11 posts shown.
Empyrean, so what you're saying is I don't officially kick the bucket until I actually show up to the party?
Hehe, gotta admit, I haven't really spent much time digging into religion... I don't hang out with many theists, but I try to respect everyone's vibe, even if more than half of those "spiritual" types seem pretty homophobic and stuck in their ways...
Saying "I went out and came back" is just scientific shorthand for losing and regaining consciousness. It isn’t a description of clinical death. Clinical death is when you actually stop breathing and your blood stops circulating because your heart either fails or just quits on you entirely...
darkraven, what are you, some doctor or a preacher? You're talking nonsense—I had two strokes and my heart stopped. And you call that just passing out? Besides, I didn't see God or Jesus or anything. When I finally came to, there was a priest standing over me, and I pretty much kicked him out of the room. It sounds crude, but I don't regret it. Just Google pneumothorax and extra-corporeal circulation if you want the real story...
I was baptized, but honestly, that whole sect is so disconnected from the people and the Bible...
So, it just doesn't add up... If I were in your shoes, having had an NDE—seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and all that—and if I was gullible enough to take it as proof of alien life or consciousness existing outside the body, I’d probably see it as one more reason to walk away from Christianity, not embrace it like you’re suggesting...
If I’d actually seen a tunnel, I’d know there was something there, but for me, clinical death was more like just flicking a light switch on and off... Christianity itself is fine, I guess, but the way the church handles things is just off. There's way too much politics mixed into faith these days; it feels like religion has turned into a political movement rather than something deeply personal... I don't know enough about theology to be an expert, but the whole forced-belief thing is just pretty lame...
Science has basically proven that the Bible is just a collection of old stories. You've got Adam and Eve, then Noah's Ark... where's the actual empirical evidence? It's non-existent.
The Church just bleeds us dry while they couldn't care less about the poor. I was a believer myself until the day I died, but back then, all I saw was total darkness, not some light at the end of a tunnel... nothing at all.
To the Church, the Earth is still flat and being different is treated like a disease.
Can anyone help me out? Back in late 2009 and early 2010, I dealt with a hemorrhagic stroke followed by an ischemic one...
I finally got my CT results back, but there are a few medical terms here that aren't clicking for me, so if anyone knows what they mean, please let me know.
-chronic ischemic lesion in the right frontotemporal region and basal ganglia, along with significant areas of malacia and gliosis
-lacunar infarct in the left caudate nucleus area
-slight displacement of the ventricular system to the right...
-atrophic changes in the right midbrain associated with Wallerian degeneration (???)
everything else seems pretty straightforward...
Does anyone have any insight on tendon transfers for the hand? Basically, the fingers on my left hand are stuck in this constant spasm—they'll flex just fine, but extension is non-existent, so I can't actually open my hand whenever I want... I survived two strokes and had a mechanical valve implanted...
I’ve managed to rehab pretty well, mostly, except for that hand and those fingers. I even tried Botox, but you'd need a literal money printing press to afford it since it isn't covered by Medicare...
Since my issues stem from a central cause, I followed a neurologist's advice and saw a plastic surgeon. He mentioned that getting some functionality back would likely require several surgeries. He suggested a tendon transfer under local anesthesia. Does anyone know anything about how that works or how risky these procedures actually are? Thanks!
It’s taken me a long time to finally sit down and tell the truth about everything I've been through since the summer of 2009... all the way to today. I suppose I was lucky, or maybe just incredibly unlucky, to make it out alive, but since I am, I might as well write it out, even if finding the words for what happened is a struggle...
Before getting into the meat of this, it's worth mentioning that back in 1989, I had surgery for aortic stenosis. I was only nine years old. They literally cut through my ribs like I was a child, but it saved my life.
Back then, I wasn't worrying about anything except getting back up and heading home. I spent over a month in the hospital, and thankfully, everything healed up perfectly and my heart was fine.
I played basketball, went to school, didn't give a second thought to being sick. I lived life just like any other young guy, living "full throttle"...
In 2001, I got married and had a beautiful daughter. My health held up pretty well, except for that time around 2000 when I decided to cross a bridge toward a small town outside of St. Louis with a buddy...
On the way back, I suddenly realized I was staring right at those famous railings, caught right in the middle of nowhere on the bridge itself.
And look, I’ve always been terrified of heights. Beyond that, I don't really remember much, just waking up in a hospital bed with this massive question mark hanging over my head: "What state am I even in? What city is this?" I had blacked out halfway across the bridge.
My friend—who, sadly, has passed away now—was with me, looking half-covered in blood from trying to hold onto me.
"It's okay, I'm at the local hospital, I'm in SAFE hands!!"
The irony is, nine years later, I nearly bit the dust in that very same hospital.
By the summer of 2009, I started dropping weight rapidly and running fevers. I’m 6'0", and I’d always stayed around 155 pounds. Then, in November 2009, I became a father for the second time...
I managed to carry my younger daughter for about a month and a half, but after that, I haven't been able to hold her again.
On December 14, 2009, my little girl came home from school and asked, "Dad, can you drive me to my friend's house?" I remember it clearly; it was just starting to snow.
As we were leaving the building, I realized my speech had become completely unintelligible. We barely managed to
get back to the apartment. The paramedics arrived in record time, though. They were truly fast, and they rushed me straight to an emergency neurological admission.
