The Day I Learned I Wasn’t Invincible

The story of my near death experience and how it changed the way that I live my life.

May 2016, I think it was around the 15th or the 16th, but I can’t remember the exact date. It shouldn’t have been a remarkable day anyway.

I got up at 6:45am, just as I did every work day, and settled into my office by 8:00am. I was eating my usual breakfast of overnight oats at my desk, when suddenly I lost my appetite and couldn’t stand another bite. I chalked it up to lack of sleep; I had been up most of the night cramming for the exercise physiology final exam that I had that afternoon. This was the last exam of my first year of graduate school and I wanted to knock it out of the park.

It was a workday like any other. I was more tired than usual, but I kept assuring myself it was because I had only gotten a couple of hours of rest the night before. “Just get through the day…”, I thought to myself, “…once this final exam is over with, you can rest.”

Around 2:00pm I checked in with my supervisor. I wanted to get a head start on my 45-minute drive to my college campus and asked if I could take off a little bit early. He obliged, so I packed up my things and headed on my way.

Once I got to campus I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since I had tried to stomach my oatmeal earlier that morning. My final exam was going to last a couple of hours, so I knew I had to get something to eat to prevent the distraction of stomach growls and hunger pains. I picked up a sandwich at a shop on campus and settled into my seat in the library for a final review session. Two bites into my sandwich and I knew my body wasn’t having it. This time I blamed it on nerves; I always got anxious before taking a test no matter how familiar I felt with the material.

It was now 4:00pm and I had settled into my desk. My stomach was flipping, my hands were sweating, and I didn’t feel well; why was I so anxious? My professor passed out the exam; it was a collection of short answer questions and in a subject like physiology, you have to include a lot of detail in your responses.

I read the first question and I knew the answer. I started to write, but then I’d forget the question. Go back, re-read…that’s right, I knew the answer. I started scribbling again….wait, what was the question? This mind fog was unreal, it was like my brain wasn’t working. I noticed my leg bouncing up and down rapidly. I followed the bounce of my leg and realized my whole body was trembling. BREATHE.

My test anxiety was really getting the better of me. I skipped that question and moved on to the next. But the same thing happened; I’d start to pen my answer and I’d forget what I was writing about. I was shaking, shivering, trembling…I realized I was freezing. My classmates noticed, one student even moved his chair away from me.

I must have been cold, that’s why I couldn’t concentrate. I decided to get up and ask my professor to turn up the heater. I could see the look of concern on her face. She told me she’d crank up the heat, and encouraged me to take a step outside to get some sunlight.

So I did. I went outside and absorbed the sun, trying to catch my breath. I was still trembling but I was trying to talk myself out of what I thought must be my first anxiety attack.

“You know this material, just breathe, you have nothing to worry about, just breathe, this test is not the end all be all, just breathe.”

I sat back at my desk and made another attempt to answer the first question. But soon I was nearly convulsing, my wheeled chair was vibrating from side to side, at this point I was distracting everyone in the classroom.

I stood up and ran outside, I became violently ill. I was weak, absolutely drained, just lifting my eyelids was a chore. Before anyone could come to my rescue, I got up and made my way to the campus health center. Each step felt like a mile, one foot after another. I had to stop twice along the way, I had never been so uncontrollably sick.

I walked through the automatic doors of the health center and sunk into the first chair that I saw. I looked up at the receptionist and said “Please help me, I don’t feel well.”

A few minutes passed and my breathing returned to normal. I still felt off, but my shaking had stopped and I was able to think clearly again. I felt embarrassed, confused, but grateful to be feeling better. I was able to see one of the medical professionals in the health care center. She ran some basic tests; my vitals looked good but my urinalysis showed some abnormalities. She concluded that I needed to go to urgent care to get some antibiotics:

“They’ll probably hook you up to an IV since you have been vomiting, but you’ll be done in a few hours and you’ll be back at home.”

I called my parents; I wasn’t comfortable driving my car given how unexpectedly sick I had just gotten. While I was waiting for my parents to come to my rescue I continued to feel better. In fact, my appetite returned and I was able to eat the rest of my sandwich. I started to feel even more embarrassed, my anxiety had exacerbated this situation and I should have just finished that stupid test. How would I explain this to my professor, who had my nearly blank exam in her possession?

But on the drive to the hospital things took a turn. The shaking returned, I was freezing, I was ill all over again. This spiral was so much worse. I couldn’t feel my hands, arms, feet, my heart was beating out of my chest. I was hyperventilating, sobbing, begging for my mom to drive faster. My vision was going in and out, something was very wrong.

The next thing I knew I was being wheeled back and put into a bed. All I could say was, “I’m dying, please help me, I feel like I’m dying.” I could hear the nurses reading out my vitals.

“Heart rate is 140 beats per minute, blood pressure 95/50, temperature 104 degrees….she’s septic.”

Septic?! I started panicking. My best friend’s aunt had become unexpectedly septic the summer before and had died after falling into a coma. My breathing became more rapid, tears uncontrollable, I sunk into my own thoughts as I did everything in my power to stay conscious:

“I’ve never traveled. I haven’t seen the world. I never had kids. When is the last time I saw my sister? I’ve spent my entire life in school. Why did I spend so much time in school? I should have spent more time with my family. This can’t be the end, I haven’t done anything!”

It turned out to be a kidney infection that was causing my body to go into septic shock. I had no symptoms prior to my loss of appetite that morning. I spent four days in the hospital recovering, and after numerous tests it was discovered that I had been born with a deformed kidney. Had I arrived a few minutes later, I could have been dead.

Death itself isn’t as scary as I thought. Don’t get me wrong, the unknown of it all is still terrifying. But the thing that haunts me the most about my experience is the feeling of regret that I had when I thought I was meeting my end. All of the things I never did, all of the time I had wasted, all of the people that I hadn’t appreciated enough. My eyes instantly well with tears when I reflect back on that feeling, no words will ever do it justice.

Before this all happened, I felt invincible. I was 25, healthy, vibrant, and had my whole life ahead of me. I didn’t think about living in the moment because I thought I had endless moments waiting for me. I kept pushing off the things I wanted to do because I was confident that I could do them later. But what this experience taught me is that nobody is healthy enough to cheat mortality, nobody has endless time ahead of them, and everybody’s time could run out before they’re ready.

As cliché as it sounds, we really don’t know how much time we have. You always hear people tell you to ‘live everyday like it’s your last.’ I can tell you that this saying is more profound than one could ever comprehend. Make time for your passions, don’t bring your vacation days to your grave, spend your time with the people who matter, do everything that you want to do even if it doesn’t feel like it’s what you’re supposed to do, and don’t ever be too afraid to take a leap of faith. One day you will have a last day, and it won’t be nearly as scary if you can reflect on your life knowing that you did everything that you could to make it a good one.