"The story of my Near Death Experience and the Birth of my Spirit Awakening"
September 16th 1989 is a day that I will never forget. I never dreamed that when I awoke that morning, it was going to change the course of my life forever.
I had been ill leading up to this day. Nothing very serious, but I just didn't seem to be recovering as well as I thought I should.
My father and step-mother called in to see me after attending an Opera, as they knew that I was not doing very well. They both became concerned and called the Doctor who then in turn rang an ambulance immediately. I couldn't see what all the fuss was, and really didn't want to go, as I was worried about leaving my nine year old dog named "Bundy" alone in the house. We had not spent very much time away from one another, so as the ambulance sped to hospital my only real concern was for him.
Once I arrived at the hospital I spent a long time in Emergency, having many tests, those around me looking very concerned. Finally in the early hours of the morning I went up onto the Ward and spent a reasonable rest of what was left of the early morning. It was not until a few hours later, when the last thing I remember was my step-mother trying to encourage me to eat something. I declined and told her that all I wanted to do was to go to sleep. She bid me farewell and said that she and my father would return to see me soon. I drifted off to sleep.
If it had not been for a kind women in the bed opposite mine calling for help I would not be sitting in front of my computer now sharing my story with you.
I had suffered a respiratory arrest, I had totally stopped breathing on two occasions and had been resuscitated. It was during one of these episodes that I experienced my NDE (A Near Death Experience).
I vividly recall being held and drawn down a black tunnel very quickly going towards the beautiful sound of a choir of voices, not singing, but chanting in a melodic fashion over and over again, my name. I remember thinking and saying to myself and to the voices. "I am coming, I am coming". I still cannot find the words to describe the complete calmness and joy I felt. I knew my Mother and my beloved Grandfather were waiting for me at the end of that tunnel, they had died quite some years before. I was also aware of a very powerful force that was also making His presence felt. I was so happy, probably the happiest feeling I have experienced in my lifetime. Then suddenly without warning I was thrown back, hurtling away from where I wanted to go so very desperately.
It was then that I became aware of the medical staff around me shouting at me to swallow as they inserted the intubating tube down my throat, and the naso-gastro tube up my nose. I was thinking what are these people doing to me, they must have the wrong person. I could not find any physical way of communicating with these strange people. I did not know where I was or what was happening to me. I know now that at the point of death, or returning from the brink of death that the first sense to leave and return to you, is your sense of hearing.
My next awareness was waking up in Intensive Care attached to a life support machine which was breathing for me. Every part of my body had wires attached, tubes and intravenous lines were coming out of every conceivable orifice.
My prognosis was not promising. If I did survive the illness I was now being told at the tender age of thirty-four that the likelihood of my coming off life support was thought impossible.
During those first four weeks I tried so desperately to prove them wrong, that it was possible, that I would breathe again unaided, but my time was running out. One cannot be intubated for more than three weeks, so something had to be done and soon.
A very well known specialist was called in from a major Hospital in Melbourne which had a programme that specialized in ventilated dependent people. He came to see me and asked me what I wanted to happen and what I wanted for my life. I remember writing down, as I was unable to speak because of the tube down my throat that I was only thirty-four years young and I wanted to live, that I still had a lot more living to do and that I wanted my life back.
He thought that I had a slim chance to come off the ventilator but thank God he agreed to accept me into his rehabilitation programme at the Respiratory Ward. However, before the move I had to agree to allow them to perform a tracheotomy. This is an operation to make an opening into the trachea through the skin and tissue of the neck just below the Adams apple. A small tube is then inserted through the incision to allow air to reach the lungs without passing through the mouth and upper air-ways, this in turn would be attached to a ventilator, which is like a pumping machine that forces the air via the tube into the lungs.
I was taken into theatre and the operation was performed, this procedure was not without its own drama. Unfortunately for me when they were performing the procedure not enough anesthetic was given, and I remember clearly them slitting my throat. I tried to move some part of my body to let them know that I was still awake. Thankfully I did pass out a couple of times. After I awoke in recovery I told them via writing on paper that I had felt all that had happened, and was told that I could not possibly have done so. The anesthetist came down to see me, and I wrote down on the paper all that they had said over me whilst they were performing the tracheotomy. He was totally shocked and apologized, but of course nothing could be done. Had I known then that the tracheotomy was going to be the easiest part of my recovery, and what an enormous struggle was awaiting me I may never have agreed to sign the consenting papers.
The next day I was subsequently transferred by Mica Ambulance (Mobile Intensive Care Ambulance). I will never forget the sound of the screaming siren as we made the trip to the Intensive Care Unit of the new Hospital. I had two ambulance officers, two intensive care nurses in the back with me, bagging me the entire way. Bagging is where they place a portable pump on the tracheotomy site and pump the air manually into my lungs.
