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I'm sorry all.
I know I said I would try to condense it, but I just can't. I just can't
cut out anything I said here. It isn't my job to "tell the story" I guess.
Betty told my story almost exactly in her wonderful book. It has been
my "job" of sorts to relay the messages I got in my NDE. Not to retell
the experience but to retell, over and over and over again, what I learned.
And I'm sorry, but I just have to say what I have said here in 11 pages!
LOL LOVE. Please, learn how to love with all your being. It is the only
thing that matters.
love,
Tina
In reading the surgeon and physician’s reports,
I cracked up laughing:
Surgeon C. D. Hearn
11/12/91 Right thoracotomy tube inserted with moderate difficulty, 500
mg Tetracycline injected through tube. Patient had a vague reaction
with pulse of 37 which rapidly decreased. Tetracycline was removed sooner
than desired because of this.
Attending Physician
K. M. McKarrol 11/12/91 Rt. thoracotomy tube applied. 500 mg Tetracycline
injection, patient exhibited anaphylactic shock with decreasing pulse
and B.P. Patient briefly expired. Recovery thorough.
"Patient briefly
expired"!!!! What was that supposed to mean? "Patient passed
gas"! Oh, if they only knew how good it felt to break wind!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL! I knew. When the tetracycline hit my lung, it felt as if my body
was on fire and it was spreading. I came straight up off the table, looked
into the doctor's face and screamed, "you're killing me, I'm going to
die." I'm sure I did this, I thought I did, I remember it as clear as
day, but he looked at me with this stern face and said, "It's just the
tetracycline going into your lung. It will stop in a minute." I fell back
and thought, "How can this guy ignore me. I know I'm going to die, and
he won't listen to me."
 The tightness in my chest was
overwhelming, as if a giant hand had reached in, grabbed my heart and
started squeezing and twisting at the same time (cardiac arrest). I was
on fire from the inside out and now my heart was being crushed. I stared
at the monitors thinking, if I stare long enough, it will make them look,
they will see that something is wrong inside my body, and they will stop
this.
All of a sudden, I thought,
"No, I'm going to die...." and it was very calm. I didn't feel panicked
or afraid, just very serene and calm as I watched the blood pressure monitor
and the pulse rate drop. It was all so slow motion. I just watched the
numbers dropping and I remember thinking, "Can't they see, can't they
see what's happening? I'm dying, and they don't even know it."
Then the monitor flat-lined,
and I will never forget that sound as long as I live in this body. It
was frightening, but at the same time, it was like a confirmation, and
an invitation. I heard the alarm go off, and it was if it was saying,
"Yes Tina, now you are dead. Now you can go." It was all so strange. I
remember thinking, as I felt the tetracycline spread through my chest
and my heart begin to feel squeezed, that I wanted out of my body. I felt
like I was mentally trying to claw my way out of my own skin. I know it
sounds stupid, but I was begging for someone to let me out of my body,
because the pain was so intense.
And then, suddenly there was
no pain. There was nothing. But for a brief moment, I felt the doctors
panic when I heard the nurse scream, "Oh my God, she's dead!" I just felt
calm and peaceful for a moment as I thought, "Yes, I tried to tell him
that, but he wouldn't listen to me." It really sounds stupid. And as I
was leaving my body, I was trying to reassure the nurse, "No, I'm not
dead, I'm right here, can't you see, I'm right here."
Then it was me who felt rather
stupid as I realized I could see my own body lying on the bed. And I could
see the nurse, the doctor, the other attendants in the room, and I realized
I was looking down at them.
I felt an "Uh, oh, maybe I am
dead," kind of sensation. And then the whooshing entrance...........the
experience itself.
Then it seemed like I was floating,
not walking but just moving away through a tube or a very narrow passageway.
I don’t recall moving “towards” a light, but being IN a light, a very
bright, white light that just seemed to get brighter the farther I moved
away.
I began remembering parts of
my life, not like seeing pictures, but living them over again in a very
fast, short way. It was as though I was living the experiences of other
people I had known or come into contact with during my life. It was as
if I knew exactly how they thought and felt at those very moments. I felt
how I had made them feel in a given situation, and at the same time, I
felt my own resulting feelings from the event. The "hell" that I experienced,
was the pain, anguish, hurt and anger that I had caused these others,
or that I suffered as a result of my actions/words to others. "Hell" was
what I had "created" for myself and my own soul through turning my back
on unconditional love, compassion and peace, either towards myself or
towards others in my life.
Perhaps, as many have said,
NDE is not Death. Perhaps it is not "going all the way," and perhaps when
I "die" and do "go all the way," I will know some other version of "hell".
But for now, in this life, this time around, with what I learned in my
NDE, I am quite satisfied to accept my belief that "hell" is of my own
creation and choosing. If I choose to be hateful, hurtful, uncompassionate,
unempathetic, unforgiving of myself and of others, then I can choose to
live in the ensuing hell that I will feel and know in my heart and soul
through those actions. I have felt it, since my NDE. Every time I have
hurt someone or not tried with my heart and soul to be loving and forgiving
of them, I have had the horrendous "reliving" of the PAIN and hurt I felt
during my "life review". And this has just absolutely made me want to
rip my heart out of my chest.
So many have said that that
"life review" process was also my own conscience and ego, and many have
tried to convince me that it was a creation of my own mind. Maybe it was.
