Surviving a Coma From Prescription Drugs: 5 Things No One Tells You About Recovery

Three and a half weeks. That's how long I was gone.

Not dead: but close enough that my family was preparing for the worst. A coma caused by prescription drugs. Not street drugs. Not some back-alley deal. Prescriptions. The kind you get from a pharmacy with your name printed neatly on the label.

When I finally opened my eyes, I thought the hard part was over. I was wrong. So wrong.

Recovery from a prescription drug-induced coma isn't what you see in the movies. There's no dramatic awakening where you sit up, hug your loved ones, and walk out of the hospital a week later. The reality is brutal. Disorienting. Lonely in ways I can't fully describe.

Here are five things no one told me about recovering from a coma: things I wish someone had warned me about before I had to learn them the hard way.

1. Waking Up Isn't the Victory Everyone Thinks It Is

When you wake up from a coma, everyone around you celebrates. They cry happy tears. They thank God. They act like the nightmare is over.

But here's what they don't tell you: waking up is just the beginning.

Your brain doesn't flip back on like a light switch. Mine came back in fragments. I didn't know where I was. I didn't recognize faces at first. Time made no sense: days blurred together like a fever dream.

The confusion is terrifying. You're conscious but you're not you yet. Your mind is crawling back from somewhere dark, and it takes its sweet time getting there.

I remember the frustration of not being able to communicate what I was feeling. Of having doctors and nurses talk over me like I wasn't there. Of being trapped in a body that wouldn't cooperate.

Waking up from a coma isn't a finish line. It's a starting gun.

2. Your Body Becomes a Stranger

Three and a half weeks of lying motionless takes a toll you can't imagine until you live it.

Muscle atrophy is real. When I tried to move my arms and legs, they barely responded. The strength I'd taken for granted my entire life? Gone. I had to relearn basic movements like a child.

• Walking required a walker, then a cane, then months of physical therapy

• Eating was a challenge: my throat had to remember how to swallow properly

• Coordination was shot: picking up a cup of water felt like solving a puzzle

• Pain became my constant companion as my body fought to rebuild itself

No one prepares you for how humbling it is to need help doing things you've done independently since childhood. Brushing your teeth. Getting dressed. Going to the bathroom.

Pain replaced comfort. Doubt replaced confidence.

The body I woke up in wasn't the body I remembered. And rebuilding it wasn't just physical work: it was mental warfare every single day.

3. The Emotional Recovery Takes Longer Than the Physical

Here's the thing nobody warns you about: the trauma lingers.

You don't just bounce back psychologically from nearly dying. From knowing that the medications you trusted almost killed you. From realizing the system designed to heal you failed you completely.

I dealt with depression. Anxiety. Anger that would spike out of nowhere. Survivor's guilt mixed with a burning frustration at how I ended up in that hospital bed in the first place.

Sleep didn't come easy. Nightmares did. I'd wake up in a cold sweat, convinced I was back in that darkness. My mind kept replaying the "what ifs": what if I hadn't woken up? What if I'd taken one more pill? What if no one had gotten me to the hospital in time?

The emotional weight is crushing. And unlike a broken bone or a weakened muscle, there's no obvious timeline for healing. No physical therapist counting your reps. Just you, your thoughts, and the long road ahead.

If you're going through this: or someone you love is: understand that psychological recovery isn't a sign of weakness. It's part of the process. Maybe the hardest part.

4. The Healthcare System That Nearly Killed You Is the Same One You Need to Survive

This one still makes my blood boil.

The pill mills. The pharmacies that filled dangerous combinations without blinking. The doctors who prescribed without proper oversight. They're the reason I ended up in a coma. And yet, when I woke up, I had no choice but to trust healthcare providers again.

Let me be clear: there are good people in medicine. Nurses who stayed by my side. Doctors who genuinely cared about my recovery. Physical therapists who pushed me when I wanted to quit.

But the system itself? It's broken. I've written about reforming healthcare systems because I've seen the cracks firsthand. I almost fell through them permanently.

Recovery means navigating that same broken system. Getting prescriptions from pharmacies that remind you of the one that over-dispensed. Trusting doctors when trust has been shattered. Filling out insurance paperwork that reduces your near-death experience to codes and claim numbers.

It's a minefield. And you have to walk through it while you're still healing.

5. Faith Becomes Everything When Medicine Fails

I'm not going to preach at you. That's not my style.

But I'll tell you this: when I was in that coma, something kept me tethered. Something pulled me back when everything else was pulling me under.

Faith.

Not the Sunday-morning, everything's-fine kind of faith. The desperate, clinging, fight-to-stay-alive kind. The kind that shows up when medicine has done all it can and you're still lying in a hospital bed with machines breathing for you.

I wrote about survival and faith because they're inseparable in my story. Recovery wasn't just about physical therapy and medication adjustments. It was about believing: truly believing: that I was still here for a reason.

That belief carried me through the darkest moments. When my body failed. When my mind screamed to give up. When the weight of what happened threatened to crush me.

Faith didn't make recovery easy. But it made it possible.

Why I Wrote It All Down

I didn't survive a 3.5-week coma just to stay quiet about it.

The truth needed to be told. About how pill mills operate. About how major pharmacies can fail their patients. About how prescription drugs: when mismanaged: can destroy lives.

That's why I wrote Almost Gone: How Walgreens and the Pill Mills Nearly Took My Life. Not for sympathy. Not for revenge. For awareness.

If my story helps one person question their prescriptions. If it pushes one family to advocate harder for their loved one. If it makes one pharmacist think twice before filling a dangerous combination: then every painful word was worth it.

Recovery is ongoing. Some days are harder than others. But I'm still here. Still fighting. Still telling the truth.

And that's something no coma could take from me.

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If you want to understand the full story: the good, the bad, and the nearly fatal: check out what Almost Gone is really about or grab a copy of the book. This isn't just my story. It might be yours too.