Too Close For Comfort

I have come uncomfortably close to death several times thus far in my life, but my most recent brush was one too close for comfort.

I once was nearly killed in a car accident that actually never happened. Before we were married, my husband, then boyfriend, and I were in a car, crossing an intersection and someone ran a red light, and missed us by literally a hair. As I saw the car speeding toward us, I knew we were going to die, but miraculously, Randy hit the gas and the speeding car missed us completely. I was terrified.

When we had our house fire in 2002, if Mom had not awakened me, alerting me to the fire, we would have died in our sleep. The fire crept across the attic, the ceiling would have collapsed and we would have died in our beds.

But more recently, I entered the hospital for a right total knee replacement. During my recovery, I evidently came very close to respiratory arrest, saved by an attentive physical therapist. I had stood at the bedside and laid back down, I still had the epidural in place, and I remember laying back and sort of fading out.

The next thing I remember was being jostled awake and told I was being transferred to ICU, and someone came in and told me they thought I had stopped breathing. There was a theory that I had too much narcotic and stopped breathing, so they shut off my narcotic epidural, and the pain in my knee came back with a roar. They kept telling me I couldn't have anything, and it was excruciating. Over the next several days, it became obvious that I had been left alone, for over 2 hours and somehow the head of the bed was flattened, and I slowly began to stop breathing. If it wasn't for the physical therapist checking on me, I am sure I would have died.

It's really all a blur, but I am so glad just to have survived that hospitalization. The care was horrible. I cannot believe it was that bad, but it was. It will be quite some time before I get the 2nd knee done, and it sure won't be at Olathe Medical Center.