Well, it's the day I've long awaited - April 19.
Long awaited because I didn't know if would live long enough to see this day.
Months ago I began having chest pains (angina), and I've gained a lot of
weight. I was concerned that I wouldn't be here to celebrate my 3rd New-Birth
Day. But here I am and I'm quite alive.
Three years ago, on April 6, 2008, I fell victim to a Sudden Cardiac Arrest.
Not many will believe that I actually died and stayed dead for some time, but
it's true. On April the 19th, I was in the hospital intensive care unit and they
were getting ready to pull out my breathing tube (E.T. tube), thus disconnecting
me from my ventilator. The fear was that I would thrash around, unable to
breathe, and they wouldn't be able to reinsert the tube. Therefore, I would die.
I've always wondered if they liked me at all because they just went ahead and
pulled out the tube, anyway! The staff called this, "Pull and Pray". (Now
THAT's a confidence builder.)
Well, long story short, God liked me more and made me breathe again. I remember
a moment of anguish and confusion (when the tube was out), and then a gasp, and
then I was breathing on my own. Alive again. I have named that day, my
New-Birth Day.
I've heard that some are nearly silly with joy after such a miracle, while
others are simply grateful to be alive. And a few would rather be back in the
spiritual place in which they were, while in a coma.
The reason I'm NOT feeling overjoyed is that there are so many 'survivors' who
remain in a coma or coma-like state. They may remain that way, totally disabled
and totally dependent upon the care of others. To make this even worse, family
members are among the others. It seems that more and more families are being
advised to disconnect the ventilator, or stop the tube-feeding, or just let the
pneumonia rage until the patient is dead.
Well, if they don't agree to killing their loved one, then that loved one
likely will not be treated as a fully living person, ever again. We could say,
never again be treated as a full citizen.
Medical decisions, made more for the convenience of the medical facility than
for the good of the patient, will likely keep this poor soul in such a disabled
state for months or years.
FINAL INSULT
may have horrible bedsores that open the flesh to the bone.
Next, some doctor with the backing of the insurance company, will work at
making the family feel guilty for the suffering of their loved one. In other
words, it's the family's fault for not "letting the person go" much earlier.
This is the last, big attempt to get them to agree to euthanasia (legalized
killing). If not, then the facility will begin refusing to care for the patient,
and the family will have to take over the care at home - something that they can
almost never do.
Well, I was in a coma but only for 13 days. After that, I was mentally disabled
for a month and a half due to the anoxic brain injury. Anoxic means that my
brain was deprived of oxygen for at least 15 minutes, while my heart was not
beating - starting at the moment of my cardiac arrest.
Now, being something of a "miracle man" myself, I've been told that I should be
so happy to be alive. Well, I am... sort of.
Someone else said that I have "survivor's guilt". Well, I don't... not much.
I'll tell you what it is. I feel OUTRAGED that so many of my fellow "survivors"
are being treated this way. I hope their families will agree to let me tell
their stories here on this site, so that you can hear, first-hand, about the
anguish that this is causing families all over this countr
No doubt, some think that when the emergency crew arrived at my house and found
me on the floor after a Sudden Cardiac Arrest, with the near certainty of an
Anoxic Brain Injury, that they should not have tried to revive me, at all.
Rather, that they should have taken my body to the nearest hospital, covered it
with a sheet, and declared me, "Dead On Arrival".
- - - - -
Originally published by me on Wed April 20, 2011
This article also appears on '- Surviving Cardiac Arrest - rturri'
2 comments:
Marty said...
I am honored to know you.
I am so glad you are here to write - including the fury.
May 1, 2011 7:46 PM
Marty said...
I hope you don't mind, but I posted a link to this post on my facebook page.
It should be read.
May 1, 2011 7:50 PM
Monday, September 26, 2011
Cry Baby Cry - Why Baby Why?
Ok, I'll admit it. I am a "babysitter". Twice a week, my wife and I spend a day with our two Grandsons. They are a three year-old, and a four month-old.
Let's face it... sixty years old and three years after my cardiac arrest, I am
not as quick-in-the-head as I was when our own son was so young. My memory of what happened one minute ago is no longer perfectly reliable. Fortunately, my memory of what happened decades ago is still intact. I remember the many subtle lessons my son taught me about being the guardian of a child, when I spent some years at home, being "Mr. Dad". (Don't even think about calling ME Mr. "Mom".)
