80 Life-or-Death Moments When Gut Feelings Became Unshakeable Lifelines
Not my gut, my mother’s, decided to drive to the ambulance/fire station instead of the hospital. Difference of ~10 minutes. Almost bled out from severed arteries.
Dad wouldn’t let her call an ambulance (America $$$) but couldn’t stop the paramedics taking me once she got me to them.
Had been bleeding and in pain for a month and every time I went to the doctor they brushed me off and said I was having a miscarriage.
Finally one night I got super dizzy all of a sudden and was in even more pain. My boyfriend at the time kept telling me I was fine and to go to sleep. Finally at one 1 in the morning I drove myself to the ER. I had a tubal pregnancy and my fallopian tube had ruptured and I was bleeding internally. Now I trust my gut feelings and tell everyone else to screw off.
I almost choked and died on a hot dog.
I had a few ways I could’ve responded: Freak out and make it worse, try swallowing really really hard only to fail, OR stay calm to preserve enough oxygen and think.
I kept calm as my husband was about ready to pull me out of the car to give me the heimlich. I took in as deep a breath (it wasn’t blocking completely), and coughed it out.
That’s the story I tell to people about the importance of chewing your food. Especially hot dogs.
Spouse and I came back home to our apartment late after traveling. We were both exhausted but made the somewhat weird decision on the way back to stop at the grocery store and get steaks to make dinner. There was an alarm going off in the house but we couldn’t find it and decided to just eat (warning sign/bad decision #1). In the time that it took us to cook and eat the steaks, we both started to feel very odd and would see a kaleidoscope every time we closed our eyes. By this point we were both realizing that it was carbon monoxide, but instead of leaving the house we opened all the windows and laid down on the couch to go to sleep.
I remember lying there, all snuggled up, and thinking “this isn’t such a bad way to die, really.” That thought shot me out of it and I immediately got up and forced my partner out of the house… and by “immediately” I mean I got up and forced them up, and then we both sort of weirdly puttered around for another half hour because carbon monoxide makes you forget how to behave. I packed a bag for us that was like, half of our clothes because I couldn’t think straight. Sat in the car together and realized we had to call a cab because he couldn’t read any of the road names (in our own neighborhood.) Had a horrible headache, nausea, dizziness and chest pain for the next two days.
Post Comment