Before life....
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Adelaide, Australia
Posts: 28,671
Before life....
I have thought long and hard before posting this. Why?
- because it is the final act of letting the past go
- because I do not want to, even as I type I am welled up with tears- of that experience. Whatever that experience was, it is written as truthfully as I feel it.
Before life, after life. 2-10-16
I remember. I know and understand.
I read. I research- diving deeply within my essence to understand this journey.
I wake up. A cold, very dark room envelopes me. The room is without finite definition. There are only 2 spots of light, ambient- cold and hard. It is very quiet and still. One light shows a desk and several blurred figures. I think they are sitting. There can be heard muffled, indistinct murmurs. Voices - only voices. All else is still, the very air is still. The desk seems to be a very, very long way off. The room appears as if it is tapering off into the distance without end.
The other light surrounds me. I am half out of a hospital bed- precariously preventing myself from falling on the floor by bracing myself with my right, traumatised arm. I think there are IV tubes connected. I am face down to the floor, my head at the most distant end of the bed from the blurred desk. The blurred figures know I am in the room and seem uninterested in my plight. I am aware they know of me. I think I am in an intensive care unit. I am the only occupant. The distance behind the blurred figures seems to have indistinct light.
I feel very much alone, somehow bereft. I know I need help. ‘Hello?’ I question. The voices continue to talk- then pause. Comes a reply ‘What is it now, John?’. I say ‘ I am falling and need help to get back’. Pause.. (a silent sigh entails), a bored voice says ‘ you know you are not allowed out of bed’. ‘I need help please’. ‘Why did you try to get out of bed? We told you to stay in bed’. The voice sounds judgemental. It is as if I had ended up in my predicament because I do not listen and this is the consequence. A thought comes to me that perhaps I am seen as an inconvenience.
Sometime later I call out for help- to remove the pain, fear and loneliness. Terrible, indescribable, hellish pain. It pervades every fibre of my being, every molecule. I call out again and again. I am still in the same space. A nurse blurs into existence and says impatiently, almost with anger and certainly with annoyance that I am here by myself because I am too much trouble. The nurse says she has to be this way with me because it is for my own good. I snap back ‘that is what Lenin said’.
Yet later in the same room- back in the bed another nurse tells me overnight I was so difficult to deal with the night shift nurse has requested not to care for me anymore because she finds it too traumatic. Then I remember emptiness. Void. Neither pain, nor life or death. I am and am in nothing.
I am awake. I smell the air. The light is bright- harsh. I am in the ICU. There is a partially drawn curtain. I have just ‘arrived’. My brother stands at the bottom of the bed. He says’ hello John. Well you are probably the most expensive patient they have ever had here.’ I try to absorb this information. Why am I here? Then he says ‘ I am your next of kin, your ex. called me and said she wanted nothing to do with you and did not want to be contacted about you’. I try to add this information to his first observation. This is and what it is, I decide- for him an observation. So what? He is a doctor. I feel as if he is treating me like a patient- barely tolerated. He has a strained superficial smile.
‘You nearly died 3 times in theatre. They called me to get permission to use a new burns treatment on you. You are only the 4th burns victim to have it performed in the Southern Hemisphere.’ He observed with academic interest ‘ You know now that I think of it, this is the same bed bro died in....yes it is the same bed’. I am disorientated and confused. Grasping for a concrete thought I ask him how dad is. Straight away he says ‘ he is dead.’ He then suggests I leave the ex. and my sons alone as they need time to come to grips with my plight. I feel scared, lonely. Where are they? Where is my family? I need my family. Then the pain washes over me, I fall into darkness.
Then comes the time of awakening. I am being wheeled in and out of the same room. There is bright lights and talking. 1-2-3 lift! Some comments directed at me. Pain- always pain. I anticipate the pain now. I know what is to come- screaming. Impatient, busy doctors inserting large bore needles into my arteries - one going subclavian to groin. This one took over an hour to insert. Several attempts are made. It seems a challenge to them. The catheter is successfully inserted. They push me into an unnatural position several times when I try to move to escape the pain. There is always pain now. The catheter is not used and is removed the next day. I have scars. The routine is endless. The pain is endless. The fear of pain grows- I want at all costs to escape it. I cannot. Accept it, accept the pain. It is part of me, I am the pain. Ketamine. Fear, nightmares, shock, loss, grief, fear, alone- So alone. I cry out. I shout out. I become angry. NO! NO! NO! YOU WILL NOT WIN. YOU WILL NOT HAVE ME. YOU DO NOT OWN ME. GET F....D. I BELONG TO ME, NOT YOU.