Maybe the LOVE I felt "standing at my side" forgiving me, and reassuring
me that my "heaven" was in forgiving myself and learning how to love again,
maybe that too was just wishful thinking or a figment or creation of my
own mind. Even if it was, I know I cannot STAND, cannot BEAR the pain
I felt during my review that I had inflicted on others. There are no words
adequate to describe it. I have had my chest cut open, my ribs broken,
I have been stitched from one side of my body to the other. I have been
shot, stabbed and received all manner of physical abuse, and I would CHOOSE
all of these physical inflictions again over EVER having to feel the pain
I caused others—the pain I felt during that life review. THAT was
hell. Period.
As my experience continued,
it seemed as though I knew all kinds of things and feelings that I had
never learned or experienced in my life. It was at one time like
standing in the largest library in the world and knowing the contents
of every book without having to read them. I just KNEW. And I knew what
a glorious experience this was and how it would change my life. It was
warm and calm and peaceful and felt like happiness. There simply are not
words to describe it. I wanted to keep floating away, as it just seemed
to feel better the farther I went.
Then it was as if I had to make
a choice to return to my body or to stay. But I knew I couldn't stay.
I felt guilty and confused, wanting to be with my daughter, but not wanting
to go back through that tunnel—for if I did go back, it meant I couldn't
stay in that "light". But I had to go back, I had things to do. I didn’t
know exactly what they were, but I knew my daughter was waiting for me,
and I had things I had to do. I felt so confused and frustrated.
The return was almost the same:
the whooshing sound and sensation of being sucked back through that same
"tunnel". And then I opened my eyes, and that jerk doctor was saying my
name, and I felt like it was a curse. I just wanted him to shut up! "How
DARE you say my name," I wanted to say, "how DARE you call out
to me!" I was furious. My body felt disgusting, like it weighed a
ton and was slimy and filthy, and I didn't want to be in that cold, awful
shell. I was so furious with him for what he had done to me. What that
was, I wasn't completely sure, but then for him to "pull me back" as I
felt he had surely done. Oh, God, I was so angry—you have no idea.
When I was finally left alone,
I was dazed and confused, cold and hot at the same time. It felt as if
every hair on my body was standing on end. My mother was the first person
allowed into the room to see me. I wanted her, I was calling to her in
my mind, begging for her to come and hold me, wrap me up in her arms and
assure me that I was here, like an anchor, to hold me down. I can't explain
this need. When she entered the room, I saw the look on her face, and
I started to cry. She was terrified. The look on her face was horror.
And then I knew. I knew something bad had happened to her, and she was
terrified. She stepped to the side of my bed and reached out to take my
hand, and I whispered, just as she was taking my hand, "Mom, I died."
And as she made contact with my hand, she pulled back, clutched her hand
to her chest and backed away from the bed. I will never forget the look
on her face, or the way she stepped back from me as long as I live. I
wanted to scream. I wanted her to hold me so bad, and she couldn't bring
herself to even touch me. She didn't touch me again for almost 5 years.
(My mother and I finally talked about this. Three weeks ago, when we finally
had our talk. I understand now, how terrified she had been. She hadn't
known what to think when she walked in that hospital room. She had never
seen anyone the color that I was. She said it was as if I had NO color.
Not white, not gray, but like she was looking at a ghost, and she was
just absolutely terrified. She was also terrified at almost losing her
only child, and she never, ever, wanted to think about that again or talk
about it again.)
My husband was next, and when
he walked in, he just looked dazed. Confused. As if he had no idea what
had just happened. He knew something had happened, he knew it was not
right or normal, but he was just dazed and confused. I reached for him,
still needing someone to hold me, to make me feel "grounded," but he wouldn't
even come near the bed. I never told him how I felt, never told him how
his reaction made me feel. But today, in retelling it all to John, it
made my heart ache all over again to remember how BADLY I needed one of
them, my mother or him, to just hold me. To make me feel like I was still
here. To "anchor" me to this life and this body. The fact that neither
one of them would even touch me almost devastated me.
It was weeks later, after I
was at home, that I tried to tell my husband what happened in that room.
About the glorious and beautiful part, what I saw and what I learned.
He couldn't listen, wouldn't listen, didn't want to hear, and all I ended
up doing was sitting and crying for days. I didn't try to tell him again.
It wasn't until weeks later that I finally went to the minister at our
church and talked to him. But this wasn't a lot of help. I went to a psychiatrist,
sure I had lost my mind. He just assured me I was sane and mentally healthy,
but at the same time wanted to run tests on me and refer me to other "scientists"
and "doctors". I gave up. For a long time, I just held it inside. Many
times, lying in bed at night, holding onto the memories of the glory and
the beauty and the wonder. Many times, crying and feeling as though my
heart were being ripped out for being put back into this disgusting body
with this new "light" in my brain, my mind, my heart, something, somewhere.
The emotions though, in the
retelling, over the past few years as I have started to tell it, every
time, the emotions, the feelings, the remembrances, are just the same
as if they were happening this very moment. The joy is just as joyful,
the pain prior to death is just as painful, the loneliness and ache for
another human's touch in the moments and days following is just as much
of a physical ache now when I remember them as they were the day it actually
happened. But the piece of joy that I know exists in my soul—given
to me in that hospital room—is with me always. And when I embrace
it, the way it "embraced" me, it is warm and loving and peaceful and calming,
and it is with me always and forever until I can go back and be a part
of it again.
continued...
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