It Felt Like A Movie

Describe a moment in your life that felt like a movie.

After a respiratory code, I was placed on a respirator and in an induced coma. When they decided to bring me out of that, it felt like I was being tortured, as my hands were tied and my face was covered with a mask. A man was sitting next to me that I didn't recognize.

As tears were rolling down my face, I heard a familiar voice and realized it was Felicia. She was telling me that I was going to be okay. She said that I just need to hang on. At that point, I believed I was in a movie, or at least hearing my friend in a movie.

And then I thought maybe I was just dreaming, except it was all so real.

The other voices I heard were two other friends. I didn't see any of them but I heard their voices or maybe I was told they were there. The fear and the tears stopped.

I realized it wasn't a dream, and even though it wasn't torture, it was. I equate it to the bone marrow biopsy, chemotherapy, a mammogram and pap smear, a colonoscopy, the chiropractor, and acupuncture sometimes. I've needed this but I don't have to like it.

I didn't get to come out of that at the moment as my respiration wasn't enough yet on my own. When I did I was off the machine, no longer tied down with no mask. Then again it did feel like that memory may have been a movie.

A few years later I had an eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) as I couldn't talk about the experience without crying.

And that man sitting next to me was husband number three. In the movie, I believed I was married to husband number two. My daughter explained that the reason I thought that was because the respiratory therapist who was treating me looked like the ex-husband, who is a respiratory therapist.

I felt so bad about that. And as soon as I got over that, which was fairly quickly really. I told him about that and then asked why he left me when I was dying. He said the machines were making noise, the nurse came in right away, so he thought it would be a good time to go to the bathroom.

He had no idea I was coding. My daughter saw them running down the hall with me when she arrived at the hospital.

I have definite memory gaps due to that experience. My husband will ask, "Do you remember when we..." Nope, I'm sorry I do not." And sometimes I have a vague memory that again feels like it may have been a movie. The way I know it wasn't a movie is because the hubby remembers it clearly.

My gratitude for this experience was that I couldn't deal with all of what was going on straight forward, so I could experience it as maybe a movie, maybe a dream!

I am so grateful to be alive. I have added so many more grandchildren and great-grandchildren than I ever expected to get to know. I have a husband that I know now that I can count on! He will never leave me again to go to the bathroom after hearing about it from me several times since! JK

The truth is that many days it is hard to imagine that time happening that way. I was fortunate to not have to remember the bone marrow biopsy that my husband said he wasn't having without being put under. He said I screamed out in pain. I have no memory of that.

I have very little memory now of the days I spent in the hospital. I remember a housekeeper told me that she was told I was the worst code they had on that floor. I guess that is saying something. It also says it wasn't my time. My experience with death was not scary or bad.

It was but a moment of time in my life that felt like a movie of someone else's life experience.