In 2008 my mom almost died, I still remember till this day, it was in the morning, and I heard my dad saying 'Amanda! Amanda! Amanda!' I got up and wanted to know what is going on, he was doing CPR to my mom and looked at me and his eyes were red with tears. He said 'Please go to your room!' in Spanish, then my aunts woke up and heard him screaming louder, I heard cries and my kind aunt bursed into my room crying and layed next to me 'Your mother is dead!" In Spanish, she kept crying by my side and I heard what she said, but didn't respond, in my head I was like "My mom...Is dead?....It must be a dream.....It must be a......." I woke up and screamed at my family "CALL AN AMBULANCE! ITS NOT TOO LATE!" The paramedics arrived and took my mom to the hospital, thankfully she was alive. We didn't know what was the cause, she wasn't breathing at all, I celebrated my mom's birthday which was today, I still am thankful she's still alive, I know she won't be there for me forever. So I best make use of the time we have.
Last year, I also almost died, I had a rough day while meeting some familiar faces and I was just resting in my bed. Suddenly i felt like my arm dislocated, it stopped for several minutes, but then when the sun was down, I felt like I couldn't even breath, so I went to my computer and I still felt low on oxygen, at first I thought it was my mom's cooking but I panicked and told my mom while I was holding my heart. She panicked when she saw me struggling to breath, she told my dad to take me to the hospital, while driving my dad was trying to lighten up the mood like "You sure we can't turn back because I don't want to pay for something you're faking." In Spanish. I was really angry when he started doing that since I felt like I was about to die, we arrived and the doctors kept questioning me that if I smoke, they kept saying that and I really wasn't in the mood to be joking around and I didn't want to raise my voice at them. They told us its a thing that most people go through, in short 'They don't know.'
So after that happened, 3 weeks later my landlord ordered someone to drill an alarm in the middle of the house. I asked him "What is this alarm for?" He replied "Oh, this alarm is required by state law that everyone should have in their homes." I said "What does it detect?" "He replied "A deadly toxin that you can't see, can't taste and can't smell that can slowly make you feel weak and kill you unless you go get fresh air." That hit me, I looked it up and I was shocked that THAT was the thing that almost killed me instead of a common heart attack. So whenever I hear that alarm which was only once, I just alarm everyone to get outside the house until its gone.