Then life slowly evolves. With it arises guilt, shame and punishment, abandonment and loss, tears and emotions- almost overwhelming. To stay sane I listen and write. Today I will do a **** using a commode, not a pan. That means coordinating with staff, I cannot walk. OK –I need to learn to control the pain, I need to walk. I fall many times. I go back to the room without definition. Reality at times is blurred. Ketamine. T he doctors decide I can cope without an anaesthetic. I tolerate it. I do not move. There is pain- so much pain. Nothing else matters. Time means nothing. Just cope with the pain until the next breath and then the next. Do not fall asleep. NO. NO. NO. You cannot, will not have me. I scream and scream. The screams just well up and wash over me. It is a release. It helps. Just until the next breath. I know the pain will go away when I am awake. No, not away- it is still there waiting. Pain is patient. I am learning patience. I have no clothes. I have no money. I have no shoes. I have no family. I am in pain and alone. I am alone but very much alive. Time for the next breath. Alright life, I am ready- what do we do next?
A lady said to me much later ‘Well John, you are back and it seems you have things to do.’ I remember now, know and understand.
- because it is the final act of letting the past go
- because I do not want to, even as I type I am welled up with tears- of that experience. Whatever that experience was, it is written as truthfully as I feel it.
Before life, after life. 2-10-16
I remember. I know and understand.
I read. I research- diving deeply within my essence to understand this journey.
I wake up. A cold, very dark room envelopes me. The room is without finite definition. There are only 2 spots of light, ambient- cold and hard. It is very quiet and still. One light shows a desk and several blurred figures. I think they are sitting. There can be heard muffled, indistinct murmurs. Voices - only voices. All else is still, the very air is still. The desk seems to be a very, very long way off. The room appears as if it is tapering off into the distance without end.
The other light surrounds me. I am half out of a hospital bed- precariously preventing myself from falling on the floor by bracing myself with my right, traumatised arm. I think there are IV tubes connected. I am face down to the floor, my head at the most distant end of the bed from the blurred desk. The blurred figures know I am in the room and seem uninterested in my plight. I am aware they know of me. I think I am in an intensive care unit. I am the only occupant. The distance behind the blurred figures seems to have indistinct light.
I feel very much alone, somehow bereft. I know I need help. ‘Hello?’ I question. The voices continue to talk- then pause. Comes a reply ‘What is it now, John?’. I say ‘ I am falling and need help to get back’. Pause.. (a silent sigh entails), a bored voice says ‘ you know you are not allowed out of bed’. ‘I need help please’. ‘Why did you try to get out of bed? We told you to stay in bed’. The voice sounds judgemental. It is as if I had ended up in my predicament because I do not listen and this is the consequence. A thought comes to me that perhaps I am seen as an inconvenience.
Sometime later I call out for help- to remove the pain, fear and loneliness. Terrible, indescribable, hellish pain. It pervades every fibre of my being, every molecule. I call out again and again. I am still in the same space. A nurse blurs into existence and says impatiently, almost with anger and certainly with annoyance that I am here by myself because I am too much trouble. The nurse says she has to be this way with me because it is for my own good. I snap back ‘that is what Lenin said’.
Yet later in the same room- back in the bed another nurse tells me overnight I was so difficult to deal with the night shift nurse has requested not to care for me anymore because she finds it too traumatic. Then I remember emptiness. Void. Neither pain, nor life or death. I am and am in nothing.
I am awake. I smell the air. The light is bright- harsh. I am in the ICU. There is a partially drawn curtain. I have just ‘arrived’. My brother stands at the bottom of the bed. He says’ hello John. Well you are probably the most expensive patient they have ever had here.’ I try to absorb this information. Why am I here? Then he says ‘ I am your next of kin, your ex. called me and said she wanted nothing to do with you and did not want to be contacted about you’. I try to add this information to his first observation. This is and what it is, I decide- for him an observation. So what? He is a doctor. I feel as if he is treating me like a patient- barely tolerated. He has a strained superficial smile.