I spent the next three months in ICU learning how to breathe again. For a very long time, when I became fully aware of my situation, I prayed that I would not survive and felt extremely angry that from my perspective I seemed to have no way out of this horrendous nightmare. It was too difficult. I could not see any hope. "Why did God send me back, why? Hadn't God already given me enough to deal with, why this too?" I wanted to die. I thought about it constantly. Somehow, somewhere from deep within my spirit came a voice that told me, I had to keep fighting, I had to try.
Very very slowly minute at a time I began to fill my lungs with air on my own. One minute turned to two, two to five, five to ten and so on and so on. Only short bursts, but nevertheless I was breathing on my own. It was another couple of months before I could breathe unaided (still via the tracheotomy tube) for a couple of hours at a time. I describe the feeling of learning how to breathe again with what I perceive it would feel like to place a plastic bag over your head and being told to breathe, and to keep on breathing even though the oxygen is almost gone. Your whole body screams out for air. You almost thrash about trying to fill your lungs with that life sustaining air. So simple it is until you can't!
I left ICU after four months, and breathing five hours at a time over the course of a day. I then entered the next phase of my recovery. I was admitted into the Rehabilitation Ward and was told that if I increased my breathing to between twelve and fourteen hours per day for no less than a week, that they would take out my tracheotomy tube and I then would be fitted for a French Nose Mask, a mask that would be made from silicon and would snuggly fit over my nose, to be worn at night attached to the ventilator.
This new Ward was very confronting. It was home to long-term ventilated dependant people, several like myself on portable ventilators and others in Iron-Lungs (better known now as Tanks). They were a mixture of men and women of all ages with varying disabilities all of whom were kind, courageous and as independent as their disabilities would allow them to be, but with one common ground, our inability to breathe sufficiently unaided.
The next few months were extremely difficult for me, both physically and psychologically. I was trying so desperately to achieve my fourteen hours breathing off the ventilator. I had to try to fit the fourteen hours into the day. I was up before anyone in the morning, and still up when they were all in bed asleep at night. I had one goal and one goal alone, and that was the removal of what I deemed horrific, the tube protruding from my neck. I had not been able to speak for nearly six months, but thankfully I was easy to lip-read, and I wrote hundreds of notes.
The tracheotomy tube caused many other difficulties, one of which was the amazing amount of sputum that would build up many, many times during the course of the day and night, causing me to have to "suction myself out". This consisted of putting a fine catheter that was attached to a powerful suction machine (unlike a vacuum cleaner) down the opening of the tube and sucking out the accumulated sputum. This was an utterly revolting procedure, you would feel and look as if you were being choked to death. The sputum I was told formed mostly because the body was trying to get rid of the foreign body inside itself, and that was the tracheotomy tube that was saving my life.
During these endless months, when I began to regain my strength I would in my motorized chair tour around the most beautiful grounds of the Hospital where much fauna and flora was present. I had been unaware that there were many peacocks making the Hospital grounds their home. I do recollect when I was admitted to ICU in the early days, I would on several occasions look up at the window ledge and see these lovely birds just sitting gazing into the Ward. It took me some time however before I had the courage to write down on paper to a friend could she see the peacocks too? Thank goodness she said yes she could and that there were many around the grounds. What a relief I thought, I was not hallucinating after all!
There was one point in my recovery when it seemed that it was taking too long, and the suggestion was made that I may recover better at home. The idea of being at home alone unable to communicate, and still very reliant on a machine to keep me alive totally terrified me. I escaped to what I called "my freaking out" place, which was a beautiful part of the grounds overlooking a river and an old -fashioned boat-house. I went there many times to reflect and gather courage.
This time however I was totally desperate and wrestled with myself, was there any point going on when my worst nightmare seemed to be coming true. This was one of only a couple of times in my life when I actually contemplated taking my own life. How easy I thought it would be to just throw myself off the bank and into the water. The pain of it all would finally be over.
I was on my way back to the Ward after having made up my mind that I was not going to throw myself into the river, especially not after all the hard work and many months that it had taken to get to this point. However, I was still aware that the river would always be there! I was totally unaware that I had thrown the whole Hospital into a frenzy looking for me, as I had stayed away for a couple of hours. I was descended upon by the security guards as well as several of the medical staff. This though was the spur I needed to try even harder. I was not going home like this. I so desperately wanted to be me again and have my life back.
I finally achieved my goal. I was now breathing fourteen hours unaided, and had done so for two weeks. The time was finally here.
On April 10, 1990 at 10.30am my tracheotomy tube came out. It was one of the happiest days of my life. I was nervous however, not knowing what the sensation of breathing through my nose and mouth instead of a tube in my neck was going to feel like, or whether the process itself would be successful.