Years before that, I was determined to become a child psychologist, studied it, and worked with distressed children in a state hospital.
Armed with this experience, I can babysit successfully. I FEAR NO CHILD!
I can rely upon myself to guide these two little boys away from trouble, away from harm, and away from disappointment. I do have a problem, though, with a few things and these are: DISAGREEING with GrandMa, Mommy and Daddy, and a multitude of women who think that they are somehow perfectly endowed at birth, with infinite wisdom, regarding the "rearing" of children. Well, if that were true, you and I wouldn't be just two well adjusted individuals, living in a world filled with idiots! Would we?
The problem upon which I have become focused is a baby who cries too much. You may say that he does not, but if you were taking care of him all day, you wouldn't say that.
He's only a few months old, and I'm told that babies at that age cry - "That's what babies do!" I remember when his three year old brother was the same age. He cried a lot, too. So did the baby next door, and the babies at the park, and the mall babies in shopping carts. And you may think me arrogant, Ma'am, but I'm going to tell you WHY they cry so much and why they need more GrandPa's like me to make their little lives a little happier.
To get right down to it, the problem - most of the time - is with their diapers! Not IN their diapers - but WITH their diapers. In other words, It's the damned "diapers"! And no, not the soft, cloth kind that some of you devoted Moms still believe in (God bless you for it, too!), but these cheap, convenient, and marketable plastic ones. As with any product that causes more harm than good, that men like me sharply refer to "a lousy piece of crap!", these no-good plastic poop-catchers are instruments of INFANT TORTURE and were designed in the Devil's own workshop. That's right. And I'll tell you why.
(Still with me? :)
At this time, Mama, a little demonstration is in order. You can actually try
this experiment, or you can just imagine it.
1: Take a stong rubber band that must be stretched to fit over your wrist.
2: Now, stretch it over your wrist.
3: Leave it there for as long as your baby would go without a diaper change.
4: Time's up! Now, you look me in the eye and tell me that your skin, under
that rubber band, doesn't hurt.
Well, you can't, because you have a red, sore, depressed ring around your wrist. If that rubber band is as strong as the elastic band in the diaper's leg openings, your fingers are probably tingling right about now, because of the loss of oxygen. I remind you that I am one whose heart stopped, and left me dead for over 15 minutes, and I know what a loss of oxygen does to a body. It kills cells and it hurts! Now, of course, a diaper isn't going to stop your baby's
heart, but it can sure put those little feet to sleep, and that kind of tingling isn't good for anybody.
Now, the next time your baby cries enough to drive the pidgeons out of the barn, just stop and LOOK at your baby's groin, and SEE the red ring that the
elastic has gouged into the skin. You know that's sore. LOOK at your baby's
cute little behind and count the number of pinch marks all over those sensitive little Angel buns, caused by wrinkled plastic. If your baby was wet, or even a little damp, those marks will be multiplied and stinging viciously.
OK, so now we have a little baby with cyanotic skin. (Excuse me, Mom, that
means no oxygen.) When you hold your baby upright, the crying usually stops or at least is lessened. And you think, "All this baby needs is to be held." It seems true enough. Yep... until you sit down and hold the baby on your lap, or lay the baby down, hoping against hope for a nap. Then the crying starts again. Worse than before! Pick up the baby, walk the baby, rock the baby, and maybe the crying will stop again. But not for long. That situation is getting worse as time goes by, and the baby is feeling even more pain.
If you would just remove that awful excuse for a diaper and "rub the little red
marks away", the crying will not only stop, but soon your baby will coo and
giggle again. It's that easy. If you must continue to torture your baby with
those 'Pants of Pain', then at least put a strip of soft cloth between the elastic bands and the poor child's skin. Lay a nice soft flap of cloth over those Angel buns, too. Or, better yet, USE A REAL DIAPER. Not convenient? Sorry about that, but it's not about you - it's about the baby! Two years of that torture and you'll have a child who is sad, angry, "fussy" (what a "weasle" word that is), and stuck with a personality built upon early childhood misery.
