"I fell into a coma" - these words sound like a sentence. But sometimes, even after a long coma, people come back to life. And they are surprised to learn that the USSR collapsed, their grandchildren were born or a coronavirus appeared in the world.
In the Central Clinical Hospital of the Presidential Administration of the Russian Federation in Moscow, they talked about an unusual "awakening". The patient was admitted for a planned operation in March, when the coronavirus and strict restrictions in the country had not even been discussed. Coming out of a coma a few months later, he was very surprised at how the world had changed.
Woke up - quarantine
“The patient had a brain tumor that threatened his life,” says neurosurgeon Andrei Reutov. - In March he underwent an operation. The tumor was completely removed. But a week later the patient was admitted to neuroreanimation: there was a violation of cerebral circulation. Pneumonia joined. So we decided to put the patient in a medication coma."
The patient was connected to a ventilator and fed through a tube. Doctors feared that complications in the form of pneumonia began, possibly from COVID-19, but the tests did not confirm the fears.
“We managed to stabilize him, but there was no contact. The patient was still breathing through the tube,”says Andrei Reutov.
The doctor recalls that the patient woke up suddenly. The man began to ask the doctor why his spouse did not come to him, and was literally dumbfounded that during his "sleep" the rules in the world had changed. And now, due to the coronavirus, a ban on visits has been introduced, everyone is required to wear masks and gloves, as well as observe social distance.
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“For me, this situation (the operation and the subsequent development of events - ed.) Is not unique, and the patient was not ready for such a turn,” says Andrei Reutov, neurosurgeon of the Central Clinical Hospital. - In fact, the man slept through everything. Or maybe we saved it this way?"
The patient is now preparing for discharge. If all goes well, he will go home in the next few days.
Woke up as a grandfather of 11 grandchildren
Railroad worker Jan Grzebski from Poland fell into a coma in 1988. He had a head injury from the impact of a carriage that went off the rails. In addition, it turned out that the man had a brain tumor. Such a combined trauma led to severe consequences in the form of a coma. The man at that time was 46 years old, and the doctors did not give comforting predictions. It was said that if a patient got out, he would remain in a vegetative state and would not last more than 3 years.
However, fate decreed otherwise. Yang fell into a coma at the age of 19 and woke up as the grandfather of 11 grandchildren.
“When my family spoke to me, I actually heard them, but I couldn't answer. I could not send them a signal to tell them that I am still alive,”Jan Grzebski told the Polish news channel TVN 24 in 2007.
A year later, in 2008, Jan Grzebski passed away. The cause of death was a mass in the brain.
“When I fell into a coma, the stores only had tea and vinegar, meat was rationed and there were huge lines of gasoline everywhere. Now I see people on the streets with cell phones, and there are so many goods in the shops that I feel dizzy,”Jan Grzebski said in numerous interviews, which he eagerly distributed to journalists. - Why do people now complain endlessly? I have nothing to complain about."
I woke up and my daughter is 19 years old
Cases when people, having been in a coma, wake up in completely different realities, are rare, but they do happen.
For example, Terry Wallis from the United States was in a coma for 19 years. He got into a car accident in 1984 when he was 19 years old. He lay at the scene of the accident for almost a day until he was found and handed over to doctors.
Terry remained in a vegetative state until 2001. It was then that medical professionals noticed that he was trying to communicate with them through signs. But the young man did not return to full consciousness. Only in 2003, Wallis, who at that time was almost 38 years old, spoke again. His mother looked after him all the time. And one day the nurse asked him who this woman was walking to him, he answered: "Mom." Terry believed that he was still 20 years old and still 1984 on the calendar. He had no idea that smartphones had already appeared in the world, the Berlin Wall had been destroyed, and George W. Bush had become the president of the United States.
Just three days after he came out of the coma, Terry learned to walk again, and also met his daughter: she was born just 6 weeks before the car accident.
According to data posted in open sources, Terry Wallis is still alive. He is 56 years old. Despite regaining the ability to control some parts of his body and speak, he remains disabled due to injuries sustained in the accident.
Ghost Boy
Martin Pistorius spent 12 years in the pseudo-come. This is a state when a person is locked in his body, hears and understands everything, but from the outside he looks completely indifferent to what is happening.
The tragedy happened when Martin was 12 years old. The year was 1988. The Pistorius family lived in South Africa. Martin's discomfort began suddenly. At first my throat hurt, then my legs began to fail. The child was unable to get out of bed, and later completely stopped making eye contact. As a result, he fell into a coma.
“I ended up trapped in my body,” Martin later told reporters. - I was like in a grave. I wanted to speak, but I couldn't. So I just screamed inside myself, but no one heard me. Life was torture. I understood that people perceive me as a feeble-minded person, but I could not even express the feelings that were bursting with me."
Pistorius himself believes that he began to come to his senses at the age of 16 (around 1992), but loved ones still did not notice his attempts to communicate.
They were found by a nurse in a day hospital where the young man was lying. She sent him to the center of alternative communication, where he learned to contact with the outside world using computer programs.
Having mastered communication, Martin learned to write, read and even went to college.
Now he can move in a wheelchair. He got married in 2009 and became a father in 2018. He wrote the book "Ghost Boy" about his life.
Doctors have not been able to establish the cause of Martin's illness. But the most likely diagnosis, experts called cryptococcal meningitis, which led to inflammation of the membranes of the brain and spinal cord.
Author: Nadezhda Kuzmina