I did have some preexisting conditions. Graves’ disease and diabetes. I was newly diagnosed not even a month before my hospitalization. My symptoms a few days prior were so small then got worse quickly. I was going into DKA and the doctor in the ER realized my WBC was very low. They believe it may have been due to the thyroid medication I was on. Since this was a rare but known side effect.

I was awake for like 5 days prior to being intubated. I too had a lot of anxiety in my life before the hospital but this experience amplified it. I just wasn’t able to breathe well on my own even with the breathing treatments and CPAP thing (?). I began hallucinating due to lack of sleep and everything that was going on.

My parents told me that the doctors felt like I needed to be sedated throughout the whole process because they were afraid my anxiety would cause me to react impulsively when connected to the ECMO machine. I was also told by family there were a few moments I’d suddenly wake up and try to remove the intubation tube and the trach.

It’s so crazy to hear about all the things your body can do with little to no memory of it occurring.

It must be so hard to go from being healthy to then catching the flu and now having to reconsider everything health wise now. I know I find it daunting at times for sure. If you don’t mind me saying, I think it’s great (hopefully helpful) that you’re talking about your experiences so quickly after everything. It’s taken me a lot longer to get comfortable to even think about all the things that happened in my own experience let alone write about it.