Educational Narrative

Dane Bohlmann

English 101

Education Narrative

A Swindled Summer

Everyday we learn something new, whether it is a new fact about dolphins or discovering Indian food isn’t the best, we are constantly gaining new information. Learning is usually done in a classroom but I believe the biggest lessons you can learn can‘t be taught, but have to be experienced. The summer of 2010 I learned more about life then any number of years of schooling could teach me.

My sophomore year of high school was a breeze. I played on the varsity football team, my grades would’ve made any parents proud and I was voted captain of my summer weightlifting class. Life for me at that point was going great and I couldn’t have been happier. One morning in early July, I woke up with an immense pain in my throat. I originally thought that worse case scenario I had gotten strep throat and that id be back to full health in a week or two. The sore throat persisted and after a couple of days of not being able to swallow much more than yogurt I knew it was time to see my doctor. My doctor tested me for strep and when the test came back negative she told me to take some Tylenol and to “sleep it off”. I have never been one to complain but the pain was so bad I stayed up for two days straight not being able to sleep. When I finally fell asleep I woke up without my throat hurting for the first time in over a week but I discovered my right peck had become swollen and hurt even more than my throat. It took 3 more days of misery before I finally went back to the doctors on July 14, 2010.

My second visit to my doctor was filled with confusion and panic. After countless tests I was given extra oxygen because my breathing was so low, I once again tested negative for strep throat and when my blood test results came back is when all hell broke lose. My white blood cell count was extremely high indicating I had a bad infection. Under my Doctors orders I was rushed to the emergency room at Harrison Hospital. I remember test after test in enormous, loud, expensive machinery and still nobody could tell me what was wrong. The decision was made to send me to Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma because I was still technically a child, even though I was 5 foot 11, 220 pound child. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I firmly believe that if I had stayed at Harrison Hospital I would not be alive today. I tried to stay optimistic as best as I could but it is scary to go on an hour long ambulance ride by yourself then lay in a room with all your relatives crying like you already died. A little while after I got to Tacoma my body started to go into septic shock, where my body’s vital organs began to shut down and were basically preparing to die. The doctors had no other choice but to put me in a drug induced coma. While I was in the coma, the doctors made a 6 inch incision in the middle of my chest to get to the swelling. Most of my sternum and right pectoral muscle had been eaten away and turned into a puss. The cause of this was a super rare disease called Lemierres. Lemierres comes from a fusobacteria which is found in everyone’s mouth but is extremely harmful when in other parts of the body. The bacteria was clotted at my throat and then the clot broke off and made it way to my chest where the flesh eating bacteria did its damage. The drug induced coma lasted for 16 long days and for me, that was the easy part.

My entire world was flipped upside down when I finally woke up. Over two weeks of steady drugs made me hallucinate and see the most bizarre unlikely things that couldn’t have been possible but seemed so real. I do not know how long I hallucinated, my sense of time no longer existed and coming out of the coma at first seemed like it was only bad dream. I could not wrap my head around the fact that “yesterday” to me was July when in fact it was already August. My thoughts became less and less abstract and sadly reality began to set in. I was hooked into every machine you could think of and a large tube in my mouth that helped me breathe during my coma made it impossible to communicate which was the most frustrating thing of my life. Asking for anything took thirty minutes and when I tried to write down my thoughts my body refused to work. To add to the laundry list of health problems I also had a liver and gallbladder infection, severe pneumonia, and being inert for two weeks meant I had to relearn to walk. After 2 more weeks of recovering in the hospital and doing everything I could to get home and salvage the rest of my summer I was cleared. The incision made on my chest had enough room to fit a fist over my right pectoral muscle so they could not just sew up the wound. In order to get the wound to heal properly I had to carry a portable vacuum attached to my wound to get all the wonderful juices from the wound cavity out. After a month of commuting to Tacoma every other day to get my wound cleaned the vacuum finally came off just in time for school. The question in the back of my head the entire time in the hospital was if I could ever play sports again because I was now missing a huge proportion of sternum which protects vital organs. The answer I received was not clear but basically my doctor said that there is no studies to show if it’s a bad thing to do so it would be my decision to continue playing. That was all the motivation I needed to make a full recovery and come out for my senior year in football.

If there is one thing that my dreadful experience taught me it is to cherish the little things in life because you never know when your time is up. My family and close friends are what got me through my tough time. I can’t imagine how it must have felt to see someone you love in that situation. My family gave up their summer plans and goals to unselfishly be by my side. The anxiety they must have felt and hopeless feelings while I was in a coma makes me believe it was harder for them then it was for me. Fundraisers were set up by friends to help pay for my ever increasing medical bills and my football team even made frozen dinners for my family. The support friends and family showed me and all the help and patience they gave me proved that all material things can easily be replaced but family and friends are forever. My hospital stay also made me thankful for my sobriety. I woke up from the coma addicted to morphine, recovering also meant going through withdrawals. Withdrawing from a substance is a terrible experience and id never wish it upon anyone. Going through withdrawals I was cold and hot, sweating and shivering and there was no escape from being miserable. My heart goes out to people battling addiction because it takes a lot of will power to go through something that terrible. While in the hospital I had the chance to meet some of my ‘neighbors’ and it really put into perspective how much worse it could be. I met one girl who had been in the hospital for 4 months already and had about 3 more months until she recovered and suddenly my complaining about being in the hospital stopped. It could always be worse. Relearning how to walk kind of hurt my pride. You rarely ever think twice about walking, until it is taken from you. You’re supposed to teach babies to walk not 17 year olds so I was embarrassed. There is something about not being able to get up by yourself to use the bathroom and being out of breathe once you finally lay back down that makes you realize how fortunate you have been your entire life. My hospital stay gave me time to reevaluate my life and to prioritize what was important to me. I will not say that almost dying was a good experience but It did change me into a better person because of it.