Who Knew An Allergic Reaction Could Lead to Being Comatose

I sure didn’t, but I was about to find out.

June fourteenth, was a day like any other — breakfast and lunch with a side of Netflix. I decided to take out my Goddess faux locs and wear my hair naturally and I did just that while watching Nurse Jackie. Around 10 pm, after washing and conditioning my hair, I put on Youtube to find a style in which I wanted to wear my hair. I settled on a simple twist out, watched a hair tutorial and I just so happened to have the same hair products the influencer was using. I finished around twelve-thirty A.M. on June fifteenth, cleaned up the mess and went to bed around one A.M.. I remember being so exhausted, my arms felt so heavy from doing my hair, I debated with myself about cutting my hair since it’s so long, climbed into bed, took my pain medications and call it a night.

I was jolted out of my slumber six hours later. I sat up straight and noticed I was wheezing. I couldn’t catch my breath. Then I noticed I had uncontrollable drooling, the right side of my mouth had a steady stream of leaking saliva. Petrified, I hopped out of bed in seconds — which normally takes me three to five minutes to get out of bed, due to my chronic pain — rushed into the master bedroom and flicked on the light. What stared back at me in the mirror wasn’t my face. It looked monstrous. My face was huge and swollen, half of my tongue was sticking out of my mouth as the saliva continued to trickle its way out of my mouth. My left eye was swollen shut and my right eye was beginning to swell.

I knew right then and there I was having an allergic reaction to something, but I couldn’t figure out what it could be. Panicking, I threw on a pair of olive green sweats and a black t-shirt, hustled down the stairs as fast as I could — which really isn’t that fast — slid on my lavender Fenty Puma slides, grabbed my keys that sat on the beige marble entryway foyer table, and bolted out the door. The entire time I’m wheezing and each breath for me sounded like it was my last.

I live about four minutes from the hospital, so I figured I could get there with no problem. That four-minute drive felt like forty minutes. The tears streamed down my face as I struggled to breathe. I put the climate on Max AC and rolled down all the windows to get as much air as possible. Of course, I hit every red light imaginable, I remembered thinking, “these red lights are going to be what kills me”.

I finally arrive at the hospital, I open the back passenger door and struggled to take out my walker. My strength was gone, I couldn’t lift up the walker out the backseat, so I yanked it as hard as I could to get it out. I damaged the inside of the car door, but I could care less. The spoons that I used to yank out the walker made it difficult for me to hustle to the emergency room.

Every baby step I took to get to the emergency room, I felt my breathing get worse. And it was a LOT of steps to make it inside. When I finally arrived at the front desk, the woman looking down told me to fill out this slip of paper and someone would get right to me. In my head, I knew I’d be dead if I followed her instructions. So I took the last spoon that I had and banged on the desk. When she looked up at me, she was in a state of panic. She notified someone to bring a wheelchair stat and by the time it got to me I collapsed.

When I opened my eye I was in a room with people standing above me. The doctor asked me if my throat was closing and I nodded yes. Tears were just cascading down my cheeks because I just felt this was the end for me. My chest was struggling when I took a breath. I vaguely remember a nurse asking me for emergency contact numbers. I picked up my phone and gave them BatTeen (my youngest daughter) and my mom’s numbers. The nurse then Facetime’d my daughter and the last thing I remember was weakly waving to my baby girl. According to BatTeen, the nurse told her to get to the hospital right away, by the time she got to the hospital I was gone.

As I waved to my sixteen-year-old, I remember seeing this extremely bright light. I saw my sons. My dead sons. Isaiah and Joshua weren’t babies anymore, they were teenagers. They were waving me to come on with their arms stretched open. I felt like I was walking towards them, and then…

DARKNESS.

Darkness engulfed me.

That was June fifteenth.

I don’t know what day it was, but I remember opening up my eyes, looking down, and seeing a blue tube coming out of my throat. I panicked and I started pulling it out, BatTeen went to get a nurse and they told me, “No, Miss Franklin, this helps you breathe.”, and then I fell back to sleep. It wasn’t “sleep, sleep”, but I fell back to sleep.

A few days later, I started gagging and they woke me up. I remember looking around, unsure as to where I was, seeing all these people towering over me. Someone was rubbing my arm telling me, “everything will be ok.” and another person rubbing my leg, also reassuring me that “it’s fine.”, without saying a word. This doctor told me how they were going to take the tube out and that he wanted me to breathe in and hold it. This long. blue, plastic snake with ridges was taken out of my throat. It was so long it probably reached all the way down to my stomach.

The doctor shined a light in my eyes and told me to follow it, then checked my throat and told me that it looked good. He said my throat and body was telling him that it was time to take the tube out and to wake up. I just looked at him like he had two heads. I had no friggin idea just what the hell was going on.

Looking around I noticed that I was in ICU. The nurse came in and put these two towels under my chin and on my shoulder and showed me how to use this suction doohickey that would take all my saliva away. He asked me if I wanted to call someone and when I opened my mouth to speak, it was a whisper. I had no voice. He told me this is normal and your voice will return eventually. Nurse J returned with the phone and I tried to dial the number, but I couldn’t move my arms or fingers. They felt like dead weight, they were extremely numb and I started to cry.

