Claire Wineland is a 17-year-old Los Angeles teen living with cystic fibrosis, a serious genetic condition that causes fluid buildup in the lungs. After spending two weeks in a medically-induced coma, she decided to tell the world exactly what it was like.
Wineland explained the experience in a video for her YouTube channel The Clairity Project, a platform where she chronicles her experience of living with cystic fibrosis in humorous, upbeat and compelling videos.
In the video "What It's Like To Be In A Coma," Wineland described feeling like she was in Alaska -- only to find out that's when doctors were applying ice packs to her body while she was in a coma.
“I remember sitting there and staring at the most beautiful scenery ever for hours and hours … and it would be freezing cold but I didn’t care,” she explained in the video. “Turns out I was being ice-packed the whole time ... so I guess I thought somewhere in my brain I though, like, 'Ice, Alaska. Totally makes sense!'”
Michael DeGeorgia, a neurologist from University Hospitals Case Medical Center, told ABC that this happens because patients are in a dream-like state while sedated.
"When you’re dreaming, your entire brain is not [synchronized]," he explained. "When you wake up from dream, the memory is almost there but can’t quite get it.When you’re in and out of sedation [your brain is] not quite synchronized in laying down memories.”
Wineland has had 35 surgeries over the course of her life, according to People magazine, and spends quite a bit of time in the hospital. She has been told she won't live a very long life, so she's living it in a way that makes her happy.
"A lot of people say when you get a short life span you want to go out and do all of this crazy stuff like go bungee jumping and travel to exotic places," she told People. "But you just want to live. You start to realize that the mundane stuff is really beautiful, and you want to experience the great stuff that everyone else gets to experience."
To see more of Claire's inspiring videos, head over to The Clairity Project.
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