My COVID booster lesson in empathy

I had the strangest experience yesterday, I’ve garnered a new empathy for my Grandad and Nana(RIP)and in fact anyone as they are in the last stages of life.

Warning: this may be a triggering post.

I had my Pfizer booster yesterday and I am one of that statistics — a person that has a reaction. All but the first vaccine have caused the same reaction, within 3–5 mins I am catatonic. My eyesight goes first. The room gets blurry — well I can actually see fine but it’s like there is a layer of blur buzzing between what I see and me knowing what it is. Then I lose my speech. I can form words and sentences perfectly inside my head but I cannot speak. If I try all I can manage is a kind of pop as I try to push the words out my lips. Finally, the third stage is when I lose the ability to move my limbs and they go floppy.

Yesterday was no exception in the sequence of events. I was prepared in a separate room at the pharmacy on a bed that had the back raised so I was comfortable, semi-inclined and ready to ride it out.

As all my senses faded and I was left, as is normal, with clear and functional chatter in my mind — in fact I’d say my chatter becomes busier as I keep talking to myself to stay calm. Unusually this time, I have to concentrate very hard on breathing. At times my body would just stop breathing, I’d panic and say to myself “breath Mandi, breath” which would trigger a phase of hyperventilation to which I say to myself calmly —” slow it down, slow it down”. I had to focus hard to keep breathing. A couple of times I thought I would pass out completely, I never do I normally stay conscious the entire time — but i’ll admit I was a little scared when my body would stop breathing on its own.

But this was not the part of the experience that fascinated me so much. Fascinated me enough that I wanted to share it. As everything else faded, I became aware of the sound of the jangling of pills being dispensed two rooms intensifying, the volume of people talking seemed to grow louder — like someone was turning up the volume dial. I hung there in this state of somewhat limbo, making my body keep breathing and hearing every sound more intensely. My attentive brain then recalled: hearing is the last sense to go when you die. Not that I thought I was dying, not at all but I thought I may be experiencing similar sensations as my Grandad and Nana in their last days, as their family had gathered around them, spending time by their bedside chattering, waiting, hoping, embracing.

I felt how loud everyone was in the pharmacy. How I wished they would be quiet, I couldn't tell anyone to do so, I couldn’t move. I just had to deal with the annoying din. It was loud enough to really distress me. I thought of my grandad in his hospice bed as we were all around him chatting away, ignoring him cause he was asleep most of the time or so we thought. I recalled how one moment he yelled and flung his hand in the air as if to say shut up. The nurse came in and she said he is probably just getting annoyed. I thought she meant annoyed with being sick with dying. But now I think he must have been telling us all to shut up ! I think after that he didn’t have his hearing aids in lol, not on purpose by-the-way.

Unlike my grandad, my Nana had lost her mind to dementia years before. Did you know that women are twice as likely to suffer from dementia than men? By this stage, I knew hearing was the last to go so we knew it was important to talk to her, but I am not sure that she could comprehend I like to think it was some comfort to her but now having experienced it I wonder if she was saying shut up let me sleep too. In fact, she too eventually yelled at us all — it was effective that we did Shut Up for a while anyway.

Contemplating this new empathy as I was in my chattering brain I had an epiphany. In those last days hearing the voices of your family, perhaps talking of the past of happy days and experiences in life — this will be a true blessing at the end. Now having a family of my own, I know the thought of leaving them leads me to question. Of all the things undone, unsaid, have I failed, are they happy did I give them a good life should I have done more?

I imagine now that the most blessed of all departures is one surrounded by those you love, quietly talking about happy times, to hear them say quietly they love you, life has been fabulous with you and it’s okay to go would be the most delightful exit anyone could wish for.

In the meantime, I’m off to make more memories and have experiences my family can talk about in the future, way way way in the future.