A sympathetic young doctor—probably just an intern—met me there. He sent me straight for a CT scan. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and thought, "Man, the left side of my face is drooping!" I honestly thought those were my final moments. I'd never seen a CT before; first, they gave me some contrast, then I laid on a bed and got pulled into this machine that looks like a half-finished tunnel for the scan.
That took about ten minutes or so. Afterward, they told me, "It's not a stroke." I thought, "Okay, good," thinking I hadn't slipped under the dirt just yet.
I was so terrified I ended up totally dehydrated. My wife went to a nearby convenience store to grab me an iced tea. I practically inhaled it... then, after a few seconds, I realized, "Wait, I can't swallow," wtf??? It felt like my throat was completely blocked. Then the hiccups started, and I was sent back to neurology.
They found a solution for the swallowing issue called a feeding tube. They shove this thing up your nose and yell, "Swallow, swallow!" I have no idea how I actually managed to swallow it. Eventually, they use air to check the placement by injecting it through the tube. If your stomach makes a sound, the tube is in the right spot.
That young doctor from earlier looked pretty shaken up, so he decided to call in a specialist from the Infectious Disease department. That’s how December 14th ended.
I spent my first night on IV fluids just so I wouldn't dehydrate. By then, I had already dropped down to about 130 pounds. Man, if I could just skip December 15th... A specialist arrived for a consultation, a man with all the titles, the head of Infectious Disease, Dr. Nenad Pandak. At first, he seemed like the ultimate professional, super polite. But after a little while, he told me he was transferring me to the infectious disease ward because he suspected the real diagnosis. I figured, who am I to doubt him? He's the expert.
As soon as I got to the infectious disease unit, they started poking and prodding me. That's when he informed me that I had tuberculous meningitis. He told me the treatment would be long-term and that my swallowing would return once my cranial nerves recovered—but he was lying. All the TB tests had come back negative, but he kept that hidden from me and my family.
Every morning during rounds, he acted all delighted by my "miraculous" recovery. Meanwhile, I was just getting thinner and thinner... Back then, I'd be vomiting these nasty anti-TB meds against the wall, convinced it was all part of the healing process.
Back then, I was being pumped full of Nutren, Prosure, and some white stuff through an IV just to get my energy up... I sat there like an idiot all day waiting for the drip to finish, watching my brother scarf down some burgers while I waited...
The neurologist told me I needed to see an internist and get a brain MRI over at the Mayo Clinic. He kept a stethoscope draped around his neck the whole time, though it clearly wasn't doing him any good...
Around that time, the fever started coming back and these red bumps began popping up all over my body. He just brushed it off and told me they were nothing but acne...
Then the guy actually went off on a ski trip, leaving me sitting there burning up without even bothering to run a blood culture...
I was already under 110 pounds by then, and this was the morning I headed to the Mayo Clinic for that MRI, accompanied by my mom who works at the hospital...
All I remember from that morning is my mom asking, "Vanja, honey, what's wrong?" She had just come home from her boss's ski trip. I tried to sit up, but everything just went pitch black... My boss walks in and goes, "Just give him some Valium, he's just being dramatic!" And that's how he sent me to the city in a half-dead state. In the ambulance, right in front of my mother, I lost control of the left side of my body...
Literally, because of that doctor's negligence, I ended up traveling from the city back home in diapers...
That’s when my savior stepped in—the head of resuscitation—who finally pulled a blood culture and rushed me to the Mayo Clinic...
They nailed the diagnosis immediately: bacterial endocarditis...
I've filed a lawsuit against the hospital to settle this, and the case is currently moving through the US District Court, where the medical expert testimonies are leaning heavily in my favor...
Total negligence has completely wrecked my life. Even though I couldn't swallow a single drop of water, the insurance company has been playing games with my coverage for years now...
Now, thanks to a speech therapist in the city, I can actually swallow again, whereas they told me back home there was nothing they could do...
The US is my home, and I love it. I'm so grateful to the amazing doctors in internal medicine and resuscitation...
My goal now is to one day be able to carry my youngest daughter. Sadly, along the way, I've lost some people I loved dearly. I'm writing this down so this never happens to anyone else...
I ended up suing them, though honestly, I’m not sure which is worse—the legal system or the doctors... I've been stuck in this lawsuit for three years now, thank God I have a mountain of paperwork to back me up. I spent an entire year just waiting on the first expert report that actually proved medical malpractice, and now I've been sitting around for a year waiting on an expert's response to the defendant's objections to that report... it feels like these legal battles just never end...
I spent two years dealing with some pretty brutal dysphagia, basically living off a feeding tube... but thanks to a speech therapist over at the Mayo Clinic, I’m finally back to eating on my own again
Back in my hometown near St. Louis, they spent two months treating me for tuberculous meningitis—which I didn't even have. I dropped from 175 lbs down to a skeletal 88... all while this bacteria was absolutely ravaging my heart and valves, and the doctor didn't even bother with a blood test or a hemoculture, let alone actually listening to my heart...
In January 2010, I headed over to Medikol for an MRI, only to end up paralyzed by a stroke right there in the ambulance in front of my mom.
I woke up at Mayo Clinic after having heart surgery to fix my valves, then they shuttled me over to the local clinic and finally to intensive care back home. It wasn't until I was back in the hospital that I realized it wasn't tuberculosis at all, but a bacterial infection that had migrated to my brain and triggered the stroke. That specific doctor, the head of infectious diseases at the hospital, never once checked in on me. I sued the hospital, and honestly, I'm still trying to get my life back...