Three Percent Chances
On October 23rd of last year, my life unexpectedly changed. While I was at a friend's house for an annual fall gathering and eating banana pudding (my favorite thing), I collapsed and went into sudden cardiac arrest. My heart stopped and I was without oxygen for 14 minutes. The quick actions of those around me, with one in particular, helped save my life. Samantha, a nurse and a lifelong family friend, had arrived at the soirée just mere minutes before I collapsed. Without her cpr training as a nurse, I would not be here. My friends who were there went through an ordeal I would not wish on anyone.
My sister who was not there but got the first phone call, recently described the experience for her as this. “It’s that call from Rani’s phone and being told I need to get there as fast as I can cuz you don’t have a pulse. It’s the screaming from me and Sarai. It’s the speeding down the freeway and counting the minutes that you haven’t had a pulse. It’s the wait in the ER and being told they had to bring you back twice. It’s seeing you in the middle of the night on a ventilator and being told your heart stopped. It’s being told we don’t know if he’ll wake up or what his neurological deficits will be”
I got to Methodist Dallas at 6pm and close friends quickly crowded the ER waiting room while the staff did anything and everything to keep me alive. My friends and my family jumped into action, making calls and notifications. When the doctors came to update my next of kin, they asked “who is family?” and they answered, “we all are”. Whenever I think of that moment, it brings me to tears.
For the next three days, I was in a coma. I have shared a lot about those three days privately, but I don’t know if I’m ready to dive into that publicly, or if I ever will. All I will say is this. I read the notes on my initial patient intake chart a few weeks after I left the hospital and it said verbatim “patient not expected to make it through the night”. That still gives me chills. BUT GOD!
Outside of the hospital for those three days, people were moving mountains on my behalf. Family members were driving from all over Texas and Oklahoma preparing to say their goodbyes. My mother was trying to get an emergency travel visa from Kenya to come. Fundraising was happening all over the place for my medical expenses from people in so many different areas of my life. Articles were being written and news stories and interviews were being held. People were cleaning my house and running my business.
Three days later on October 26th, a year ago today. I woke up from my coma. The only thing I remember from that moment is seeing my sister and my college roommate LeMontre sitting there together. And I said a whole bunch of crazy stuff that I won’t share (hello sedation ) but I did tell my cousin Chelsea (who was a nurse at the hospital) that I needed to report a crime to Captain Olivia Benson cuz I’d been assaulted. (I woke up with things in ALL parts of my body and I was very confused lol) but I digress. I woke up. Then I was quickly sedated again because I was very confused and in shock. They still didn’t know what my neurological or physical defects would be. They were preparing my loved ones for the worst. The next day, my cousin Brenda and sister came up to see me. Esther asked if I wanted to FaceTime someone and I said “looking like this, are you crazy??” And she laughed and told the doctors “okay, my brother is back.”
The prognosis was not good. My heart was functioning at less than ten percent. I was told I needed a heart transplant. Two days after I woke up, they got me out of bed for physical therapy. I walked down the ICU hallway and back into my room. As I neared my room, I heard a small scream coming from the other side of the hallway. A lady walked into my room flustured. I asked if she was okay and she said “I was one of the nurses who worked on you when you came in five days ago. I can’t believe I just saw you walk.” Over the next few days, scenes like that would play out with various visitors and staff. I got out of ICU and finally had some time to try and take everything in. I remember crying for hours trying to write my thoughts down. The result of that was this post here.
The day after halloween, I had two procedures done. They were basically done to buy me time while we were trying to figure out heart transplant stuff. I had a very restless night, basically crying, praying, and worrying. A very kind nurse spent hours in my room comforting me. Because I am who I am, I took notes at 4am as we were talking. I included a screenshot of it on the social media version of this post. .
A week after I woke up, I got dischardged from the hospital. The road ahead was so uncertain and scary. what a year it has been! I have a device in my chest (that’s only gone off once due to user error lol) and I currently take 12 pills a day. I had another procedure done a few months ago and it went well. Despite the extremely low chances of my original heart recovering, it is doing JUST THAT. It has improved enough to where by the full grace of God and an amazing team of medical professionals, I am very pleased to say that currently, a heart transplant is no longer on the table as the next step! I will continue taking meds daily, and my visits to my three doctors will now be just twice a year for each. This will be a much welcomed break after no less than 30 trips to a doctors office/the hospital this year. Only time will tell how much more I recover, but for now, I am holding steady. I am able to work out five times a week and most days now, I feel completely normal.
Well, maybe I should say I feel like I'm finally settling into a new normal. My life, my outlook, and my thoughts will never go back to what they used to be. I don’t get as worked up by things and people like I used to be. I have traveled all over the country this year seeing loved ones. I’m finding it easier to ask for help. There were so many things that I was afraid I would never get to do again, be there for, or experience, and I've gotten to do every single one. Life is too short to not live fully. I was talking to my Pastor last year while I was in the hospital and I said “I am thankful that when I woke up from the coma and took stock of how i had lived my life prior to this incident, the number one thing that marked the last 8 years of my life was that I had lived it and loved people (imperfectly) in a way that pointed to something and a love greater than myself. That I had lived my life for Jesus”. May I continue to do that for the rest of my days.
Lastly, I will never be able to say how grateful I am for how people showed up for me. Showed up in ways that remain unbelievable to this day. The kindness and support I received was nothing short of amazing. The energy, the care, the devotion. My community loved me so well. I have the best friends a person could ask for. I love you all so much and I'm so grateful to still be here with y’all. I now consider the 26th as a bonus birthday and it has been a joy to celebrate it these last few days with my loved ones. I have used the word “miracle” a few times in this post but it’s because I genuinely believe it. There are SO MANY parts of this story that are simply can’t be explained. I am a miracle and every single day of my life since October 26th last year, no matter how mundane, has been that much more of a gift and a blessing. What a humbling truth that I get to live in. From the bottom of my very still beating heart, I thank you all for being on this journey with me.
Henry Wasonga Abuto
“This world is shaking, but You cannot be shaken. My heart is breaking, but I'm not broken yet. Your love is fearless, help me to be courageous too. Oh, there is nothing impossible for the God of miracles. God of miracles come. We need your supernatural love to break through. Nothing's impossible, you're the God of miracles. Yes You are!”
God of Miracles by Chris McClarney
