How my death on the operating table in 1999 changed everything.

drutter (69)in #reality • 6 years ago (edited)

After a fairly typical youth, in August of 1999, I died.

(I'll come back to that later.)

Within a few minutes, I was successfully revived, so I got married, finished my degree, had children, and bought a house. Then, a similar profound experience - more on that later, too - led to major changes in my life. I got divorced, left my career in psychiatric nursing, stopped going to church, got into cannabis, and started my activism. I started to learn who I was. I found @MediKatie.

Then my ex cut my communication with our children, and I flirted with depression for the first time in my life. My physical health was compromised for the first time - my gut became painful and inflamed. My widowed grandmother became ill and required full time attention so that she could live out her time in her home of 60 years, and not in a facility. MediKatie and I moved to be with her full time and managed the house and gardens until Grandma fell in the kitchen. She died the next day, practically in my arms. Greed crept into my family and they evicted us before we could find a rental in the brutal Vancouver market.

Over the following 2 years we were homeless to varying degrees, including sleeping under a bush more than a few times. My physical health suddenly fell apart as my nerves were burning with pain, my muscles twitching, my heart racing, losing weight, not sleeping, feeling hopeless, and then anxiety as I realized something was seriously wrong with me. One evening, my heart cramped and stopped beating, I fell to the floor, @MediKatie asked if she should call 911. I lay there, sweating, panting, feeling my heart beat irregularly - arrhythmia. That's a serious enough condition for a person to be in the ER or ICU. I lay there doing deep breathing and thinking positive thoughts, checking my pulse every few minutes. It came down from about 180 to about 120, and when it dropped to about 100 bpm, the arrhythmia finally self-resolved and I went back into normal cardiac rhythm. Two hours without a proper pulse.

Looking back, that was probably my sickest moment, August 2016. I had no idea what was wrong with me, but I knew I was losing weight despite eating massive amounts of food, experiencing strange sensations, twitching, fatigued so badly I couldn't stand for more than a minute. But I was in so much pain, I couldn't sit for more than a minute. I couldn't even lie down for long before my skin hurt so badly from lying on it. EVERYTHING hurt, burned, stabbed, pierced, and pulsed with pain that seemed to be coming from nowhere. MediKatie didn't know what to do. Every day was extremely hard to get through, and harder than the last. I could see I was getting sicker, and sicker, and sicker. Without any end in sight, it appeared I was dying.

(I even went off cannabis for THREE MONTHS, to make sure it wasn't somehow responsible for what was happening, but things were more-or-less the same with or without cannabis. The only main difference is that with cannabis my symptoms were almost bearable. I got a little bit of sleep, the pain was nearly tolerable, and my anxiety notched down slightly.)

Since my GP was out of town and no doctors were accepting new patients, my only option for health care was the local ER, which I did end up going to a few times. ERs just make sure people aren't actively dying, they don't do diagnosis or treatment. So I got very little help there. The anxiety rose and took on a life of its own.

I called out to my out-of-town family for help, but no help came. Nobody understood what was happening, and they jumped to conclusions. They got freaked out by my intensity. They told me to stop calling. Grandma, the one who had always been there for me, was gone. And anyone I knew that had claimed to love her had turned their backs on me, just as they'd turned their backs on her in her final years.

When no help came, my level of anxiety went from extreme, to panic. Looking back on it I can talk about it plainly and clearly, but it was neither plain nor clear at the time.

How I can explain it to you is that it felt as though a trap door had opened under my feet, and I was in that moment just before freefall into the darkness. It felt THAT raw - for weeks. Every minute was like its own nightmare, and hours felt like days. I'd never known so much suffering. Intense and unrelenting. By the end of August, the nonstop pain combined with my depression, a panic level of anxiety, malnutrition, lack of sleep, and sense of hopelessness led me to thoughts of suicide.

In fact, the very idea gave me a sense of relief. Welcome relief. The physical pain, which I had no explanation for, was THAT bad. I'd lost my children a few years earlier, my beloved grandmother a few months prior, my health, and my entire family. The only thing I had left was MediKatie, whose health was suffering too. It seemed from my research that I had Multiple Sclerosis or something equally brutal like Lyme disease, ALS, neuropathy. When I decided to die, my anxiety level actually went DOWN. My depressed thoughts lifted a bit. I got a little bit more energy.

