I'm sorry if this blog is not up to my usual standards - but hey I'm four days post-dead and although exceptionally happy to be that - I'm not really in tip top form - I hope you'll excuse any that is not quite legible (as that was. lol.)
No really! Early am, on the 'glorious' 12th, flashing lights, multiple people caring for me etc. But the point is I died - 44 - Heart attack - DEAD! I don't know for how long, but dead's dead isn't it. So, you wanna know what it's like?
Of Course you do, everybody does - I did, although I didn't know I did, but now I have, well I know - I KNOW FOR SURE - What happens when you die!
Well it's like this, I think the easiest way to explain it is how it happened.
12-08-09
03.00 Pain, but only like a blood-pressure cuff, on my left arm
03.10 Chest pain like child sitting on me
03.20 Arm and chest pain (gripping/adult sitting on chest)
03.25 Ambulance called
03.35 Ambulance arrived, paramedics with me, I was sweating profusely and V.cold - given oxygen immediately
03.40 I was in the ambulance, my shirt shielding my eyes from the glaring lights and the Paramedics sweating profusely - I'm a big lad see, like a rugby player - 6 foot 4 inches and 220 pounds of (mostly) muscle.
03.42 I died
04.10(est) I was resuscitated
04.15 Ambulance departs for Local hospital - Glan Clwyd.
04.30 Arrive at local hospital - puke almost instantly on nurse
05.05 I died and crash team called
05.30(est) I was resuscitated
07.05 Transferred to ambulance for trip to specialist heart hospital about 50 miles away - Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital
07.35 Police escort, into Liverpool through the morning traffic - I had slept the journey, I've always had the uncanny knack of being able to fall asleep almost at will. Decided I couldn't handle a high speed trip to Liverpool and chose to sleep through it, so I missed the escort, and was told about it by a chap on the general cardio ward later - "Oh that was you was it, they woke us up!"
07.45 Arrived at LHCH and awoke as the ambulance doors opened. The first person I saw was one of the Police officers who had escorted me saying. 'Good luck mate.' It was bizarre, I wondered, a little groggy from a horde of drugs including some form of Morphine, why I was being greeted by a well wishing cop! Thanks to that officer for his and his colleagues help.
08.00 Procedure to install a stent into a the narrowed artery which was causing the problem was carried out immediately by, and I am totally hetero, the most handsome man on the planet, who fortunately for me decided to be a heart surgeon rather than a Model or film star, called I believe Ash Patwaly.
09.00 I was moved to Cardio Care unit (critical care ward) and slept intermittently throughout day, saw my wife and my best friend, then later my mother and brothers, and chatted in snatches of apparently quite lucid consciousness, though I don't remember a great deal. I do remember a very nice nurse called Deepa helping me all day and another nurse, Clare, that night.
17.00 Another drug given, also by Ash Patwaly, to regulate the heart's rhythm, which was out of tune because of the shocks
17.30 fell asleep - much more comfortable
20.00 awoke feeling MUCH better.
13-08-09
09.30 Ash Patwaly came to see my progress, and was I think surprised by how well I was doing. I was like nothing had happened, yes I was tired, knackered in fact, like I'd spent a day moving a couple of wardrobes around a room for an indecisive woman but back to my normal self.
13.15 Transferred to general cardio ward, escorted by Nurse Marj and Student Nurse Sherifa who looked after me on the 13th and a porter (by the way all the names are probably spelled wrong - sorry).
14-08-09
15.00 Discharged with a bagful of tablets.
Great thanks therefore to Nurses Deepa, Clare, Sherifa, Marj, Katie, the ones whose names I can remember - bit of a stressful whirlwind visit you understand. Also To Dylan and His oppo who nearly died themselves carrying me the hundred yards to the ambulance, then brought me back to life and to the team at Glan Clwyd Hospital whose names I don't know, I was completely out of it you know!
And the police escort.
Thanks to Aneurin Bevan (1897 - 1960 Firebrand socialist and orator who is regarded as the father of the National Health Service.) for thinking up the National health service in the first place, William Beveridge (1879 - 1963 British economist and social reformer, closely associated with the development of the welfare state) and to my ancestors, the people of Great Britain UK of 1948 who decided that it would be a great thing to do.
Without ALL of you Crispy Sea would not be here to thank you all for your foresight and compassion. Without you my children would not have a father, my wife not have a husband, my mother 1 less son, my friends, 1 less friend and the world 1 less warrior for truth.
The current and future beating of my heart is
totally down to the size of yours
16-08-09
It's 7am I've been up for about an hour. Just sitting, watching a sunrise I shouldn't be seeing. I'm really glad the molecules that formed this solar system bumped into each other in such a way that this ball on which we grew, orbits such a beautiful star.
I have nothing to thank any imaginary being for, but my eyes on this sunrise, and all others I shall see, are down to the massive, almost incalculably massive, support team.
So, the question was, what's it like?
No lights, no angels, no demons
Just simply - it's exactly the same as going to sleep
You know when you are watching TV and you drop off to sleep for a moment, but the only way you know is that the people on the screen aren't in the same position as they were a moment ago, you've missed a bit of the story and are not sure what's going on. You instantly recognise you've been asleep for a few mins.
It's exactly the same when you die, just like dropping off to sleep
How do I know? What's my proof?
Simple, when the team resuscitated me, brought me back to life in Glan Clwyd, the first words out of my mouth to the nurse who was standing next to me were
'Oh I fell asleep for a bit there did I?'
Her answer bewildered me a bit at the time, I was groggy but I noticed it as odd
'Er, er, er, you, er, you lost consciousness for a while'
she blurted unconvincingly.
It's later, when I pieced together the events, that I realised, that was when I'd died for the second time.
So before, when I wrote my blogs, and ranted on about there being no god etc. I was standing on a rock called 'I don't know but the probability of a god is pretty much zero', whereas now, there is nobody on the planet more qualified. I know what happens when you're really 'most sincerely dead' because I've been there, and it's just exactly like being asleep.
Thank You again to the
Dedicated and highly professional staff
of the
FABULOUSLY FREE
GREAT
BRITISH
NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE
Now, to the current 'debate' about health care.
PEACE
Crispy
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