3.5 Weeks in a Coma: The Raw Truth About What It’s Like to Wake Up From the Brink
Updated: Sep 4
People sometimes imagine waking up from a coma the way it happens in a movie.
You open your eyes.
Someone you love is sitting beside you.
You recognize everyone.
And somehow you understand what happened.
That wasn't my experience.
After approximately three and a half weeks in a coma, waking up wasn't a single moment when everything suddenly became clear.
It was confusing.
My mind and body had been through something catastrophic, and I was beginning a recovery I couldn't possibly understand yet.
I had survived.
But I was about to discover that surviving and getting your life back are two very different things.
I Don't Remember the Coma
One of the strangest things about my experience is that some of the most important weeks of my life are missing from my memory.
I don't remember the moment I almost died.
I don't remember lying unresponsive in my home.
I don't remember my daughter Cynthia and my former brother-in-law Steve finding me after my mother became worried because I wasn't answering her calls.
I don't remember the paramedics working on me when they initially couldn't find a pulse.
And I don't remember being rushed to the hospital.
Those memories belong to my family and the people who fought to save me.
For me, there is simply a gap.
One part of my life ends.
Then another begins.
And between them are approximately three and a half weeks I can't remember.
Waking Up Didn't Mean I Understood What Had Happened
Coming out of a prolonged coma isn't something I can reduce to one dramatic instant.
My understanding returned gradually.
There was confusion.
There were things I didn't understand.
My perception of what had happened didn't necessarily match reality.
I had to rely on other people to explain events that had happened to me.
Think about how strange that is.
Your family knows more about some of the most critical moments of your life than you do.
They can tell you where you were.
They can tell you what doctors said.
They can tell you what happened while you were unconscious.
But you have no memory of experiencing it.
I had to reconstruct part of my own life through other people's memories.
Then I Had to Understand What Happened to My Body
Eventually, I began realizing that being awake didn't mean I was okay.
My body had changed.
My left side had been severely affected.
Things I had once done without thinking were suddenly difficult or impossible.
I had spent weeks unconscious, and now I was facing the physical consequences of everything my body had endured.
That realization wasn't easy.
Before this happened, I had been independent.
I worked.
I ran a business.
I drove.
I bowled.
I handled my own life.
Now I needed help with things I had previously taken for granted.
That's when I began understanding that the coma wasn't going to be the end of my medical story.
It was the beginning of a completely different one.
What Happened Before the Coma Mattered Too
My medical crisis didn't appear out of nowhere.
Years of pain and escalating prescription medication use had led to dependence.
By the worst period, prescription medication had become far too large a part of my life.
Looking backward, I can see things differently than I could while I was living through them.
There were circumstances surrounding my healthcare that mattered.
There were also choices I made.
That's important to me now because I don't want to tell my story in a way that removes my own responsibility.
I believe patients should ask questions, understand their medications, communicate honestly with qualified healthcare professionals, and become active participants in their own care.
I also believe accountability is part of recovery.
I can't change the decisions I made before the coma.
But I can be truthful about them now.
The People Around Me Lived Through a Different Coma
While those weeks are largely absent from my memory, my family experienced every day of them.
That's something I understand much better today.
When a person is critically ill, the trauma doesn't belong only to the patient.
Families wait.
They worry.
They pray.
They listen to doctors.
They make decisions.
They wonder whether the person they love is ever going to wake up.
My daughter had already experienced the trauma of finding me unresponsive.
Then my family had to endure weeks of uncertainty.
I can't remember those days.
They can.
That's one reason telling this story required me to listen to their experiences as well as examine my own.
Waking Up Wasn't the Finish Line
There is a natural tendency to hear a coma-survival story and think:
He woke up. He made it.
I understand that.
I'm incredibly grateful that I woke up.
But waking up was only the beginning.
Afterward came rehabilitation.
I spent about eight weeks at the VA working to regain function and independence.
Recovery involved things that wouldn't make dramatic movie scenes.
Repetition.
Movement.
Balance.
Learning.
Frustration.
Trying again.
Progress sometimes came in increments so small that another person might barely notice them.
But I noticed.
When you've lost abilities you once took for granted, a small improvement can feel enormous.
I Couldn't Simply Return to My Old Life
For a while, I wanted recovery to mean becoming exactly the person I had been before the medical crisis.
Eventually, I realized that wasn't going to happen.
Some things had changed.
I had lasting physical challenges.
I had to adapt.
That required a different kind of recovery.
Instead of constantly asking myself how I could get my old life back, I gradually began asking:
What kind of life can I build now?
That question changed things for me.
I could still work.
I could still think.
I could still love my family.
I could still help people.
I could still have faith.
I could still have goals.
My body had changed.
My life had changed.
But my life wasn't over.
Recovery Continued Long After Rehabilitation
Leaving rehabilitation didn't mean I was finished recovering.
Some physical consequences lasted years.
I dealt with wounds and other complications long after the immediate crisis had passed.
I also had to rebuild emotionally and practically.
I returned to work.
I adapted to my limitations.
I rebuilt my business and my independence.
And slowly, the medical crisis stopped being the only thing I saw when I looked at my future.
I began living again instead of simply thinking about what I had survived.
Faith Became Part of How I Understood My Survival
There is one detail from my story that has stayed with me.
When the paramedics initially couldn't find a pulse, they kept working.
Eventually, they detected one in my right foot.
A tiny sign of life.
That's difficult for me to think about without considering how close everything came to ending.
My family could have lost me.
My future could have ended there.
There would have been no recovery.
No book.
No opportunity to tell this story.
But somehow, I survived.
My faith has played an important role in how I understand that second chance.
I don't claim to understand why one person survives and another doesn't.
But I do believe I was given another chance.
And I've tried to ask myself what I'm supposed to do with it.
What Three and a Half Weeks in a Coma Taught Me
I can't tell someone else exactly what being in a coma will be like.
Medical circumstances vary enormously, and recovery is different for every person.
I can only tell you what my own experience taught me.
Survival is not the same as recovery.
Families experience medical trauma too.
Progress doesn't have to be dramatic to matter.
Accepting help isn't weakness.
Your body may change without eliminating your purpose.
You have to take responsibility for the choices that belong to you.
And perhaps most importantly:
Your life can still have meaning after it becomes completely different from the life you expected.
Why I Tell This Story
I didn't write Almost Gone because I have all the answers.
I don't.
I wrote it because I lived through something I never expected to survive.
The coma is an important part of that story, but it isn't the whole story.
Almost Gone begins long before the medical crisis—with my childhood in Kentucky, my family, my service in the U.S. Navy Seabees, work, marriage, fatherhood, business, pain, and the decisions that eventually led me down a dangerous road.
And it continues after the coma because waking up wasn't the ending.
Learning to live again was part of the story too.
If You or Someone You Love Is Facing a Long Recovery
One thing I would never do is promise someone that their recovery will look like mine.
Every medical situation is different.
Recovery after a coma or other serious medical event should be guided by qualified healthcare professionals who understand the individual's condition.
But from one survivor to another, I can tell you this:
Don't judge your entire future by where you are today.
Don't underestimate small progress.
Let people help you.
Ask questions.
Give yourself time.
And don't assume that a changed life can't still be a meaningful life.
I spent approximately three and a half weeks in a coma.
There was a time when my family didn't know what my future would look like.
Neither did I.
Today, I have a family I love, work that matters to me, faith that has helped sustain me, and a book that tells a story I almost didn't live long enough to write.
I was almost gone.
But waking up wasn't the end of my story.
It was the beginning of my second chance.
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