We all have stories that make us who we are. They are complex, they are interwoven with other people's stories and they are extremely subjective. It makes it hard to talk about ourselves and our pasts. What do you include? Do you start at the beginning? Do you bring up that one incident that might help explain things better but requires even more explanation to explain how that had the effect that it did? Do you mention the time your best friend stopped talking to you and how you never found out why? Do you talk about the boy, the first love, that swore he would never go anywhere and then disappeared? Do you talk about your suicidal mother, and the fear you had growing up that anytime you were less-than-happy, she would feel like she failed and would kill herself? Does the fact that your story ended, for 43 seconds, matter in the course of figuring out who you are and why?
I'm not sure. Scott keeps asking me why I never bring it up in conversations about my life. It does help complete the picture, but it is a hard thing for me to contextualize. I never intend to write a book. Not about this. I have decided that everyone who has experienced "near death" has a different story, a different experience, and a different way of thinking about it. Because of this, we can't really know for sure what really is "on the other side". And I don't think any of us really can. I do know if this particular set of events had not happened, then I would never have met Scott or had Nicholas (longer, more convoluted story for another time). And that is enough for me to say that God had everything to do with it.
Sometime before Spring Break my senior year of high school I developed a kidney stone that required lithroscopic removal. I will spare the details of that procedure. It was routine, and I was sent home with Vicodin and Bactrum. Sometime within the next two days, I started feeling cold. I remember it started slowly. I sat on the porch hoping the sun would warm me. Later I took a hot bath. When none of those things worked, I put on my sweats and crawled under the blankets. Despite all my efforts, I suddenly could not stop shivering. My teeth chattered. Then my insides were convulsing. I started vomiting and could not stop. It felt like my stomach was trying to claw its way through my esophagus. All I could do was reach the cordless phone receiver and start punching the "page handset" button. Eventually my mom came into the room to figure out why it was beeping and saw me. I was rushed to the hospital, flashers on with my head in a plastic bag. Despite a 103.8 fever and violent vomiting convulsions, I was still required to wait for three hours. The room they put me in was essentially a converted storage closet, and they forgot about me multiple times. I was given Demerol every two hours and hooked up to constant fluids to rehydrate me. I was left there all night before any doctor came to the room.
Sometime the following morning (twelve hours after being admitted), I was told to drink three cups of barium for a contrast. It was only after I gagged down the liquid that forever ruined cherry kool-aid for me that someone realized that I didn't need to do that. My doctor came and went, prescribing more pain meds and fluids, and I was finally moved to a room that afternoon. The nurses came to take my blood pressure and laughed when they got a reading that meant I should have been unconscious. They assumed the cuff was broken. My chest was hurting, and I commented to one of them that I was having trouble breathing. She told me that it was probably due to all the vomiting and suggested I try eating a Popsicle.
At this point my dad (who realized I was wheezing but couldn't get a nurse to come check me) went down to his truck to get his own stethoscope. On the elevator he ran into my grandmother's doctor who was leaving for the day,and told him about my situation. Dr. T (as he became known to me) immediately came to check on me and became alarmed. I had been on IV fluids for 17 hours and had not once peed. My lungs were full of fluid, my stomach was full of fluid, my blood pressure was non-existent, and I had begun to hallucinate.
At this point, I have snapshots of memory interwoven in a way that makes it hard to separate what happened and what I imagined. Being wheeled down to CCU. Looking up and seeing light pouring through a cathedral window as I lay on the floor. A tube being inserted in my chest. Realizing I was completely covered with a white sheet and pulling it back from my face. A catheter being inserted, removed, reinserted. An old man in white scrubs sitting alone beside my bed holding my hand. An oxygen mask being placed over my face and panic as I realize I am drowning. An empty room with wooden pews. Safety. Security. A Defibrillator. And then it was morning again, and no one could quite believe I was still there. Except me. I never thought for a second that I was going to die.
Physically, I suffered from Septic Shock and Pneumonia. I should not have been alive, but there was a new antibiotic that the hospital had received that month that saved my life. Spiritually, I have no diagnosis. My experience felt so clear at the time. I just knew I had all the answers. Time and distance have blurred my memories and made me realize that my experience is only true for me. I can't pretend that anyone should "Take my word for it". But I also know I needed to write it down before I completely forgot everything.
