A Christmas story with three dead bodies
If one intends to live by the James Dean rules of live - viz. live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse -, anaphylactic shock may not be the solution of one's choice, unless of course one's idea of good-looking is with a tormented expression on the face, covered with rashes and hives, in some cases at least covered in one's own vomit and generally an unpleasant sight to behold.

Last Christmas eve was spent with my family, as tradition dictates. It was a pleasant enough affair, cue turkey (that's one of the three dead bodies down), port and the usual extended family catching-up discourse which everyone was deeply immersed in, so nobody really paid attention when a rather ghostly wheezing/coughing sound started to emanate from one of the seats. Up until, that is, the people around the poor chap realised that he did not choke on a leftover fragment of the dead bird's furcula (that's the wishbone for those of you less anatomically aligned) but was in fact going into anaphylactic shock.

At which point, to use that time-honoured colloquialism for situations like the presently described, shit was regarded to have hit the fan.

Anaphylaxis is a catastrophic allergic reaction that results from the body releasing large amounts of a mediator substance, histamine, in response to a protein it is hypersensitive to. As a result, a number of classical allergic reactions happen (hives, rashes, anxiety, abdominal cramping, lachrymation &c.), but that's less critical than the joint effect of two facts, namely, first, that histamine causes blood vessels to dilate, which in turn results in a sharp drop in blood pressure, which in turn causes a strain on the heart by demanding it to beat faster to keep the shop open (reflex tachycardia), second, that it causes soft tissue to swell up and block the airways and suffocate the victim. Now without circulation and breathing, things are not generally going well for people.

Anaphylaxis is reversible by drugs, most importantly by adrenaline (not into the heart, though, this isn't Pulp Fiction). Epinephrine was duly administered by the poor chap's mother, a former medical professional, but to reasonably little avail - so little, in fact, that when the EMTs arrived, the chap went into full-blown circulatory collapse. It took them almost a minute and half to revive him and get his heart to do a normal sinus rhythm again. He was, literally, dead for more than a minute. A dead body.

And you know what? That chap was me.

I awoke a few hours later in the ICU, trying to breath and trying to think

As a sidenote, I have not had anything that would be regarded as a near-death experience. I awoke in a hospital room a few hours later, still struggling to breath and drugged up to my eyeballs. The following time was a bit of a haze, but I remember an old lady in a surrounding bed, in a rather bad state. I made a few phone calls and then went back to what amounted to sleep among the given circumstances. It was fitful and restless.

When, on the next day, I was wheeled out the ward, I saw the old lady's bed empty. She died overnight.
(adelie discovered the joys of a board sig on, Mon 3 Mar 2008, 19:53, 2 replies)

Covered in boils and puke at the dinner table...
...now that's my kind of party! Have a click.

Due respect for having survived it, but has it in fact been the cause of your b3tardness? Brain damage can be pretty subtle...;)
(all my scars face forward possesses 2.5% of a hyperalloy combat chassis, Mon 3 Mar 2008, 21:01, closed)

Mental b3tardation...
...I like it.
(adelie discovered the joys of a board sig on, Tue 4 Mar 2008, 4:56, closed)