So, you don't believe it, huh? You think that because the Baby Product industry caters to you everyday, and hugs you everyday with drippy compliments, that you know more than GrandPa? Well... you DON'T! And your baby suffers for it.
OK... OK... so it's not your fault. You didn't make the diapers. That's true.
But you know who did. Isn't it time that you stood up for your little bundle of
joy and told those sadistic money makers that your child is too deserving of
happiness to be wrapped in their "Pants of Pain"? Don't give them any more of your money... until they stop treating you like poop. Stand up for yourself,
Mom, and for your baby.
And listen to GrandPa... just once!
- - - - -
Originally published by me on Monday, April 11, 2011
2 comments:
rturri said...
Comments on this post are MOST welcome.
Thank you!
Bob
April 14, 2011 3:55 PM
Ruth said...
Couldn`t agree more. Ruth
April 21, 2011 9:15 AM
Let's face it... sixty years old and three years after my cardiac arrest, I am
not as quick-in-the-head as I was when our own son was so young. My memory of what happened one minute ago is no longer perfectly reliable. Fortunately, my memory of what happened decades ago is still intact. I remember the many subtle lessons my son taught me about being the guardian of a child, when I spent some years at home, being "Mr. Dad". (Don't even think about calling ME Mr. "Mom".)
Years before that, I was determined to become a child psychologist, studied it, and worked with distressed children in a state hospital.
Armed with this experience, I can babysit successfully. I FEAR NO CHILD!
I can rely upon myself to guide these two little boys away from trouble, away from harm, and away from disappointment. I do have a problem, though, with a few things and these are: DISAGREEING with GrandMa, Mommy and Daddy, and a multitude of women who think that they are somehow perfectly endowed at birth, with infinite wisdom, regarding the "rearing" of children. Well, if that were true, you and I wouldn't be just two well adjusted individuals, living in a world filled with idiots! Would we?
The problem upon which I have become focused is a baby who cries too much. You may say that he does not, but if you were taking care of him all day, you wouldn't say that.
He's only a few months old, and I'm told that babies at that age cry - "That's what babies do!" I remember when his three year old brother was the same age. He cried a lot, too. So did the baby next door, and the babies at the park, and the mall babies in shopping carts. And you may think me arrogant, Ma'am, but I'm going to tell you WHY they cry so much and why they need more GrandPa's like me to make their little lives a little happier.
To get right down to it, the problem - most of the time - is with their diapers! Not IN their diapers - but WITH their diapers. In other words, It's the damned "diapers"! And no, not the soft, cloth kind that some of you devoted Moms still believe in (God bless you for it, too!), but these cheap, convenient, and marketable plastic ones. As with any product that causes more harm than good, that men like me sharply refer to "a lousy piece of crap!", these no-good plastic poop-catchers are instruments of INFANT TORTURE and were designed in the Devil's own workshop. That's right. And I'll tell you why.
(Still with me? :)
At this time, Mama, a little demonstration is in order. You can actually try
this experiment, or you can just imagine it.
1: Take a stong rubber band that must be stretched to fit over your wrist.
2: Now, stretch it over your wrist.
3: Leave it there for as long as your baby would go without a diaper change.
4: Time's up! Now, you look me in the eye and tell me that your skin, under
that rubber band, doesn't hurt.
Well, you can't, because you have a red, sore, depressed ring around your wrist. If that rubber band is as strong as the elastic band in the diaper's leg openings, your fingers are probably tingling right about now, because of the loss of oxygen. I remind you that I am one whose heart stopped, and left me dead for over 15 minutes, and I know what a loss of oxygen does to a body. It kills cells and it hurts! Now, of course, a diaper isn't going to stop your baby's
heart, but it can sure put those little feet to sleep, and that kind of tingling isn't good for anybody.
Now, the next time your baby cries enough to drive the pidgeons out of the barn, just stop and LOOK at your baby's groin, and SEE the red ring that the
elastic has gouged into the skin. You know that's sore. LOOK at your baby's
cute little behind and count the number of pinch marks all over those sensitive little Angel buns, caused by wrinkled plastic. If your baby was wet, or even a little damp, those marks will be multiplied and stinging viciously.