As I planned how I would die, I decided to give meditation a try for the first time in my life. MediKatie was tentatively (and briefly) away from me for the first time in weeks. I told her I was well enough for her to get to the grocery store and back, without me shuffling slowly along and taking breaks every few meters. I found a 15 minute YouTube video for some guided imagery and relaxation. The late summer sun was coming into the dreary basement suite, and I sat crosslegged on some cushions for comfort. My eyes closed.

When the meditation ended, I felt very relaxed, very different than I'd felt in a long time. Maybe not necessarily better, but different... and I liked that. Being alone felt new. I lined up some relaxation tracks, and let myself drift.

"Grama, I miss you" I blurted out, surprising myself. I imagined her face - probably for the first time since she died. "I miss you. I know you're gone, I know that now. But I still FEEL you." I was wiping wetness off my cheeks, over and over while I babbled, without realizing it was a stream of tears from my closed eyes. So many tears.

I had over 40 years with this lady. She came (to the other side of the planet) to see me as soon as I was born. I lived with her as a toddler, then again while going to university, and then again before she died. Her and Grampa were just incredible people, the likes of which we won't see again. Their home was the rock of the family, home base, everyone's safe house and happy place. They're the only two people who have NEVER betrayed me. She's also the only person who was always there for me when I needed it - always. That was her thing, she was loyal to the end, especially with me. I was the first of 10 grandkids, and though she loved us all the same, she always reminded me; "I've loved you the longest". In the years before she died, with her children themselves retiring in luxury, Grandma was mostly alone. But she always made me feel special and loved - always. She thanked me for giving up so much to be there for her, and I told her every day how much I loved and appreciated her, and how glad I was she was alive.

For once, I couldn't feel the twitching all through my muscles. The constant pain seemed to fade, and not bother me as much. The tears were sliding down my face as I spoke to her as though she was there.

"I'm so glad I could do what I did for you, Grandma. I didn't betray you, not once, and I was always there for you. You were ALWAYS there for me. Thank you! My love for you is something I've done right. Thank you for showing me so many things and helping me be who I am, I won't forget you, you know that. Thank you for always being there for me. I miss you so much."

A few months before she died, while working out in the garden, I had suddenly wanted to hug her. I bolted inside, washed my hands quickly, and found her in front of the evening news. I kneeled and hugged her so tightly, and she chuckled and rubbed my back, told me she loved me. "What's this about?"

I looked up at her and said "because one day soon you won't be here, and I won't be able to do this.... I don't want to miss a single chance to hug you and be there for you while I still can". I asked her, "what am I going to do when you're gone?"

"You'll be okay," she reassured. Grandma knew her time was coming soon, but told me she didn't know what it would be like. She no longer believed in the typical version of heaven, but was open to the idea of something after death. It seemed that she was anticipating it, more than fearing it, but I can't be certain. I told her that if she can, to give me a sign. She knew what I meant, and nodded, smiling. She added "and I'll say hi to Grandpa for you, too!"

That conversation came to me while I sat there, sun streaming in the window on my face which was wet with tears. The relaxation track ended, and next was The Beatles - Let it Be.

And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

Let it be, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

And when the broken-hearted people
Living in the world agree
There will be an answer, let it be
For though they may be parted
There is still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be

That gentle melody and those words "let it be" hit me like a ton of bricks. The waterworks from my eyes continued, but now I was sobbing loudly. I'm not the kind of guy who looks for signs, but to me it felt like Grandma had somehow got a message through to me, and the message was "let it be".

(To top things off.... It wasn't until while writing up this post that I learned about Paul McCartney's inspiration for the song. During a time of deep depression, his deceased mother appeared to him in a vision, telling him to 'let it be', to find peace, that all is well. Until now I had just loved the words and the tune, but had no idea of the dream/visit that had inspired it.)

Something, maybe my gut, told me to go for it. Just let it be, let all those things I can't handle anymore just "be". I cried as a weight suddenly lifted from my shoulders, and I realized I don't want to die. In fact, it's the opposite - I want to LIVE! I want so badly to live, and to be happy, and to stop suffering. If I can let it be, maybe I can go on? Maybe the suffering won't keep getting worse forever... and maybe I can even find some way to reverse it? Maybe.... I'm just..... ill? There was a sensation of loose ends tying up, of gears grinding, of cogs clicking into place.

Okay. I'm ill. At least I know what to do about that!

