Five Lessons

Ted Reads Five lessons

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As you may know (or not) I unexpectedly spent 27 days of August visiting the Neuroscience unit of Colorado University’s Anschutz Hospital in Denver.  The “how I got there” is a story in and of itself.  What happened to me is another story (there are several chapters to that story).  I will share one of them here.  Suffice it to say, I had a severe subdural hematoma cranial bleed, which had been filling my skull with blood for about a month.  The blood had nowhere to go and had gradually been pushing my brain, off center and to the left.   

It is a bit of a miracle that I can write this.  That I am still above ground, mobile, and with most if not all my cognitive capabilities still intact is close to unimaginable, based on the condition I was in when I got to the hospital.  My family and I had conversations with the palliative care team, went over with the medical team the details of my advanced care directive, considered what would be necessary if I needed lifetime 24/7/365 care, what assistance was available for me to opt for ending my own life, etc.

The cool part about all of that was the ease we had in all of those discussions.  I attribute that to all the work I and we as a family have done BEFORE we were forced to by an event like this.  We have been preparing for this moment for the last 20 years.  It was no longer the “what if” of those discussions, this was the real deal, not a hypothetical discussion.  “This is not a drill.” 

So, the first lesson I learned, again, is that doing all of that preliminary “What if” work, is invaluable. What our having done that enabled us to do was to be fully present with what was happening, pay full attention and ask dozens of questions to who was suggesting what; consciously and calculatingly deciding what to do or not do next, instead of each of us emotionally freaking out by this event.  Personally, instead of my usual “When in time of crisis, shut down,” I was amazingly open and forthright to a degree that surprised even myself.  We were able to make rational decisions and choices, as if we had been in this situation many times before.  Because we had.  In a way we had “practiced” this situation a dozen times. 

Note: It isn’t a one and done kind of thing.  It is an on-going learning experience for us.  Example - my wife and I had just finished reading a book called The Beginners Guide to the End, which in my opinion is one of the most helpful, practical books out there.  The one we had read before that was Briefly, Perfectly, Human.  Obviously, if you are interested, I highly recommend both.   

The first day or three, things were pretty dicey.  I remember thinking, and saying to my wife, “I feel like a burned-out firecracker.”  I couldn’t walk.  I couldn’t sit up in a chair.  I couldn’t manage any of my most personal needs, I couldn’t eat on my own, or drink.  I would tell my foot to move, and it would just sit there, my left hand refused to obey orders.  “Life as we knew it is all over.”  “I’m done.” “It’s over,” I said. I knew things weren’t good then, and since then, I have heard from various people that things were actually much more touch and go, more dire than I even realized at the time.  They told me that my daughter was flying in and now I understand why.

Second lesson?  I heard from many people how proud of me they were that I fought so hard to live.  There was a part of my body that was fighting hard, but I consciously had nothing to do with it. I’m not sure exactly what I mean here, but I sensed there was some potential downside to suggesting to someone that they need to fight harder, to battle, when that was not my experience in how it works.  If I die, does that mean I didn’t fight hard enough?  I understand why people might say that, but I have a hunch it is more for their benefit than the one it is directed towards.    

Third Lesson?  I have two different levels of thinking.  Maybe everyone does, I don’t know.  I didn’t know that until the 23rd day of my ‘stay.”  I knew for the first 22 days, something wasn’t quite right, it felt like I couldn’t quite process everything that was going on.  I was able to understand everything that was being said, and participate in conversations, but something was missing.  I wasn’t aware of what it was that was missing, but…

On the 23rd day in the morning, what I have come to call my “second level” of thinking came back. What that meant to me was that I was suddenly able to put all the information I had been getting into context.  Into a “Big Picture.”  I’ve always been able to do that pretty well and I didn’t know they were separate dimensions of thought until it came back “online.” 

It was sort of like I had been handed puzzle pieces for 22 days, I understood each puzzle piece but couldn’t grasp what I should do with it.  On the 23rd day (thank goodness) it was as if I was shown the picture of the puzzle.  Context.  Here’s what I need to do with this information.

Fourth Lesson? I was on the receiving end of the greatest sustained (27 days) level of compassion and caring that I didn’t know or believe actually existed.  It was demonstrated every second of every day.  I asked one of my nurses if everyone had to go to a compassion school, before they could work there.  Supporting that was my family who poured pitchers of compassion on me.  Freely.  Lovingly.  Then hundreds of messages from friends and colleagues. My sister traveled thousands of miles to be with me.  Those relatives who couldn’t come sent theirs through various means.  I was flooded with it and still am. 

Fifth Lesson? (and the coolest).  I discovered that I have two levels of “sleep”.  For the first 14 days I slept a lot.  Falling asleep up to half a dozen times a day, as my brain was trying to do some healing from being opened up (think the Munsters, and Lurch, I think his name was).  A portion of my skull was removed and thankfully replaced but the scar from them putting it back on was impressive.  (While I was in the hospital I read a news report about a man who had had similar surgery done and the hospital had lost the part they had removed, so I felt grateful.)

So, on to the lesson.  On the very first night, I went to sleep, and then slipped into what I call another level of sleep.  That two-tiered sleep pattern continued for the next 15 days.  I would fall asleep and be ushered into a deeper level of dreaming.    

The first time I entered that second level of sleep, a character in red greeted me.  I knew he was death, waiting for me to show up.  I woke up, asked for a warm blanket and then went back to sleep. 

From then on, when I would enter that deep sleep, I would walk towards him, and when I got to where he was standing, he would open a door and show me an expanding reality that I had never experienced.  I began to look forward to the next time I got to go to sleep.  Four, five, six times a day for 13-14 days: 60-70 times I would go to sleep and end up ‘there’ with him.   

I was actually saddened and disappointed when that second level of sleep stopped on day 15.  But based on what I “saw” the last time I was there, I was done.  There wasn’t anything more to be seen, discovered or revealed. 

Next time I will talk about what I saw and experienced and the biggest lesson of all (so far).  Warning, it is more like “Star Trek”, “Outer Limits,” and “Twilight Zone” than a rational narrative.