5 ms·
I absolutely believe the premise of the article. I suffered an incomplete (cervical) spinal cord injury years ago. Through my 'medical journey' and many many
by serf 5y ago
I absolutely believe the premise of the article.
I suffered an incomplete (cervical) spinal cord injury years ago.
Through my 'medical journey' and many many months in the ICU before rehab I was placed on a variety of amnesiacs, as well as induced comas.
I remember a lot of things that I really shouldn't -- and I can corroborate the events with eyewitnesses who were otherwise healthy spectators.
I was terrified, unable to communicate, uncomfortable, and most of the time in pain.
When I was finally brought back to 'real' consciousness I had tubes in every orifice, a new tracheotomy, a new HALO drilled into my skull, the inability to speak and the inability to move my arms -- through no ones direct fault my only means of communication , my voice , was taken from me while I was pharmaceutically inebriated and unable to consent -- an emergency action that was medically required.
I eventually regained enough upper limb movement to communicate with a small whiteboard and soft erase markers while in the medical facilities. When the trach was finally removed I regained most of my voice within months of therapy, but the memories and experience still haunt me.
I sincerely hope that we learn enough about human consciousness at some point to allow us to better manage patient awareness and memory forming through trauma -- I think that the medical industry as a whole kind of pushes 'medical PTSD' out of the public arena of consideration as something that is 'required, known, but terrible.' -- but I hope we one day come up with real methods of reducing or preventing that kind of experience all together.
It feels that at this point we're much more adroit at healing bodies than psyches.
- pcurve 5y agoJesus, that is truly horrific. I'm sorry you had to go through that not seeing light at the end of the tunnel. I hope they had enough sense to still give you proper anesthesia before plugging things into your body.
- nate_meurer 5y agoHow are you doing now?
- ainiriand 5y agoWhat you describe was pretty much my experience when, at 14 years of age, I had to endure brain surgery and spent the next 4 days in an induced coma. I remember everything and I thought I was never going to wake up. It was terrifying and I think I was a bit traumatised by the whole experience.
- anon9001 5y agoAfter a few brushes with medicine and seeing loved ones go through worse, I've had a lot of anxiety that something "medical" will happen again. Part of me wonders if the real reason the US has such low vaccination rates is because of the amount of medical trauma that everyone has experienced.
- watwut 5y agoAre the people in US more likely to go through major injuries or operations? If not, then no. Plus if anything, vaccinated people are less likely to have you on vents or on hospital.
- klyrs 5y agoI'm not sure about the US, but in Canada, indigenous populations are vocally anti-vaccine specifically because of intergenerational trauma. The government and medical systems have treated them as subhuman for hundreds of years, recently enough that survivors of unethical research performed on residential schools are still alive today. There are certainly parallels with the treatment of black and indigenous people in the US, and I wouldn't be surprised if earned distrust is a driving force for a lot of people.
- pfortuny 5y agoIt is a bit overkill but the Unabomber was the subject of a “medical” experiment too… Talk about unintended consequences…