Four years ago I came to the University with the same expectations as most first years - new opportunities, new people, a wealth of experiences waiting to happen. I definitely had a new experience, just not one I had anticipated in my college career, let alone my life.
It's funny to me how something so profound in my life can seem so cloudy, yet so vivid all at once. On a sunny day during the second week of first year, I distinctly remember walking home from class to my dorm and suddenly becoming dizzy and disoriented. I passed by my roommate on the way home and she assured me that I was sure to feel better if I laid down for a bit. I heeded her advice, but instead of feeling better, I started shivering and vomiting uncontrollably.
A few hours later some concerned RAs rushed me to the emergency room, where my brother and my suitemates joined me. Though my symptoms were flu-like, I had a gut feeling that this illness wasn't going to be as painless as a brief cold. I guess I realized I was seriously ill and seriously contagious when my brother came into the room where I got my first spinal tap. He was wearing a yellow gown, mask and gloves to protect himself from the illness that was ravishing my weakening body. My last memory that night was being rushed into an isolation room in the Medical Intensive Care Unit. As I was staring up at the lights, my lungs filling with fluid that would suffocate me, I remember pleading with my brother to help me.
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I don't remember the month following that first night in the ICU. Although I wasn't in a coma, I was so sick and sedated that I had no idea what was going on around me. All the doctors and nurses told me that this was a good thing.
The first thing I remember was two friends from home coming to see me. Although I wasn't on a breathing machine anymore, I was not able to talk to them because the tubes had caused temporary damage to my voice box. I had to point to a picture of what I wanted on a piece of cardboard, but it didn't work well because my hands wouldn't stop shaking.
I went into respiratory failure for the third time the day after my friends left, and I lost another week or so of my life.
When I finally "came to" for good, I found out that a bacteria that I couldn't even pronounce, meningococcemia, had destroyed my body. This form of meningitis had caused my lungs and kidneys to fail. My digestive system didn't work, so the nurses fed me through a tube that ran from my nose to my stomach. And it caused a blood clot in my leg and lesions of blood in my brain. I'd had a terrible reaction to an antibiotic - but they had given me so many different medications they didn't know which one caused it.
I found that I couldn't go to the bathroom, walk or even roll over in bed on my own. I remember my temperature spiking up over 105 degrees - all the while knowing I could have permanent brain damage from temperatures that high. I would watch my family go outside my room, talk to the doctors and come back trying to find some way to reassure me and themselves that I would survive.
Later on, two months after admission to the ER, I was finally flown to a hospital in Boston where I could be closer to home. In between arduous physical and occupational therapies I learned more about what happened to me and what could have happened to me.
I learned that I was so close to dying that even the doctors left my ICU room crying. I learned that victims of this horrible disease often have their arms and legs completely amputated, and it could have happened to me. The cardiologist told my parents that my heart would only work up to 25 percent of its original potential and that I would never play soccer or ice hockey again.
Two weeks after I arrived in Boston, I was cleared to go to a rehab hospital to learn how to walk again. After two months in the hospital, I wanted to go home, and I was fortunate enough to receive home health care instead.
It wasn't until I was home from the hospital that I realized how this illness changed my life. I gave up trying to figure out why and how and who I caught meningitis from and focused instead on what I could learn from my experience. I learned the true meaning of family and friends. I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from those in my hometown and from my high school classmates. The nurses who took care of me at my worst inspired me to transfer into the Nursing School when I was ready to return to the University. Most importantly, I learned the meaning of a second chance at life and the importance of the expression carpe diem.
Part of the reason I am writing now is to emphasize that you don't need to experience what I did - or at least you can cut down your risk by getting a meningitis vaccine. I wish I had known that a $70 vaccine could have spared my family and me from this ordeal.
Today, four years, hundreds of doctor's appointments and thousands of blood draws later, I'm finally healthy.
I'm a fourth year in the School of Nursing and each week some of the nurses who saved my life teach me how to help other patients with life-threatening illnesses. After graduation I'm going to be working as a nurse in the Air Force, and I'm excited to have my life in front of me.
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