I insisted on a psychiatric consultation, and was assigned to a young, professional, immigrant doctor. She quickly diagnosed me with depression and PTSD. I can't afford the therapy needed to deal with the PTSD, but the government provided me with some addictive pharmaceuticals (Effexor) to get me through the worst of the depression. Along with a high nutrient gluten-free vegan diet and supplements, this has helped me slowly rebuild my physical and mental health. We've got a great apartment in a perfect spot now, and we're starting to get back on track.

But this story begins in 1999, because that's when I died the first time. When I almost died in 2016, the previous death came back into my mind, and I vowed that once I was well enough to tell the whole story, I would do so, in the hope that it might help me, or somebody else.

Which is why I've decided to make this post.

This IS my therapy. This IS how I'm able to 'let it be', and go onward, despite the physical and emotional pain. Proper therapy isn't covered in BC, and I haven't got the thousands I need to pay for it, so therapy-via-Steemit-posting is going to have to cut it.

If you're at all weirded-out, or disturbed, or offended, or otherwise unhappy about what you've heard so far, DO NOT CONTINUE. This is where the story gets really interesting, because next I want to write about my death.

My death

(WARNING: contains very private, dark, potentially disturbing concepts)

I was 6 days from being married when I got all 4 of my wisdom teeth completely extracted. It was my first ever surgery. I don't think I knew what I was getting into, looking back on it. I figured it was just like having a tooth pulled. Well, a few teeth, no big deal. Turns out they essentially have to crack your jawbone open, saw out chunks of flesh, break your back molars into shards, and pull them out of your skeleton with pliers. Four times. And then sew you back up and hope things heal properly.

When I arrived at the office, I was given a small tablet to swallow with water. I wasn't told what it was, but I was told it would help work along with the anesthetic (which was going to be nitrous oxide - aka 'laughing gas'). Then I was told to wait 45 minutes so it could take effect. I felt little or nothing unusual as I was brought into the surgical bay and laid back in the dentist chair.

My dentist appeared (I could tell it was him by his voice), a light shining from the center of his forehead into my eyes. "I'm ready to begin," he said, connecting tubes to a large metal tank. "I'd like your permission to have a few student dentists observe. Is that okay?" He was turning knobs and I heard faint hissing sounds. I nodded/shrugged. Suddenly, literally from behind curtains and panels, came several people in white coats, switching on their forehead lights to shine into my eyes, and moving in close around me.

There was a clear rubbery mask over my nose and mouth now. The dentists explained; "We have two gases connected to your mask. One is pure oxygen, the other is pure nitrous oxide. One basically knocks you out, the other basically wakes you up. We decide and control how much of each you're breathing. You'll be able to hear us on some level, just enough to obey our commands, but you won't really be able to move much, or talk. If there's any problem, move your feet rapidly or vocalize and we'll pause to find out what's wrong. Within an hour we should have all the wisdom teeth removed, and everything stitched up again. Understand?" I nodded, feeling a sense of surrender to the process. Nothing I could really do about it now, I thought, better just try and help them do their job so this can go well and be over quickly.

The rubbery smell in my nostrils seemed to change. The doctors asked me another question, and I thought for a second before replying with a giggle. I noticed them exchange glances and saw the corners of their eyes turn upwards in smiles hidden behind masks. Somebody said "that's how we know it's working!" and I laughed some more. All light beams focused on my gaping face. I closed my eyes from the intensity of the light, and because I didn't want to see the spreaders, needles, blades, and chisels being put into my mouth.

The next breath I took, I felt my body getting lighter, or fading, visions of dense white fog appeared before me. I could still hear everything going on in the surgical bay, as well as nearby in the office, such as the secretary answering the phone. But with each breath, I became more and more detached from that place, only connected to it what I could hear, and brief images obtained when I opened my eyes, blinking into the lights. My eyes stopped their fluttering. I remember my mouth drifting slowly closed while they worked, until I had to be reminded to "open wider", which I would do - until I slipped out of consciousness again.

Perhaps a beginner was being allowed to operate the gas flow, who knows, but something went wrong.

The next time they dropped the O2 and raised the nitrous, I went even deeper. Past the fog to a fuzzy gray nothingness, and deeper, less sensation, and less emotion. My vision froze in front of me, and all sound ceased. Then the frozen image in front of me shattered into hundreds of pieces, geometric shapes basically, each still showing a section of my prior field of view. It reminded me of a complex stained glass window. One piece had part of a dentist's face and some wall. Another pierce had a bright light. Another had some clothing, an eye. Nearby, a scalpel, and a potted plant in the background. I watched the pieces begin to move, in a large slow spiral. They maintained their form - I could still see all the various pieces, just no longer in order. They spiraled closer and closer together into a point in the center, and finally disappeared into a dot of light, leaving nothing but blackness. Less than blackness.