I woke up alone. I was all by myself in this scary place. I couldn’t feel my legs. An anaconda tube was just pulled out of my throat. What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On???? I started having a panic attack, my breathing was erratic and I started to hyperventilate. Tears and snot were just leaking everywhere and all I wanted was my daughter. I needed to see my baby girl. I needed to make sure that she was fine.

Nurse J calmed me down and he dialed BatTeen’s number, he told her that I was awake and that I didn’t sound like myself.

“Hi mommy,” BatTeen said in her soothing, squeaky voice.

“Hi baby,” I whispered back.

Hearing her voice made the tears flow even more. Nurse J wiped my face and rubbed my back, letting me know he was here for me and everything will be fine.

BatTeen told me that she had to work that day, but now that I was awake, she was calling out and was headed my way. When she said that I felt better. So much better.

When BatTeen got to the hospital, things got real. I lost my mind and had the biggest panic attack I’ve ever had. After the most hugs and kisses I have ever received from my teenage daughter in my life, she got in touch on Facetime with my niece and told her what happened to me. My niece was upset that BatTeen didn’t tell her — or anyone — that I was in the hospital.

“Auntie was in the hospital? I was up here thinking you went to DC without me.” My niece said while being extremely ticked off.

“DC? What do you mean?” I inquired. “The nineteenth is in four days, that’s when we’re leaving.”

BatTeen and my niece said, “Today’s the twentieth.”

That’s when I lost my mind. I started panicking, crying, hyperventilating, trying to get out of bed and then I started screaming. Well, I tried to scream, but nothing was truly escaping my mouth.

BatTeen went and got Nurse J and she explained what happened and how I responded to the news of five days being lost. Nurse J came in and I pleaded with him to tell me what day it was and he kept repeating that it was the twentieth. I didn’t understand. My brain wouldn’t comprehend the fact that it was the twentieth when it was just the fifteenth.

Looking back, I admit I was very frantic and hysterical. I’m sure if I had use of my arms and legs I would’ve been kicking and knocking things over. I couldn’t comprehend the fact that I missed five days. I was essentially in the future. If I’m being honest, it’s a whole month later and I still don’t get the fact I missed five days.

Nurse J explained to me that because I couldn’t breathe on my own, they put me in a medically induced coma, intubated me and put me on a ventilator. Waking up scared and missing days is normal, then he gave me some medicine to calm my nerves. I started to feel sleepy, but I fought it. I wasn’t falling asleep. The last time I fell asleep, I woke up five days later.

Me in a hospital gown, in the hospital bed on a ventilator, tube down my throat and other tubes everywhere on my body.

BatTeen was giving me updates on what was happening. She told me that she stayed by my bedside every day she didn’t have work until visiting hours ended. My niece had given birth while I was in a coma, I was supposed to be there to help her in the delivery room, but I missed it. I felt as if I let my niece down and I started crying again. I can’t even tell you how many times I cried when I woke up. All I know is that I was miserable and in pain.

When Nurse J came, I told him that I was in pain and they gave me the medication that I take every day…well some of the meds. Apparently, the doctors thought I was allergic to the Gabapentin that I’ve been taking since I was in a car accident. The side effects to the Gabapentin are hives; difficult breathing; swelling of your face, lips, tongue, or throat. So they ditched the Gabapentin, as well as my Oxycodone. I understood the reason for that, but why couldn’t I take my Oxy? A girl is in pain, dammit! I was told that Oxycodone slows down your breathing, and since I just came off the ventilator, they didn’t want my breathing to change.

So they gave me some corny ass pain meds through the IV that didn’t work. I suffered in pain for days. I did tell BatTeen to sneak in my meds so I can take them. Ssssshhh don’t tell, k?

I was visited by doctors many times over the past few days and they wanted to know what I did differently, and I told them the only thing that was different was me washing my hair and twisting it up. I asked repeatedly if I could just wash the stuff out of my hair, but they claimed that wasn’t the reason for the allergic reaction. When I asked what was the reason, they constantly said Gabapentin.

It was hopeless. I knew what it was — at least I thought I did — but the doctors wouldn’t listen to me. Obviously, I know my body, but they dismissed me…my medication was not the cause of this damn near deadly allergic reaction.

And guess who was right? This gal here. By the end of my hospital stay, what type of medications did they give me? Say it with me: Gabapentin! I didn’t get a, “you were right” or anything. The doctor was all, “We concluded that the Gabapentin you’ve been taking for years wasn’t the culprit of the angioedema. Please follow up with an allergy specialist to find out exactly what you’re allergic to.”

Angioedema. That’s my diagnosis. According to WebMD:

Angioedema is similar to hives, but the swelling occurs beneath the skin instead of on the surface. Angioedema is characterized by deep swelling around the eyes and lips and sometimes of the genitals, hands, and feet. It generally lasts longer than hives, but the swelling usually goes away in less than 24 hours.

Rarely, angioedema of the throat, tongue, or lungs can block the airways, causing difficulty breathing. This may become life-threatening.

