Imagine you’re 22 years old, working your first professional job at a hospital, and you’re getting your required flu vaccine. Everything is going fine. Then suddenly, you go into cardiac arrest.
“Luckily, I was in a hospital when it happened so my co-workers and doctors were able to take care of me,” says Hau’oli Sproat-Lancaster. “They saved my life.”
After coding multiple times, she was transported by Flight for Life from Grand Junction to UCHealth, where she was in a coma for five days and the ICU for 17.
“The doctors had no idea what was wrong with me, and to this day, they still don’t know why I went into heart failure,” she says.
Not the Best Patient
After several days in a coma, Sproat-Lancaster gradually came out of it but was confused. “I woke up in a different part of Colorado and I was thinking, ‘What the hell is going on?’. I saw my mom, and I knew my mom was back in Hawaii [where Sproat-Lancaster grew up], so it was such a scary moment.”
Sproat-Lancaster admits she was not a nice patient when she was in the ICU. She didn’t want to take her medication or do anything the nurses told her to do.
“You’re in a vulnerable state, you don’t know what’s going on. You don’t know if you’re going to die,” she says.
“They Were Heroes to Me”
CU Nursing student Hau’oli Sproat-Lancaster. |
The nurses at UCHealth gave her such compassionate care, and it got Sproat-Lancaster thinking about switching to a nursing career. Months before her cardiac arrest, she had earned a degree in athletic training.
“Those nurses took care of me,” she says. “They were heroes to me. I know a lot of people say it’s a doctor who’s a hero – but for me, it was my nurses who got me through the toughest time of my life.”
Sproat-Lancaster was in recovery for three months. She went back to working in healthcare in Grand Junction and at UCHealth for a few years before enrolling in the University of Colorado College of Nursing at Anschutz Medical Campus’ BS in Nursing Accelerated (UCAN) program.
“I grew a passion for helping people. I feel like I can relate to how hard a hospital stay is and how scary it is,” she says. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for doctors and nurses in Grand Junction and UCHealth. I’m lucky to still be here, and I wanted to learn from the hospital system that took care of me.”
Adjusting to a New Lifestyle
Sproat-Lancaster is in chronic heart failure. She takes medication and has a defibrillator implanted in her chest. She says right after her recovery, she would be short of breath after walking around the grocery store and would be afraid to go anywhere alone.
“It was very discouraging, because one moment I was with my friends doing all sorts of things, and then the next moment, I was afraid to go on walks because I thought I was going to die,” she says.
It took about three years for Sproat-Lancaster to accept what happened to her.
“For a long time, I was afraid to do anything, but eventually I got clearance from my doctor to do more things,” she says.
Sproat-Lancaster plans to move back to Hawaii after graduation and wants to work in cardiac care to treat patients just like her. She’s been away from her home state for 10 years and wants to be closer to family.
“I know firsthand that life is short, and I don’t know if I’m promised tomorrow,” she says. “With nursing, there’s an opportunity to work anywhere in the world and my goal has been to go back home and take care of my Hawaiian community."
