Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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At the community college where I teach we use distance learning technology. That means I've got a distance learning aide in the room when I teach lots of classes. Over the last 4 years he and I have become good friends. He is epileptic and can't drive, so I drive him home every day. I've gotten to know his family well. Nice folks.
Today when I drove him home he had a grand mal epileptic seizure. Foaming at the mouth, falling down (I caught him so he didn't have a head trauma), arms flailing, eyes in back of the head.. It lasted a full 10 minutes and I managed to get him on his side and keep him breathing until right at the end. Then his breathing stopped and I had to call 911.
They got there and he was revived. Then I got his wife to come home and I stayed with them both until it was past. But boy, am I ever wired now. I've mentioned here about having been a hospital chaplain for 10 years and that my last assigned unit was neurosurgery. So I'm lucky I'd dealt with patients who had seizures before. I worked with stroke survivors, too, and I worried at the end that he might have had a stroke when he stopped breathing, but it looks like it wasn't.
Quite a day. I'm still coming down from my adrenaline rush, and writing here to get it all out so I don't have PTSD triggered nightmares tonight.
He's a great guy, and I guess it's good I was there, although I'm experiencing my own smaller freak out now a little after the fact, like I tend to do. It was quite a commotion.
Today when I drove him home he had a grand mal epileptic seizure. Foaming at the mouth, falling down (I caught him so he didn't have a head trauma), arms flailing, eyes in back of the head.. It lasted a full 10 minutes and I managed to get him on his side and keep him breathing until right at the end. Then his breathing stopped and I had to call 911.
They got there and he was revived. Then I got his wife to come home and I stayed with them both until it was past. But boy, am I ever wired now. I've mentioned here about having been a hospital chaplain for 10 years and that my last assigned unit was neurosurgery. So I'm lucky I'd dealt with patients who had seizures before. I worked with stroke survivors, too, and I worried at the end that he might have had a stroke when he stopped breathing, but it looks like it wasn't.
Quite a day. I'm still coming down from my adrenaline rush, and writing here to get it all out so I don't have PTSD triggered nightmares tonight.
He's a great guy, and I guess it's good I was there, although I'm experiencing my own smaller freak out now a little after the fact, like I tend to do. It was quite a commotion.
I hope you stop sometime and take a moment and just think. Look at all that you have been through in your life. All of the trials and tribulations. A normal man would have buckled under all of that pressure. Yet you remain a constant blessing for so many. There is a very special and beautiful place reserved for extra special people such as yourself. You can make book on that.
Though I was told my Dad died of a Heart Attack, that the fire department was called back then since there were no ambulances, and he was having convulsions before they showed up and worked on him for a long time before they concluded he had a Heart Attack, I"m now wondering if he had symptoms beforehand he wan't aware of at the age of 28. Now it's called the silent killer if I'm not mistaken.
I thought of everything everyone replied, so not much more to say other than the Universe Does Work Through Us in Mysteries Way!
Thanks for helping me realize sometimes something bigger than us is working through us.