From: "Karla N" <ifirgit@webcntrl.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2000 3:41 PM
Subject: Karla
Dear Fellow IAS Members,
I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of your prayers and good wishes. I have not had the time to go thru them all, but please know that each one of them carries deep meaning for me.
I would like to tell my story if you don't mind. I know from reading there was some different information put out....I will tell you exactly what my doctor told me and the things I remember.
To be honest things did not feel right even the day before my surgery. I arrived at the hotel and immediately fell asleep. I barely woke up enough to take my bowel preps ( and had accidents in bed....slept thru all the sensations of having to go to the bathroom ). Luckily I had asked for a 5am wake up call because I know that I would not have woken up without it. I felt real drugged....even though I hadn't taken my pain medications...even for my flight down. I got over to the hospital and checked in, but I kept falling asleep. I assumed it was because I had not gotten hardly any sleep the few nights before my leaving. They had to keep waking me up for everything. I don't think that they would have needed to give me anesthesia!!!! Looking back I wonder if somewhere in this lies a clue as to what really happened. I have had this happen to me before....not this badly...they injected air through my neck the last time. But on subsequent surgeries they then used the fiber optic wires and determined that I would never have a problem with anesthesia again....that I could go back to the normal way of using the regular airway. I had several "normal " surgeries after and had no problems. So much for that!
I don't even remember being wheeled into the OR and Dr. Zachary has said that I wasn't even prepped. They had just given me the medicine to make me ga-ga and I flatlined. Yes, my heart stopped or as Dr. Zachary explained...I was a case straight out of the movie flatliners. Dr. Zachary said that he had to start cpr immediately....and that they all thought I was gone...there was no airway and they could not visualize my trachea (apparently it is as small as my veins...they always have to use baby needles...well they had to use an infant intubation tube too). They did get my heart started.....and that is where I start remembering.....I felt the cutting on my throat....the pulling and yanking on my body...everybody yelling and screaming...wanting to know if they should paralyze me. Wanting to know what effects this was going to have on me...neurologically, cardiac....you name it! I kept trying to tell them.....and they knew I was awake....that I wanted them to stop....I wanted to die! They didn't hear me and I was so mad! You see, even in this moment of terror, I knew that they would never want to do surgery on me again....that I would have to go back to living my life as awful as it has been....and I did not want that. Besides, what I heard them say in that OR told me that I did not want to live.....not that way.
Luckily, as they became able to check out my status' they discovered that I have suffered no consequences from the episode. I had a respirator for a litle over a day and that was way too long. I was told that they would not do anymore surgery on me....and yes, I did cry....wanting to die. Not wanting to go through the torture anymore. But, I prayed......just wanting to know why the Lord had allowed this to happen to me. I don't have answers for it....or all of the other difficulties he has led me through. But he has also seen my pain and my doctors have told me that they will do my surgery...I believe that is the Lord at work! Hurray!!! But, I have questions to ask of them....number one being....please tell me now if you are actually going to do the surgery....don't let me go home only to have you tell me there that you won't touch me. And second, they have been mentioning doing a lesser surgery.....one that has been done before with no success....I don't want them to do that....because for me that would just be another unnecessary procedure....one with no clear answers for me.
I know that this is a horror story and that many of you probably do not care to hear it.....but this is all a part of our illness and the doctors doing repeated surgeries.....over and over. If we keep putting ourselves at risk ( and I did not have a choice in this one ) it could happen to any one of us. One of my surgeons told me that it took me to show them that they should never ever do surgery just because. Even though I wasn't a "just because" case.....it could very easily have happened to someone who was.
I don't have great computer access so it is very hard for me to respond to your messages. But please know that I love each and everyone of you. Thank you Pam for all your love and support....you are a doll! To Mary....God Bless You! I love you! Be strong! And Bev, thanks for all your work at trying to put things together when you were so busy yourself. I can never say how much you mean to me.
Love, Karla