("reality" reduced to a tiny spiral of light, then endless nothing)

My thoughts existed, but I had no physical body. Time had stopped. I knew this because I could hear a segment of the secretery's voice in the background, repeating the same short section of a phone call, over and over. And the short segment was itself playing backwards. Something completely inconsequential, such as "appointment on Tuesday", except backwards, and looping nonstop. Luckily, after a short time, I stopped being aware of the sound altogether.

To say it was "black" is to say I could see, which isn't true. I had no eyes to see, and no brain (that I knew of) to perceive it. I was pure thought. I wasn't necessarily distressed by this. It was a bit like a dream, where you accept strange concepts and situations that you normally wouldn't. I'd become pure thought, while on the operating table. I wasn't thinking "am I dying?" or worrying. I wasn't even really thinking anything at all. Concepts just came into my head. I just knew things. Thoughts just existed.

The darkness (that word isn't right, either) felt oppressive after all the bright lights in the surgical bay. Where (or what) was I? I still felt like me (whatever that is), but in no way I'd ever felt before. And other than some pot brownies a few times, I'd never had any psychedelic drugs, and certainly had never 'tripped'. I had nothing to compare this to. My mind was blown.

At some point (there was no passage of time, so that might not be the right wording) I became aware that I wasn't alone. It seemed that somewhere below me were 2 entities of some kind. As soon as I perceived them, I wished I hadn't. Their intelligences were vast and unknowable to me, my mind recoiled.

One of them somehow noticed me and stopped what it was doing. The other took note as well and they briefly communicated with each other about me. I then somehow understood what had happened.

I was hit with a paralyzing and crushing wave of humility as I realized my situation. I was a minute parcel of digital data that had accidentally fallen out of the system, and caused a slight delay. I was an error in the code, nothing more to them. I realized that they had been running a massive and elaborate experiment, game, or program or some kind. It was large, and it was important to them. But me, just 1 part of unfathomable zillions, I was nothing. And I knew it. They were annoyed at having to deal with me.

One of them went to have me sent back (or destroyed?), but I found a way to communicate somehow, and I 'said' something to the effect of "I'm somebody, and I matter". It was all I could get through. I hoped it was enough. I didn't even know if they'd 'hear' me.

I tried to perceive what else there was in the blackness. No stars, so it wasn't space. No smell, no sound (except occasionally the background secretary sound effect), nothing to see. But I did have a sense of up and down, and I was definitely above the beings. I couldn't see them, and couldn't hear them, but I knew what they wanted me to know, instantly. "At least tell me what's going on?" I begged them.

At this, they broke into laughter, and my level of shame became nearly unbearable. I knew I was nothing, and they KNEW that I knew it, and it amused them. I had no significance in that place, and yet, they had reacted to my presence. I was aware of that briefly before the explanation came. And again, I wished I hadn't asked.

They transmitted to me the rest of the story.

"We're doing something extremely important here, and you're just one minuscule part of it. You don't control this, we do. You don't matter. Your life isn't even real. THIS is reality. Your entire supposed existence is fake. You're just having the sensations that we program for you to have, nothing more or less, and you believe the lies we tell you. Your dentist experience? Just a glitch, a little anomaly. Nothing we can't easily fix. We're going to send you back in, and you'll wake up in the dentist chair, and you'll convince yourself this was just a vision, and you'll go about your fake life, until the day you die. You were here before, and you'll be here after, as expected. You really weren't supposed to know this, but it won't matter. You're going to convince yourself, even if it takes a long time, that you know what 'reality' is. (They had another laugh at this.) That we're not real. That you had a bad drug interaction or something. If you tell anyone, they won't believe you - we've set it up that way. There's literally nothing you can do about it."

Without another 'word', they were gone. And so was I.