My Specialist and two nurses were with me. One held the tube while the other cut the tapes which had held it in its place all these months around my neck. A nurse held my hand tightly and I felt the excitement and nervousness welling inside me and in the people around me. He held the tube carefully and slowly pulled it out, my hand was squeezed tighter as I gulped and fought to sort out exactly where I wanted to breathe from. He held the hole shut and said to me, "Say something", all I could say with tears in my eyes was, "Thank God". These were the first natural words that I had spoken in nearly eight months, and how wonderful it felt. The screen was pulled back and my friends and nurses that had looked after me so carefully all this time cheered and clapped with joy for me.
That night would be my first night on my new mode of breathing, via the nasal mask. I had thought that the sensation of the mask and the machine would feel like a gentle breeze up my nose, but instead of that it was a very forceful punch. The night did not go well. My whole being had been focused entirely on the removal of the tracheotomy tube without too much thinking about what came next. I had a fitful night and did not breathe well. I had an ICU nurse with me the entire night and in the early hours of the morning the specialists were called in and much talking amongst themselves went on. I feared the worst as I laid my head in the hands of my nurse, and pleaded with her. "Please don't let them put it back in!" With much hesitation and testing they allowed me to continue the trials of the mask.
Another few months went by with many ups and downs trying to find a mask that was suitable for me to wear. I now had new challenges to come to terms with. I had the knowledge that I still needed to be fairly reliant on a machine to keep me alive. As mentioned before up until this moment my whole existence, dedication and single-mindedness for almost a year was the removal of my tracheotomy tube, forgetting that the basic problem would still exist, and that being that I now suffered from chronic respiratory failure and need a certain amount of help in which to breathe so that the past twelve months hopefully never has to repeat itself.
During this year I also learned that the "love of my life" at the same time that I had been fighting for my own survival had lost his battle with a brain tumour. I remember at the time thinking how could God save me and not him. I would have given my life to save his, but seeing this was not possible I will live my life in honour of his love for me.
My dear little dog Bundy also died. He apparently grieved for me too much, and could not wait for my return any longer.
It is extremely difficult for me to find enough words to thank all the Doctors and Nurses, Social Workers, Psychologists, Occupational Therapists and many, many other staff members who gave me the courage and strength and most of all the ability to achieve what was initially thought the impossible.
My family and friends were wonderful to me during this terrifying time, they came with me every inch of the way and shared with equal torment not only the pain, but also the joy of every achievement. A friend of mine an Anglican Priest reminded my spirit constantly of the reasons to fight.
This was certainly a life changing experience. I now know the conditions I will and won't accept in life, and am totally aware of my strengths and weaknesses, my powers of tolerance and intolerance.
The final words said to me when I was eventually discharged from the Hospital after twelve months were. "We have taught you how to breathe again, now it is up to you to go out there and live". This is something I have tried to do with all my being.
Today is the seventeenth anniversary of this fateful day. Of course I have my mask and ventilator well mastered now. It was not an easy adjustment, new limitations had to be accepted, but with every passing day and year, I remind myself the reasons why I am here, my time is not over, there is more to achieve.
I truly believe that I was given a second chance, for how many people on this planet have an opportunity to recognize the things they have not done and should, but more importantly to say what matters to friends and loved ones that have been left unsaid. I have been blessed for I did not die, but was brought back, "back from the brink".
A post-script:
Because the likelihood of this happening to me again. I have taken the necessary steps with permission of the Hospital and signed papers that if respiratory failure should occur, they are not to resuscitate.
I have not made this decision lightly, but after being told that my chances of my coming off life support again are very slight, there is no way that I could live my life attached to a life support machine in a facility.
I have nominated a good friend with whom I have great trust to be my Enduring Medical Power of Attorney which gives them permission and the power to carry out my expressed wishes which have also been separately documented by me.
I pray that they will never have to make such a decision for me, but I am nevertheless comforted by the fact that they can.
There is still much controversy with the moral and religious aspect of the subject of the "Right to Die" by a great many people within the community, but I truly believe that it gives people like myself, who have faced the possibility of living a hell on earth by being kept alive by artificial means and who find this kind of life unacceptable, for what I deem the rest of our "unnatural lives" peace of mind.
I always quote the old adage when people who know of my beliefs and disagree strongly. I just tell them, "Do not judge me until you have walked a mile in my shoes"
Another little post-script:
I have a framed photograph of "my freaking out" place on the wall of my bedroom. Whenever I feel that my life is becoming a little too difficult and my spirit is low. I look at this photograph and it reminds me that whatever happens in my life, the worst has already occurred and I survived it with my spirit intact. It gives me the courage and strength still to fight each battle that comes to my door.
"My Freaking Out Place"
Remember always
"The Spirit is in us all"
Written by Maggie.
Music: "Tears in Heaven"
"Life"
This page was last updated: Saturday, September 16, 2006 04:32:09 PM