condition. So I am not special in that way. But I have used some of my time to reflect on my life and my future and even on my purpose.