Suddenly, the looping secretary voice in the background resumed normal playback direction; she finished the phone call and hung up. Simultaneously, I heard jumbled voices around me, felt something pressing into my pressure points, lights being shone in my eyes. I felt the cooler pressure of O2 in my mask, and breathed it in, gradually banishing the darkness and flooding my perception with conscious thoughts. I gasped and inhaled deeply and I could hear the dentists around me breathe a sigh of relief, but at the time didn't understand why. I was gulping in the O2 now, and really coming fully to. The pain in my mouth was intense - the surgery was only half over. I couldn't talk of course, but I started to wiggle my feet. I was responding to commands, and then I heard somebody say something like "you confused us for a bit there" or "we got worried about you there". After checking my vitals and talking quietly amongst themselves, the surgery resumed, and I went under yet again.

There were some other odd experiences that day, but that one's the one that relates to this post. From what I gather, and from what I feel, I came close to dying on the operating table due to inexperienced anesthetic application. I stopped breathing completely, and my vitals crashed for a short time, maybe less than a minute.

They say the longest continuous dreams recorded are 3 minutes. Time is distorted in the 'sleep' level of consciousness, too. I was gone a minute, but I experienced much longer than that, and can't account for the difference.

As I said at the beginning, my mouth healed up, I got married, and I went about convincing myself that what I'd experienced wasn't real. It took a very, VERY long time. For years, I wasn't able to completely shake the idea that reality just may not be what it seems.

Who were those beings, so powerful and condescending? Why 2? What was their grand experiment? It seemed they might have been researchers, or scientists, or workers in charge of operating an important machine, or program, or game. My perception of myself was that I was just one iteration of many, or just one data point. Maybe I represented one possible timeline, or version of reality, or part of a simulation. It seemed to me they were conducting something over and over, perhaps trillions of times, working on obtaining some very important information. In that way, I WAS important, because without me things were incomplete. But alone I was essentially inconsequential.

I found these thoughts uncomfortable and sometimes even scary. I pushed them aside and away, labeled them toxic, and tried my best to avoid them. One thing that really bothers me is that the entities have been right. Not just about it being hard to convince myself they weren't real. They were also right that I really had been there before. As soon as they had said it, I had known that it was true. Whether or not it really is, that's another matter, but I knew it was true. Were they referring to the time before I was born?

I said at the start that a "similar, profound experience" led me to a complete life change, and that I'd get back to it later. I've never even told my closest friends this, but it's part of the story.

The profound experience

Apparently, surgery wasn't the only way I could perceive the "endless place". Summer, a few years into the 2000s, I'm up at "the cabin" with my friends and my brother. Somebody passes around magic mushroom chocolates. I was about 7 beers in, which may have helped my decision to try shrooms for the first time. I think I got about 1.5 grams.

In about half an hour, as we sat around the campfire, things took on a very altered feeling. Again, as I had nothing to compare this to (I wasn't even a regular cannabis user at the time), it was tough to frame what I was experiencing. I began misinterpreting conversations (and some of my friends were purposely messing with each other) which led to some anxiety. The alcohol on board also probably helped bring on a bit of a darker side to the trip.

About an hour in, I wandered away into the night by myself, grinning about nothing. My trip was about to peak. Nature intrigued me. I was in my happy place there, so a "bad trip" shouldn't have happened (and never happened since). Nevertheless, once I was totally alone, and my mind was altered and bewildered, negative energy flooded in. I blinked and staggered, standing on a gravel path under the moonlight. I could hear the guys around the campfire, but it sounded like devils dancing around a cauldron. Shadows were moving, and while I realized that was probably the mushrooms, it still added to my level of uneasiness.

That sick feeling came back, not as strong as it had in the surgical bay, but it was the same. I could feel/sense the dark gray endless nothingness. I wasn't aware of the 2 entities, which I was glad for, but then I felt something potentially even worse, like it was nearby, not physically but some other way I wasn't familiar enough with to grasp. It did seem.. close.

I don't remember exactly what happened while I was out there under the moon, but before too long I ended up back at the campfire, and things started to get a little more positive. We stopped messing with eachother's trips, and put on some chill music. I started to enjoy the thoughts I was having, the different ways of thinking and of expressing ideas.

Then, my wife (now my ex) called on the cabin's little landline. It was the only piece of technology other than a microwave in the place. She was calling to check up on me and to say 'goodnight'.

It was a short conversation, but during it, I realized that her and I were doomed and that it was just a matter of time before we split. Up until that moment, I hadn't even considered that possibility, so it was a bit shocking. And yet, it ended up being completely right. The insights I achieved on that simple mushroom trip are still with me today. I was able to think and perceive and experience in a way I had never been able to before, and boom, just like that, my life made a change that is still reverberating now.