Having a near death experience changes you. If you reach a certain age, you’ve probably had something occur in your life that brought you closer to your maker, causing you to think differently in terms of how you approach living.
While IMO I didn’t have a near death experience the past four weeks, I did have something bad enough occur to my body that others in my family felt I might not stay around if I didn’t get things taken care of medically. So, I did. Two visits to urgent care. One followup visit to a surgeon
Without going into too much detail, I had a spider bite that inflated and caused significant pain. After three days, I visited urgent care and got dosed with an antibiotic and steroid. A week later, the doctor cut the inflammation open, drained it and put me on a more targeted antibiotic. One week after that, I went to a surgeon who opened me up again and further drained liquid by swabbing out the bacterial contamination. I’m healing, down to a scab.
I see things differently today than I did four weeks ago. More appreciative of the people in my sphere, thankful I’ve been given time to do more good in the world (hopefully my version of “good” makes sense to others). I’m taking things a bit slower. Listening more. Savoring my food taste by taste. Trying some new experiences.
In the past, I’ve had more near death experiences, and similar reactions have occurred and shaped my views on how to live and serve. And marvel at medical science. Without it, I likely would have died at age 14, when I had an appendicitis attack. Even back then, I remember thinking that if I had been born 50 years earlier, that 14 would have likely been my last birthday. Heavy thoughts for a burgeoning adolescent.
Living in the Dallas Fort-Worth metro area for 12 years, I remember driving home after work one day. I was at a stop light. It turned green. I waited to move. I don’t know why. A semi was stopped coming from my left, but the lizard in the back of my brain said not to go into the intersection yet. Sure enough, a car hidden behind the semi blasted from behind it through their red light, easily going 45-50 mph. It would have nailed my driver side at full blast if I’d accelerated like normal. Toast.
In the ensuing years, I’ve thought of the incident many times. I’m blessed I wasn’t hit, maimed or killed.
Several years later, while being treated for peripheral neuropathy in my feet through an IV drip, I received contaminated medicine. I did not know that at the time.
I came home, and wracking seizures hit me, and I couldn’t get warm in the 103-degree DFW heat, throwing on a winter jacket, hat and several comforters while shaking uncontrollably. I took four Advil, then another four every 5 hours or so, thinking I had a sudden bad case of the flu, walking around ghost-white and everyone asking me what was wrong. “Ah, got a bad case of the flu.”
Until I got a call two days later from the CDC, asking my name, confirming who I was and them telling me to get IMMEDIATELY to the local hospital because of two other people having the IV drip from the batch they used on me, one was dead and the other was on life support. I hit the hospital, they did all the tests, and miraculously, somehow, I was on the mend and my body had dominated the contamination. I went back for a followup a week later and the doctor just shook his head at my recovery. “You have the strongest immune system I’ve ever seen,” I remember him saying.
Ever thankful again, I moved on, this event shaping my more spontaneous, exploratory, curious way of moving through this world. Life can be brutal. Life can easily be taken from you with no warning. Stay vigilant. Seize the moment.
Days, weeks, months, years can turn bad, like with the spider bite putting me in a pain vice grip. If you are graced to come through these types of experiences, you contemplate what’s important, why you live the way you do and what’s really valuable. You ponder this more with age, and say to yourself when you see someone really struggling (physically, mentally, psychically, financially), “There I go but for the grace of god.”
While IMO I didn’t have a near death experience the past four weeks, I did have something bad enough occur to my body that others in my family felt I might not stay around if I didn’t get things taken care of medically. So, I did. Two visits to urgent care. One followup visit to a surgeon
Without going into too much detail, I had a spider bite that inflated and caused significant pain. After three days, I visited urgent care and got dosed with an antibiotic and steroid. A week later, the doctor cut the inflammation open, drained it and put me on a more targeted antibiotic. One week after that, I went to a surgeon who opened me up again and further drained liquid by swabbing out the bacterial contamination. I’m healing, down to a scab.
I see things differently today than I did four weeks ago. More appreciative of the people in my sphere, thankful I’ve been given time to do more good in the world (hopefully my version of “good” makes sense to others). I’m taking things a bit slower. Listening more. Savoring my food taste by taste. Trying some new experiences.
In the past, I’ve had more near death experiences, and similar reactions have occurred and shaped my views on how to live and serve. And marvel at medical science. Without it, I likely would have died at age 14, when I had an appendicitis attack. Even back then, I remember thinking that if I had been born 50 years earlier, that 14 would have likely been my last birthday. Heavy thoughts for a burgeoning adolescent.
Living in the Dallas Fort-Worth metro area for 12 years, I remember driving home after work one day. I was at a stop light. It turned green. I waited to move. I don’t know why. A semi was stopped coming from my left, but the lizard in the back of my brain said not to go into the intersection yet. Sure enough, a car hidden behind the semi blasted from behind it through their red light, easily going 45-50 mph. It would have nailed my driver side at full blast if I’d accelerated like normal. Toast.
In the ensuing years, I’ve thought of the incident many times. I’m blessed I wasn’t hit, maimed or killed.
Several years later, while being treated for peripheral neuropathy in my feet through an IV drip, I received contaminated medicine. I did not know that at the time.
I came home, and wracking seizures hit me, and I couldn’t get warm in the 103-degree DFW heat, throwing on a winter jacket, hat and several comforters while shaking uncontrollably. I took four Advil, then another four every 5 hours or so, thinking I had a sudden bad case of the flu, walking around ghost-white and everyone asking me what was wrong. “Ah, got a bad case of the flu.”
Until I got a call two days later from the CDC, asking my name, confirming who I was and them telling me to get IMMEDIATELY to the local hospital because of two other people having the IV drip from the batch they used on me, one was dead and the other was on life support. I hit the hospital, they did all the tests, and miraculously, somehow, I was on the mend and my body had dominated the contamination. I went back for a followup a week later and the doctor just shook his head at my recovery. “You have the strongest immune system I’ve ever seen,” I remember him saying.
Ever thankful again, I moved on, this event shaping my more spontaneous, exploratory, curious way of moving through this world. Life can be brutal. Life can easily be taken from you with no warning. Stay vigilant. Seize the moment.
Days, weeks, months, years can turn bad, like with the spider bite putting me in a pain vice grip. If you are graced to come through these types of experiences, you contemplate what’s important, why you live the way you do and what’s really valuable. You ponder this more with age, and say to yourself when you see someone really struggling (physically, mentally, psychically, financially), “There I go but for the grace of god.”
