What it feels like to die.

Ever wondered what angels look like? Or who you will see at the moment it happens?

DEATH. It's one of the most terrifying things in life, but it actually wasn't so bad. How do I know? Well... that's the story at hand isn't it?

Years ago I was in the hospital with a blood infection, and died several times while in the hospital.

I went into the hospital on a Tuesday afternoon to have a simple procedure for a torn rotator cuff in my shoulder. A week later I ended up with failed repair, and a staph infection that was in my blood stream.

Wednesday - Temp 104 degrees.

I was 19 at the time, so I came home from college to stay with my parents while having this procedure done over fall break. The week immediately after the procedure was not so bad, but by the next Wednesday I had a 104 temp and could not move my shoulder at all. The doctor wanted me to come in for an examination.

He decided that my shoulder looked a little swollen, and needed to drain some fluid. So he took a 10 inch needle and inserted it deep into my shoulder; no numbing for that one folks!

I felt terrible, I didn't want to do anything and I couldn't sleep the way I was accustomed to. You know what that's like when you can't sleep in your favorite position - it's like not sleeping at all.

I was instructed that if my temp raised to 105 that I would need to be admitted into the hospital.

Thursday - Temp 105 degrees

When the next day came my fever had risen, but at this point I didn't even notice it; it just felt like more of the same.

I put up some resistance, but off the the hospital I went. The first thing they needed was a sample of the fluid from my shoulder, but guess what... the doctor just drained all of the fluid the previous day.

What followed was one of the most torturous and painful things I have ever had done.

Remember that 10 inch needle? Well, the nurse had one of those too. He pushed it into my shoulder and had to scrape and poke around until the proper amount of fluid could be extracted from the site of surgery. Again, with no anesthesia or numbing.

It felt like a hot knife using the inside of my shoulder as a playground. The diagnosis was an aggressive staph infection in the blood stream.

I was admitted, and they set me up my two of my closest friends that I would have over the next six weeks... morphine and pokemon.

Friday - Temp 106 degrees

Yes Pokemon! Back when this all happened Pokemon was on weekdays at least 6 times a day on Fox. I couldn't change the channel so with a mix of 106 fever, sleep deprivation, and lots of drugs on board I was being brainwashed & programmed to catch them all!!!!!

When your fever gets up to 106 and you have a lot of morphine on board, you just stop caring. Everything just kind of "IS". I had hallucinations of people playing baseball around me, and I would flinch and jump every time the ball would almost hit me.

I knew they were hallucinations, because I was on the 6th floor, but it didn't matter - that's the ride my brain was taking me on.

It's maddening when you are forced to deal with hallucinations mixed with "Can you guess the pokemon?"

Next 2 Weeks - Temp 105 - 107

I died twice during this time, and lost 100 lbs over 6 weeks, but it was not the worst part of this ordeal.

The worst part was the sleep deprivation. They were trying to make sure that I wasn't going to die, so they kept waking me up every 90 minutes to check my vitals. In between those 90 minutes, they would come in and wake me for some other reason for testing. So every 40 minutes someone would be in the room.

This was causing me so much stress that I attribute the constant monitoring as the main reason my heart just stopped.

When I died

One evening while I was in bed I flatlined.

What did it feel like... it felt like nothing, and it was disturbingly peaceful. At first I couldn't breathe and something felt wrong, then I started to get tunnel vision and my ears felt like they started to close like when you increase your altitude.

Then darkness... peace, and a bit of out-of-body.

It was my personal belief that I was able to 'experience' these feelings because I was still 'brain alive' and I was awake when it happened. I personally don't believe in an afterlife - I believe that when we die we do what everything else in this universe does; we get recycled into the next living thing when we die.

What Did I See?

I didn't see any tunnels, clouds, people, angels, nor god - it just was.

Initially everything just closed off; like access to the visual and auditory feed of life was being terminated. Then when everything was dark I had an awareness that I was no longer 'in my body'.

I felt like I was being sucked out into the universe and that my body was 'behind me', if that makes sense. As soon as that feeling came over me I was returned to my position on the table. Along with the lovely feeling of having been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer.

The air coming back in felt good; it was deeply satisfying.

This happened again a few hours later, but I have absolutely no memory of it. I just remember woking up in a different room with a breathing tube in and the most blissful stream of oxygen pouring in. (I really love air I guess).

What I take away from dying

All in all, it wasn't so bad. I did come out 100lbs lighter, which did wonders for my social life - regardless how vacant and superficial that may be.

Maybe my outlook is because I mostly have an optimistic outlook on life. Maybe it was because I had so much medication on board that it was hard to actually experience anything fully.

I think that the trauma leading up to the moment is worse than the actual moment, and that's what most people fear. Nobody want's to go in some horrible evisceration. When my heart stopped it was shocking, but it was just a fleeting moment and then peace.

My belief in reincarnation still persists; life is the reward for the living.

Even if my feeling of peace was just from the lack of input from my physical body, I would like to think that I was headed into some kind of peaceful limbo before my next destination.