Coma chameleons

Now that I'm a contributing writer for The Secular Spectrum, I have a new outlet for my skeptical and humanist writing. Therefore, I feel free to write more directly about my recovery again in Coma Chameleon again. This blog is subtitled, My Recovery Chronicles, after all. This post, however, is also a continuation of some of my recent subject matter.Yes, that's right, my fellow coma victim and experiencer, Eben Alexander.

A few months ago, I finally received my hospital records from my 6-week coma in 2013, after being mistakenly given the records from my two-week 2014 hospitalization. Both were due to Legionnaires' disease, caused by immunosuppression. Thanks, prednisone.

The 2447 pages of the PDF (I received it on CD) is a treasure trove of details, sandwiched between mountains of repetitive information. I don't have the space to go into all the information, and I've only skimmed through parts of it. But I did learn one juicy tidbit. I knew that my lungs and kidneys were failing, but apparently my liver wanted to get into the act, as well. When I mentioned this, Keith joked that my spleen was doing fine, as was my appendix. Everything else was going south. My impression is that the liver problems weren't as severe as the other organ failures, a speculation my neurologist later confirmed. Otherwise, I would've been given a Charlson Comorbity Scale of 3 instead of 2. Think of what it would've done for the miracle-believers if I had managed to survive a score the maximum of six out of the twenty-two frequently fatal conditions that make up the scale.

In Proof of Heaven, Eben Alexander actually implies that the very rarity of E.coli meningitis in an adult is evidence that God chose him as His Special Messenger. After all, as a neurosurgeon, he was the perfect emissary to the disbelieving medical and scientific community. Yeah, right. Wouldn't neuroscientist Sam Harris have been even better? I suppose his argument is that God chose a rare condition as a sign that this was an act of God. Isn't he special? According the famous Esquire expose, Alexander has a reputation of arrogance. And he hides it so well.

At any rate, he seems convinced that the severity of his illness is another sign of God's hand. But as someone who was at least as close to death, you'll have to forgive me for not being impressed. My doctors were every bit as convinced that my death was imminent. I'll take one life-threatening bacterial infection--in my case, Legionnaires' disease--and raise him multiple strokes on both sides of my brain, severe sepsis, lung, kidney, and liver failure, as well as another potentially fatal bacterial infection, listeriosis. And compared to his measly seven days of coma, I was comatose for six weeks.

Take that, Eben Alexander, messiah to the scientific world.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Two figures with full manes at Donnafugata Castle in Sicily.

Here is the long, sad, tale of my hair. It starts when I was 10, trick-or-treating on a windy day. [This is actually about my recovery...eventually.] I was dressed as a vampire, with a cape that was actually a heavy coat with the sleeves tucked inside. I also had green make-up smeared all over my face and glow-in-the-dark fangs, with blood dripping down them onto my chin. But I was still self-conscious enough about my bushy, frizzy, curly hair that I brushed and futzed with it to calm it down as best I could. In its natural state, I have what is euphemistically known as a Jewfro.

So, I headed out with my goodie bag. As I was nearing the end of my circuit, I came to a house. These were the days when kids could go out by themselves on Halloween without their parents being charged with child abuse, mind you, so I was alone. I rang the doorbell, and a lady gave me some candy. As I was about to leave, the woman said, "Oh, and by the way, I love your wig!" She meant it as a compliment, and she probably didn't even notice that I was crying as I headed back home.

It took me years to realize that my hair looked a thousand times better if I only brushed it when it was wet, then let it dry into long ringlets. That reduces the volume and produces nicely defined curls. I started adding gel later. Before my coma, I used to get a lot of compliments on my hair, something I never thought would happen in the Jewfro years.

But during my coma, my long hair was becoming a tangled mess. Curly hair tangles worse than straight hair. My mother used to use an electric detangler on my hair when I was a kid. To me it was a torture device. Now that was child abuse! But--flash-forward to when I was in the coma--they were going to chop off my hair. I suppose that would've been my mother's only choice if she hadn't used the detangler. But a kind nurse named Teresa saved my long tresses by braiding it after her shift ended. She wasn't even assigned to me.

Once I awoke from my coma, Teresa told me that she could tell that her detangling efforts hurt me because I would flinch. She rebraided my hair a few times after that, and she did such a great job that the braids held for weeks after I awakened.

Teresa working on the final touches.

When I returned to the ICU after my second bout of Legionnaires' disease, Teresa noticed that I had cut my hair short. I didn't have the heart to tell her that it had thinned so much that I was forced to have it cut. I had thought the thinning was from the continual braiding and rebraiding in the nursing home. Apparently a lot of the CNAs know how to do that for the patients to help keep their hair from looking too messy. But, from my research, it seems that many patients who suffer from acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) like I did later lose their hair or experience thinning afterward. They also develop Beau's lines (aka Beau's ridges) in their fingernails, as I did as well. So, the braiding probably only accelerated the hair loss and not until after I entered the nursing home, so it definitely wasn't Teresa's fault. But I didn't want her to think that it was. Thanks to her, I didn't wake up shorn like a sheep. At the time, it looked like I wouldn't even survive. She stayed late after her shift to save the hair of a woman she wasn't assigned to who was probably going to die or be left irreparably brain-damaged, anyway. I owe her a dept of gratitude.

Beau's ridges (no, not Beau Bridges)

As much as I despised my naturally big hair, I disliked having such a paltry, straggly mane even more. Still, I hated having to cut it short. I cried thinking about the prospect, but I knew I had no choice. I searched through Yelp until I found a parlor known for being good with curly hair that was close by, Trilogy Hair Studio. Supercuts, where I used to get my simple straight cut, would not do. Kaylie has been doing a great job on my hair, guiding me through the growing out process every three months. She's been surprised and amazed at how thick my hair has become. I wasn't.

Along the way, I've decided that I like not having to spend as much time as I used to detangling and washing my hair, not to mention touching up my frizzed-up curls. That would've been a real trial during my recovery. And I have to admit that it does look cute at its current medium/short length.

It's getting closer to its eventual length now. One thing is certain. It will never be called a fright wig again.

Outside of Trilogy Hair Studio after my latest haircut.