There is no better novelist than life, and what nature knows how to imagine and execute, that comes to the pen of great writers. An example of this is the incredible life story of South African Martin Pistorius (47), a man who spent 13 years literally trapped in his own body, only to wake up suddenly and incredibly one day.
It all started in his twelfth year. He came back from school and complained to his parents that he was “scratching his throat”. The doctors suspected the flu.
But, Martin deteriorated day by day, and in the end he was hospitalized. He tested positive for tuberculous meningitis, developed severe inflammation of the meninges and spinal cord. He became so weak that he could no longer speak or control his movements. Doctors informed Martin’s parents Joan and Rodney that there was nothing more they could do for their son. They explained that they would remain in a coma, that there was no cure and that they would most likely never recover.
But parents are parents, love has no reason, but there is plenty of hope.
They decided that their son would remain on life support at the Center for the Treatment of the Critically Ill.
Martin, as we have already said, returned “from the dead” after 13 years, and based on his experience he wrote a book with the symbolic name “Ghost Boy”. In it, he spoke about everything he felt and heard in his life in a coma, although others around him were not aware of it.
He lived unconscious for a good four years, and then, somewhere around his 16th birthday, he heard – clearly on which day – the people around him discussing whether he should be shaved or not. This confused him, because he saw himself as a child, which he was when he fell asleep…
“I could hear, see and understand everything around me, but I had absolutely no power or control over anything. For me, that feeling of complete powerlessness is probably the worst feeling I’ve ever experienced and I hope I never feel it again. It’s as if you don’t exist, someone else decides about every thing in your life – wrote Martin.
At the time, no one was aware that Martin was actually conscious, they just assumed he was still in a coma.
Boredom was “killing” him, so he used his imagination.
“I would imagine all kinds of things, like being very small and flying away in a spaceship.” Or having my wheelchair magically transform into a flying vehicle. Sometimes I would watch things move, whether it was the sunlight moving during the day. Or he would watch insects scurry around, but actually I was living in my mind to the point where I was sometimes oblivious to the world around me,” he admitted.
When he turned 25, his life changed forever.
The carer at the day care center persuaded his parents to take him to the Center for Augmented and Alternative Communication at the University of Pretoria.
There, they only realized what was happening to Martin. One of the doctors put a piece of paper with symbols in front of his eyes and asked him to “touch” the ball with his eyes. After that, there was no stopping.
Parents got Martin a computer with communication software and everything else is in the past.
Today, Martin is happily married to Joan, has a son Sebastian Albert, is active on social media, and even races in his wheelchair.
He didn’t lose hope. She saved him.
You can see Martin’s pictures during his coma HERE.
