My heart stopped for an extended period, went through about 50 minutes worth of a stop and go resuscitation and then a coma lasting around 2 weeks. I remember laying down, taking the cocktail, continuing to text some friends and acquaintances for close to two more hours, and then I faded out. There wasn't any discomfort or anything, I was just ready to go and I didn't feel much out of the ordinary leading up to losing consciousness, it was probably over the course of 5 minutes at the end there where I got rapidly more drowsy and then that was it. There was absolutely no experience at all between losing consciousness and waking up in the ICU. I immediately realized where I was and immediately realized I was intubated when I woke up, and I saw the whiteboard on the wall with the date and knew something went very wrong. It probably took a few hours after I woke up for me to remember what I did, and then I just remember feeling really angry. Anger isn't a normal emotion for me, mostly I just experience constant frustration and hopelessness. I wasn't able to move at all other than my eyelids and eyeballs for quite a while after I opened my eyes. I was never expected to wake up, and I absolutely was not expected to have any meaningful consciousness even if I did open my eyes ever again. After lots of intently making eye contact with people and trying to pass the message that I was actually there one of my parents screamed and got the nurses and MDs in. They were basically like you're just seeing things, but eventually I got the message across and they started the long and difficult process of weaning me off of the ventilator. I barely avoided getting a tracheostomy by a few hours, if I hadn't have woken up when I did they would have had to discontinue the endotracheal tube as they're not supposed to stay in that long for many reasons, mainly infection.