‘You nearly died 3 times in theatre. They called me to get permission to use a new burns treatment on you. You are only the 4th burns victim to have it performed in the Southern Hemisphere.’ He observed with academic interest ‘ You know now that I think of it, this is the same bed bro died in....yes it is the same bed’. I am disorientated and confused. Grasping for a concrete thought I ask him how dad is. Straight away he says ‘ he is dead.’ He then suggests I leave the ex. and my sons alone as they need time to come to grips with my plight. I feel scared, lonely. Where are they? Where is my family? I need my family. Then the pain washes over me, I fall into darkness.
Then comes the time of awakening. I am being wheeled in and out of the same room. There is bright lights and talking. 1-2-3 lift! Some comments directed at me. Pain- always pain. I anticipate the pain now. I know what is to come- screaming. Impatient, busy doctors inserting large bore needles into my arteries - one going subclavian to groin. This one took over an hour to insert. Several attempts are made. It seems a challenge to them. The catheter is successfully inserted. They push me into an unnatural position several times when I try to move to escape the pain. There is always pain now. The catheter is not used and is removed the next day. I have scars. The routine is endless. The pain is endless. The fear of pain grows- I want at all costs to escape it. I cannot. Accept it, accept the pain. It is part of me, I am the pain. Ketamine. Fear, nightmares, shock, loss, grief, fear, alone- So alone. I cry out. I shout out. I become angry. NO! NO! NO! YOU WILL NOT WIN. YOU WILL NOT HAVE ME. YOU DO NOT OWN ME. GET F....D. I BELONG TO ME, NOT YOU.
Then life slowly evolves. With it arises guilt, shame and punishment, abandonment and loss, tears and emotions- almost overwhelming. To stay sane I listen and write. Today I will do a **** using a commode, not a pan. That means coordinating with staff, I cannot walk. OK –I need to learn to control the pain, I need to walk. I fall many times. I go back to the room without definition. Reality at times is blurred. Ketamine. T he doctors decide I can cope without an anaesthetic. I tolerate it. I do not move. There is pain- so much pain. Nothing else matters. Time means nothing. Just cope with the pain until the next breath and then the next. Do not fall asleep. NO. NO. NO. You cannot, will not have me. I scream and scream. The screams just well up and wash over me. It is a release. It helps. Just until the next breath. I know the pain will go away when I am awake. No, not away- it is still there waiting. Pain is patient. I am learning patience. I have no clothes. I have no money. I have no shoes. I have no family. I am in pain and alone. I am alone but very much alive. Time for the next breath. Alright life, I am ready- what do we do next?
A lady said to me much later ‘Well John, you are back and it seems you have things to do.’ I remember now, know and understand.
Join Date: Sep 2016
Posts: 847
I honestly don't know how you deal with the totality of your experience, John, but I am sure that your story must be motivating some people to consider doing better than they currently are.
It's always easy to simply give up in the face of uncertainty, but not always so easy to keep pushing forward. Keep doing whatever you're doing.
Thanks for being here.
It's always easy to simply give up in the face of uncertainty, but not always so easy to keep pushing forward. Keep doing whatever you're doing.
Thanks for being here.
Member
Join Date: Oct 2015
Posts: 2,393
Originally Posted by Hevyn 
I agree - I'm so glad you found us, PJ. You are very much loved & respected here.
Member
Join Date: Apr 2013
Location: Canada
Posts: 3,997
PJ,
I can't imagine the horror of what you have gone through, and the issues you continue to endure. Yet you are so kind and supportive to so many here. You are a good soul and thank you for being here.
I can't imagine the horror of what you have gone through, and the issues you continue to endure. Yet you are so kind and supportive to so many here. You are a good soul and thank you for being here.
Member
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: East Coast USA
Posts: 120,874
((((PhoenixJ))); I am so terribly sorry that you have endured such emotional and physical trauma.
You mean so very much to so many of us here; we are with you, and for you, as you continue this journey.
You mean so very much to so many of us here; we are with you, and for you, as you continue this journey.
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