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Beyond death
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What were you doing Saturday night? I was laid out on the floor of a restaurant lady’s room, yellow as a plastic kidney-shaped sputum cup and with a heart rate of 32 beats per minute. The EMTs and ER staff efficiently performed various functions on my body and handed me a “Final Diagnosis” of “vasovagal syncope” — which is more of a description than an explanation.
The whole illness lasted about an hour. It was all good. I know that I will have more compassion toward sick people from now on, having stored up in my heart how it felt to be stupid and helpless and humbled with illness, and what words and gestures ministered to me then.
Also, I gained insight into suffering from an eternal perspective, which helps considerably with my protracted philosophical wranglings about “the problem of evil”:
Did you mark how naturally — as if he’d been born for it — the Earthborn vermin entered the new life? How all his doubts became, in the twinkling of an eye, ridiculous? I know what the creature was saying to itself! ‘Yes. Of course. It always was like this. All horrors have followed the same course, getting worse and worse and forcing you into a kind of bottleneck till, at the very moment when you thought you must be crushed, behold! You were out of the narrows and all was suddenly well. The extraction hurt more and more and then the tooth was out. The dream became a nightmare and then you woke. You die and die and then you are beyond death. How could I ever have doubted it?’ (The Screwtape Letters, C.S.Lewis)
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Politics of fraud
Right on target as usual. In those few moments of an accident that was potentially life threatening I, for the first time in my life, instantly realized that I truly believed in the sovereignty of God, His redemptive work in my life and the hope of eternity in His presence. There was complete peace that only the Holy Spirit could give. How I have cherished that blessing since when any doubts begin to surface. You are in our prayers.
I could relate to this, having experienced a vasovagal syncope about a dozen years back. It was one of the scarier experiences, not at the time, but in retrospect, and you’re right.. it’s more a description than a diagnosis of a cause.
You’ve summed up a perspective I’ve never quite been able to put it into so precisely, but have only felt vaguely. Thanks.
Is there something too PC wrong with just saying you fainted? Does even the most minor thing have to sound life threatening?
I had to look it up.
If you want to talk about nonsensical excess verbage no one ever heard of - this is it.
Llama,
As a person who has had several episodes with a heart arythmia (lone atrial fibrilation), and which I never want to repeat, I find your reponse not only unsympathetic, but insensitive as well. When you have something wrong enough with you that someone has to call the ambulance, and you go to the ER, and you feel like “death warmed over”, it’s pretty frightening no matter how benign the “final diagnosis”.
Hope you feel better now Andree.
Quite possibly (given Ms. Seu’s description of persistent bradycardia), this was neurocardiogenic and not simply vasovagal syncope. While the latter lasts seconds, the former can in some cases go on to stop your heart altogether. Minor thing, indeed.
And here I had been believing all along that llamas had bigger hearts adapted for high altitudes. Guess I was mistaken {:~)
my $0.02,
SG
Well, Andree had an intimation of death, whatever the terminology. She came out of the narrows of this with a bit of eternal perspective and being Andree found a way to articulate it. One could do worse.
Personally, on a lesser scale, my intimation of death came Sunday night when the Patriots were cruelly snuffed out by the Giants.
I can relate to this for having suffered adrenal shock episodes due to a stressful lifestyle. Laid on the floor for hours unable to speak.
I was complaining about the extra PC verbage for fainting, not the malady that I’m sure, in the least, was life changing - hopefully in a positive way.
Tony had fainting spells in the Sopranos that shook him and his family up enough for him to go to shrink - risking death to do so by the way. But his shrink never called it ‘vasovagal syncope’ or some such nonsense.
By the way, my spell check doesn’t even recognize vasovagal syncope as words.
Vasovagal syncope is the fainting that occurs from an over-reaction of the parasymptathetic nervous symptom, say in response to the sight of blood, extreme emotional states or a valsalva maneuver. It produces visceral vasodilation and a transient drop in heart rate via the vagus nerve. It’s a benign phenomenon, but not nonsense.
Neurocardiogenic syncope is the fainting that occurs when in response to a drop in blood pressure, the heart rate transiently speeds up, triggering an abnormal feedback response that again slows the heart dramatically (32 beats per minute would qualify), sometimes even stopping the heart. It’s not so benign, and if medications don’t temper the response a pacemaker is in order.
Whew. Reading over this superfluous detail is giving me the vapors {:~)
Here is a list of things you will see after you die:
Andree
I don’t know how you put up with ones who can be so harsh..(i guess I can include myself in that category at times
….yes thick skin as you wrote is necessary.
I remember getting that call from Shock Trauma telling me that my husband had been hit by a tractor trailer….yes your head begins to spin around and think of the bills ..even for him …no thoughts of eternity ….thoughts of the present come swooshing in…daughters and son left for mother to raise alone.
Im thankful for you and glad you are home recovering ….
Thankful for God’s preservation of your life.
It’s sad that rdean finds his view of the afterlife so depressing that he must try to take solace away from christians who experience the true hope and excitement that comes after death.
13-
I don’t feel sad about someone speaking their mind. Why do you feel wronged?
Reg - I took Tombob’s comment to mean that he was sorry for RDEAN, for feeling that way. I could be mistaken, but that’s how I read it.
MSWAGG - Excuse me for asking, but did your husband survive that?
karen’s right.
that’s what i meant.
yes karen..he did survive that and is back at work too….:)
I’m so glad!
The unexpected part of this type of event is probably the hardest to deal with. Recently a young aquaintance was killed in a tragic auto accident leaving his wife and 2 teenagers without a husband and father. I cannot imagine the shock of being informed that someone I am really close to has been involved in a tragic accident. Whenever I read of such an event it brings me closer to the role that God and Christ play in my life as well as in those around me.