Not an exciting story, but five years ago. I had pneumonia for the fourth time in eighteen months, or so I was told by my doctor who had never done an x-ray. He gave me antibiotics and send me on my way. My husband is a truck driver, and he was getting ready to leave for the week, when I started feeling very dizzy and confused. I fell down and couldn’t get back up. My husband rushed me to the hospital, as we came into the emergency entrance they grabbed me and whisked me off to intensive care where for the first time an x-ray was done and showed my heart was very enlarged. I was in congestive heart failure. Only 11 percent of the blood in my body was circulating. Spent seven days in CICU , lost 38 pounds of water in less than a week and had a difibrillator implanted in my chest.
Two incidents come to mind.
- a couple years ago, I was driving home one night and noticed my brakes were acting a bit sluggish. That is, they weren’t responding well. I almost rammed the car in front of me at one point and only avoided it by steering into the adajecent (and luckily empty) turning lane to the left. I went on some more and then next time I had to pull the same stunt, at the next light, but this time I couldn’t even stop and went across the opposite land, through one of those right hand turn lanes that goes through a solid island(the wrong way) and then across the perpendicular street(across both lanes of traffic) but luckily there was a big, mostly empty parking lot which I steered into and was able to roll to a stop.
I wasn’t stupid enough to try driving again and realized that my brake fluid was…gone. Fortunatly, the parking lot was for a store that sold brake fluid and was still open. the fact it was 11 or so that night(thus low traffic) is probably the only reason I didn’t get into an accident.
- I had cut down a tree last summer, and was working on cutting the branches off the fallen tree. The tree was not flat on the ground but being held up by branches. At one point, I cut enough branches that there was no more support…and it went the rest of the way down. Only a couple feet, but I was in there at the time and holding a running chainsaw. A branch hit my head(not particulary hard) but considering that was a year ago it I guess it did no hidden damage. I fell on my butt and shut off the chainsaw at that point. So maybe not life threatening, but I got off well, all things considered.
It would have been an amusing obituarly. “Man killed by already fallen tree”.
Sounds kind of like Seth McFarlane(of Family guy fame). He was apparently supposed to be on one of the 9/11 flights, but got drunk the night before and overslept, missing his plane. Obviously, he was quite happy he did.
Let’s see…
When I was about 8, maybe 10, I went with a friend’s family to the beach; I got washed out to deep water, couldn’t swim back, and had to be rescued.
I’ve been in two car crashes bad enough to leave seatbelt bruises on my chest.
I’ve lost count of the number of close calls I’ve had on my motorcycle, when only evasive maneuvers (sometimes with the brakes locked) kept me from intercepting a car at freeway speeds.
And once, I looked over my shoulder to change lanes, only to look forward and see that a car had pulled across my lane and stopped to wait for traffic to clear before completing a left turn. Once again, the brakes locked up, and I slid inexorably into the car, catapulted from the bike, and somersaulted over his trunk. Totalled a brand new bike with only 3000 miles on it. I cried.
My mother’s story is a bit more harrowing. She was born in 1922 and lived in Amsterdam her whole childhood. Like most girls of the time, she had long hair, and like many, she longed to have it bobbed – but her mother said no. When she was 14, she went and had it bobbed anyway, and ended up in a huge fight with her mom. She cried, told her she hated her, and went to stay at a girlfriend’s house. While she was gone, the Nazis came and took her parents, and she never saw her mother again.
As far as “being to death”… it has definitely happened more than once on an acid trip. Luckily, psychological death has come very close but not physical death.
The closest I ever got was when my dad was driving my boyfriend and I back home from Columbus Ohio (I was 21) and hit an electric pole. Live wires came down all over the car… we were all drunk, and got out of the car(!!) to go for help. That was the closest I have come to death and it was due to stupidity, not to circumstance.
Okay, here are mine, more or less chronologically.
When I was seven I tried to ride my scooter up a curb at speed. The scooter stopped and I kept going, right over the handlebars. That one was good for a concussion, major scabbing on the side of my face (no scar, thank God! ) and three days in the hospital.
At twelve, I wiped out playing Keep-Away on icy pavement. I smacked the back of my head on a little 4X4 rail fence. This was about 10:30 am, during recess. I think i was out for a second or two, but I got up pretty quick and went into class. Maybe fifteen minutes later, I realized I couldn’t see. The teacher sent me off to the nurses office. At least she was smart enough to send another girl with me. The nurse wasn’t so bright. Having had a previous concussion, I tried to explain to her that I’d had another one. She didn’t believe me, I guess, because she was about to send me home on foot. Luckily, she’d called my parents and my dad, by pure fluke, was home with a cold. I sort of remember him arriving and the trip home. I also sort of remember being on the couch and Mom calling the hospital. I have a clear picture of turning off Sixth Street and onto Tenth Ave, the route to the Royal Columbian Hospital.
The next thing I remember is waking up, about 7:00pm that evening. My veins collapsed, all kinds of things happened and I nearly didn’t wake up at all. Oh, and the nurse got fired! That one was good for six days in the hospital.
During my first pregnancy, I had toxemia and the baby was born breech, with his head and feet touching, buttocks presenting. He was so badly brain-damaged from the hemmorage caused by the delivery that he died at six months. I didn’t do too well either. It was pretty dicey the first day. My blood pressure did some very interesting things.
The next delivery was much better but number three nearly did me in again. He weighed 10lbs2oz, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the chunk of placenta he left behind, which went unnoticed for several hours.
I had to use the bathroom but was feeling kind of woozy, so they brought in a commode chair. Well, no sooner did I get in than I promptly fell out. Then they noticed that I was about the colour of the floor and bleeding rather heavilly. Really heavilly! Off to surgery I went to have the chunk removed and about six units of blood pumped back in. They tell me it was pretty darn close, again. Fun with blood pressure and all that.
You can also throw in a couple of car crashes, various adventures on my bike, a near drowning at the hands of a psycho neighbour girl (I was maybe seven and she was thirteen or so.) and the time I lost my car brakes. Oh, and the time I lost my bike brakes. And the time I nearly got strangled…
Gee, I’ve had an interesting time, haven’t I?!
I could have had one today, but for a quarter inch thickness of glass. One of the rattlers at work took a strike straight at my face. (His cage is eye level.) I wasn’t in any danger, but he didn’t know that! :eek: