What it feels like to be in a coma

I remember hearing people around me. Everyone was staring at me and I could feel it, but I couldn't open my eyes to look at them. I remember hearing the familiar voices of my loved ones talking about my every movement like it was a miracle. "LOOK! She moved her finger!" someone would say. "I wonder if she can hear us?" someone else would ask. Then I heard my mom, my rock, the one with all the info (which she made sure of to the best of her ability) "Yes, she can hear you." She told them. And at that moment I relaxed because I knew as long as she was there I was safe and everything would be ok.

She then took my hand and started talking to me. She would talk to me for hours and never let go. I could feel her warm touch and it made my heart smile deep inside, something I still had control of. I had many thoughts and emotions but didn't have the power over my body to express them. So I lay there very aware of my surroundings when awake and then drifting off to sleep. 

(...)

As for the actual have a machine breath for me part. I describe it as one of the worst experiences I have ever been through, like a sort of slow torture. The machine pumps oxygen into your body and breaths for you at a set pace that is appropriate for your size and age. The oddest thing to me was that it was set to set an abnormally slow pace that I constantly felt like they were suffocating me. Its felt like a slow torture where I would nearly die of no oxygen then they would give me some at the last second before I died. I guess that is a normal feeling, to feel like your suffocating and part of it has to do with the huge tube you have inserted into your throat. 

(...)

I remember actually being happy to have so many loved ones surrounding me. I cannot tell you enough how much the support of those people helped me get through that time and pull through. Without them I may not be alive today. My sister and my best friend both wrote me notes. Long notes expressing their love for me and telling me of all that was going on in the world that I was missing and how I needed to hurry and come home so I could join them once again. Keeping my hope and spirits alive, that's what they were doing. They were beautiful notes and I cried not only when I read them the first time, but much later when I got to leave the hospital. 

(...)

So, I guess what I am trying to say is that if you have a friend or loved one who must endure this procedure, just know how much you being there, talking to them and holding there hand, makes a difference. I can tell you from experience, I truly feel I might have given up a few times without them. So when your there by there bedside wondering whats going on in their head. Talk to them, they can hear you, they can feel you, even if they cant tell you how much it means to them. You are making a difference and be sure to inspire hope and create possible future scenarios to instill the future they still have and remind them why they are fighting. 

                                                 By Aubrey Allyn

Whole story/article:Go here:What it feels like to be in a coma.