Sick Boy: Part 3

Some admin first: 1) Yes, the blog's name has changed, you're not going insane. 2) When I started writing about this sequence of events, I thought I could capture it in three parts but I was wrong. My bad. So, this is Part 3. If you missed part 2, you can read it here. 3) I have created a page for the blog because I am not a child and no one tried to stop me. So be like the cool kids and go like it here.

Please be advised: This post contains detailed recollections that some readers may find upsetting. I've chosen not to omit these parts in order to preserve the authenticity of my experiences. Reader discretion is advised.

It felt like I was barely asleep when a nurse woke me up again. "We spoke to the doctor and told him what happened. He wants us to take you to CT to make sure everything's fine". It took me a second to remember what had happened, but as soon as I did I knew that nothing about this, any of this, was good. I was told afterwards by the physiotherapist, a remarkably patient man who had been working tirelessly with patients like me, that I sent him a very incoherent text message around that time. On the way to CT, it felt like the lights were particularly bright - like they were actually hurting my eyes. I suddenly felt very cold and it felt harder to breathe. I started shaking - not violently, but still shaking. I don't remember much about my actual time at CT, but I remember feeling very cold. And exhausted. The journey back from the CT scan was a blur, and before I knew it, I was back in the familiar surroundings of my ward. Upon arrival, I was informed that someone had decided that they should take me to Casualties (the Emergency Room). I was a little annoyed at this point because all I wanted to do was sleep. I slept on my way to Casualties, where I was woken up, checked and found to be fine. No abnormalities (under the circumstances).

I felt relieved but extremely fatigued while they wheeled me back to the ward. I was finally allowed to go to sleep. Again, it felt as if I was barely asleep before a nurse woke me up. "Mr Coetzee, we've spoken to the doctor. He says we should move you to High Care, as a precaution." My initial reaction was annoyance, but with how my body felt at that stage, I knew that this was probably the right call. Before I knew it, I was being moved. Shortly after I arrived at High Care, my body staged a full-blown coup d'état. It started with my heart rate triggering just about every monitor, and my blood oxygen level sounding its own alarm. Something was happening, but I had no idea what. I didn't feel much different; I was still tired, and it might have been a little harder to breathe, but nothing that would, in my mind at least, warrant the cacophony of deafening alarms around me. The nurse came over to me and asked me why my heart rate was so high. "I don't know," I explained. "I'm actually perfectly calm." "Okay. Don't move around too much" she said before walking back to the nurse's station.

I would guess about an hour later it happened again. This time, it felt more serious. This time, it felt harder to breathe and I was increasingly aware of how tired I was. When the nurse came over this time, I could see on her face that what was happening now, was more than a little concerning. We repeated our previous exchange about whether I was anxious. I was not. My body was clearly in some sort of distress, but my mind was not. "We need to increase your oxygen", she said. "We need to put you on high-flow." The official explanation of high-flow oxygen is: "A breathing support that delivers heated and humidified oxygen through a tube placed in the nostrils. It's only offered if traditional oxygen therapy isn't helping." My own, unofficial explanation is this: "A breathing support that burns like Satan himself invented it." "Keep both on - the high-flow and the normal oxygen," the nurse says. I nodded to her, confirming my understanding of the subtext of our exchange. I then dosed off a little. I think my life will always have some sort of "before and after" feeling to it after that night. I sometimes wish I could go back to the 'me' I was that night - right there, in that hospital bed, and give myself a talking-to before the next part. I've often thought about what I would say, so I've narrowed it down quite nicely: "This is going to suck. This is going to suck more than anything in your life has sucked, but I'm going to need you to be stronger than you have ever been. I'm going to need you to fight! Fight, because your fucking life depends on this!"

I woke up to the alarms again. This time, I saw their validity. I couldn't breathe. My heart rate had surpassed 200 bpm. My blood oxygen levels were dangerously low. A different nurse walked hastily to me. I could see the panic on her face. "Mr Coetzee, please be calm," she tells me. I don't believe either of us thought being calm was an option anymore, but I understood that the manual required her to say it. "I don't understand what is happening?" I managed to get out. At this point, I was feeling so cold that I could barely speak because of all the shaking. I look at the monitors and I see two more nurses now anxiously observing the chaos. One nurse left to make a phone call. I tried to hear what she was saying and to whom, but the shaking - now bordering on fits, made it impossible to hear her. The semi-fits tired out my body further, but I had no control. As I moved around the bed with violent and random convulsions, I could feel a tingling - the tingling you get when you're running out of oxygen. I looked over at the nurse standing on my right. She took my hand, but she didn't say a word - we just stared at each other. The nurse who went to make a phone call came back. "They are coming to get him," she says to the other nurses. At that moment, I couldn't be bothered with who 'they' were and where 'they' were taking me. 'They' needed to hurry up.

My memories are a little blurry about how long I waited for whoever was supposed to fetch me. It could have been three or thirty minutes, I have no idea. I remember suddenly feeling very aware. I'm not sure whether 'aware' is the correct word exactly, perhaps it was more a sense of clarity? I don't know. Whatever it's called, I remember looking at the nurse who was holding my hand. She was now holding it with both her hands. I could see tears rolling down her face and I knew that that would probably be it for me. This woman, who didn't know me, who I didn't know - would be the person holding my hand while I died. She was crying like she did know me, but I suspect she was also crying for all of them. Of us. The ones who didn't make it.

In the chaos around me, I somehow had a moment to think about how utterly isolating the Covid experience was. How, even while I was dying, I would not know the name of a single person around me. How my partner, who was in a room just down the corridor, would be woken up with the news. How my parents would get "that" call. I looked over at the nurse and said "It's okay. You did your best for me. You all did your best for me. I'm not scared, I'm just too tired. I'm ready to go if this is it. I'm not scared." She looked at me with a combination of pity and anger. "This is not it. You are 28 years old. You do not die like this. You have to keep fighting!" Her defiance would have been infectious if I had the energy, but I didn't. In fact, I wish I was strong enough to tell you that I simply made my mind up 'not to die', but I didn't. I lost consciousness thinking that I would never open my eyes again.

I woke up again, but I was now in a different High Care ward. This specific High Care unit was a stark contrast to the previous one, with more machines, incessant beeping, and a palpable sense of urgency in the air. For some reason, I couldn't hear anyone. I saw their lips moving, but I only heard mumbling. A doctor walked towards me and looked at me, but I was unaffected by the obvious concern on his face. He said something, I don't know what, to a nurse. He came closer to me and said "Mr Coetzee, I need to intubate you immediately". I looked at him, resolved to accept what was seemingly my fate. "Do it. Do it quickly". I remember him spraying some sort of numbing agent into my throat before everything went dark.