This may become life-threatening indeed. My life was certainly threatened. When I got home from the hospital and got in bed, it started to dawn on me that I could’ve died. My life almost ended. And then it hit me.

TRIGGER WARNING:

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Last year I was suicidal, extremely depressed, stressing over family issues, over the chronic pain, in addition to dealing with the fact that I was now this well-published, award-nominated author and I couldn’t handle it. I just didn’t want to live anymore. I had given up.

But after me almost dying, I had a new lease on life. I wanted to live. I wanted to be here…in the moment. Feeling good things, great things, even bad things. I wanted to feel. I needed to feel. I felt that I had died and my sons were welcoming me with open arms, but my time isn’t over yet.

I have never wanted to live so much in my life. I’m no longer stressing about anything and anyone anymore. It’s not worth it. It sucks that it took me almost dying to understand that I wanted to live and to stop stressing over people and things.

But, there was a piece of me that was truly afraid. That piece of me knew if I fell asleep that I wouldn’t wake up again. The first night after being discharged I begged BatTeen to sleep in the bed with me. After telling me she was too old for that, she did it anyway. I told her to make sure that if I fell asleep to make sure that I was still breathing. I ended up watching her breathe while she slept. As for me, sleep wasn’t an option. They say sleep is the cousin of death, and I knew that death was finally coming for me.

For a week I didn’t sleep. A fifteen minute catnap here and there, nothing longer. The bags underneath my eyes had bags and I knew that it was finally time for me to take it down. When I finally slept, I woke up almost a day later. I truly needed sleep, but I was afraid. After realizing that I could fall asleep without dying, I tried to catch up on my sleep.

When I dreamed, it was a constant replay of me trying to reach teenage Isaiah and Joshua. I almost reached them one time, but almost doesn’t count. It took a week to stop having those dreams. It also took over a week for me to climb steps without being out of breath. The first few days were extremely rough on me. Every three to four steps I had to stop and catch my breath. It felt as if I was drowning, and that is not a good feeling.

Showering was a hassle. I had to sit on a stool as I had no strength. My legs and upper body were extremely weak. BatTeen had to help wash me because I just couldn’t do it. I felt so helpless and embarrassed. A week and a half later I could do things on my own…slowly. Climbing the stairs by myself was finally back to normal, I was cooking and cleaning, but I still couldn’t get rid of the “drowning” sensation.

Three weeks later and the drowning sensation disappeared. My strength is back to where it was, the only thing that’s not back to “normal” is my voice. I sound like a heavy smoker. You’ve seen the commercials with the smokers that have a hole in their throat, right? Well, that’s how I sound. I also can’t laugh as I end up having a hacking cough along with a drowning sensation. I know these things are aggravating as hell, but I’m alive. It’s honestly what I keep telling myself when I start to focus on the fact that I’m missing five days.

I want to “find” these missing days, even tho I know there’s no way possible. It’s such a nagging feeling in the back of my head and I want to reach in there, find the days, and get back to living. Knowing that I was in a coma and the world kept living without me is as close to someone dying as I can get.

This experience has been truly traumatic. Seeing a picture of me in a coma on a ventilator and all types of tubes everywhere in me is something that I can’t shake. Remembering how swollen my face after being discharged when I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror is something that will stick with me forever. It’s a month later and my face is still swollen, plus the doctor hasn’t found out exactly what caused that severe allergic reaction.

I’ve been doing allergy testing for the past two weeks and we still haven’t found the culprit that did this to me. I’m on eight different medications for my allergies — with wild ass side effects — and I have two more allergy tests to do. I pray we find out what was it that kept me hospitalized, and soon. The doctor informed me that whatever it is that caused my throat to swell if I’m exposed to it again, it will be a worse reaction every time.

That’s hella scary. What’s worse than being in a coma for five days? Death? Yeah, I need to find this out like yesterday.

Since being out of the hospital I have had two allergic reactions. I carry my EpiPen wherever I go, along with two Benadryl pills. I’ve had to use the EpiPen once as my throat and face began to swell and immediately went to the hospital for observations afterward. They told me the Epipen saved my life. I found out I’m basically allergic to everything outside, so that’s pretty cool. I’m finding out things I’ve never been allergic to before. is now causing me to break out in hives and swelling my throat. Heck, I step outside and my face and eye swell up, no sneezing or coughing, just face swelling.

This is a lot of new information for me to process and I know I have to follow doctor’s orders because I’m not going back into coma city. No way. No how.

If you have allergies, please carry an EpiPen on you, it can save your life…it saved mine. Allergies are deadly and I have entirely too much to live for. Youhave too much to live for.

I am truly sorry to those who were expecting to see me at ALA in June, but I just couldn’t make it. I hope you understand. I’m so grateful to my friends who took care of BatTeen and checked in, as well as prayed for me. As always, I appreciate everyone’s support, please continue to send your thoughts and prayers as we have yet to figure out the original allergy trigger.

This month has been all about healing myself, self-care, and taking things slow. I know I’m not 100% back to my “normal” self, and that does irritate me at times, but again, I’m alive.

And being alive is truly all that matters.