OK, so now we have a little baby with cyanotic skin. (Excuse me, Mom, that
means no oxygen.) When you hold your baby upright, the crying usually stops or at least is lessened. And you think, "All this baby needs is to be held." It seems true enough. Yep... until you sit down and hold the baby on your lap, or lay the baby down, hoping against hope for a nap. Then the crying starts again. Worse than before! Pick up the baby, walk the baby, rock the baby, and maybe the crying will stop again. But not for long. That situation is getting worse as time goes by, and the baby is feeling even more pain.
If you would just remove that awful excuse for a diaper and "rub the little red
marks away", the crying will not only stop, but soon your baby will coo and
giggle again. It's that easy. If you must continue to torture your baby with
those 'Pants of Pain', then at least put a strip of soft cloth between the elastic bands and the poor child's skin. Lay a nice soft flap of cloth over those Angel buns, too. Or, better yet, USE A REAL DIAPER. Not convenient? Sorry about that, but it's not about you - it's about the baby! Two years of that torture and you'll have a child who is sad, angry, "fussy" (what a "weasle" word that is), and stuck with a personality built upon early childhood misery.
So, you don't believe it, huh? You think that because the Baby Product industry caters to you everyday, and hugs you everyday with drippy compliments, that you know more than GrandPa? Well... you DON'T! And your baby suffers for it.
OK... OK... so it's not your fault. You didn't make the diapers. That's true.
But you know who did. Isn't it time that you stood up for your little bundle of
joy and told those sadistic money makers that your child is too deserving of
happiness to be wrapped in their "Pants of Pain"? Don't give them any more of your money... until they stop treating you like poop. Stand up for yourself,
Mom, and for your baby.
And listen to GrandPa... just once!
- - - - -
Originally published by me on Monday, April 11, 2011
2 comments:
rturri said...
Comments on this post are MOST welcome.
Thank you!
Bob
April 14, 2011 3:55 PM
Ruth said...
Couldn`t agree more. Ruth
April 21, 2011 9:15 AM
A Good Day to Die.
Today is April 6, three years after my sudden cardiac arrest. I am approaching 5:00 pm, filled with a dark silence.
When I arrested, I was on my exercise bike, trying to reach a heart rate of
136. The last thing I saw in that life was the monitor reading 139. Then my
legs stopped moving, my foot fell off the pedal and hit the floor, and
everything was suddenly silent and dark. I thought that I had fallen into deep, dark water and was weightlessly sinking. I realized, then, that I didn't have to breathe anymore, had no fear at all, and as they say, I just "went with the flow". At least 15 minutes, plus the time it took for my wife to discover me, would then pass before the EMTs would get my heart beating again. It would be 13 more days until my eyes would open and I would breathe again, on my own.
As this day continues (it is now 4:38am and who can sleep?), I feel like I'm
sinking again. Feeling the feeling all over again. I'm sure it will stay with
me all day. In fact, there has not been one day in three years that I haven't
been aware of this feeling being somewhere inside of me.
Today may be a weird experience, even for me, as I am attending a funeral
service this afternoon at 5:00pm. Give or take a minute or two, 5:00pm is the
time that I arrived at the Emergency Room by ambulance - dead. I should put it this way - I was not in my body anymore -and THAT is dead.
Now, it happens that a few days ago, my Mother-in-Law passed away in her sleep, and I suppose the experience, for her, was the same as it was for me - except that she didn't have to wait an eternity in a coma, as I did. She has moved on.
The "viewing", this afternoon, is for her.
I will be the only one present who will be able to stand alongside of her and
not have to wonder, "What is it like to die?"
April 19 will be a better day. That is the day I opened my eyes and with a gasp began to breathe again. Something they said would not happen. It is the day I call my "New-Birth Day". Then I was crazy for the next four weeks - another thing I'll never have to wonder about.
The neurologist said that I would probably remain "psychotic" for the rest of my life, but today we know the truth about that, too.
"Hey, Doc... nah na nah na nah nah!"
In the words of the great Lakota man, Crazy Horse... it was a good day to die.
- - - - -
Originally published by me on Wednesday, April 6, 2011
2 comments:
Marty said...
Bob,
You write beautifully. So powerful and so touching.
You make me weep and you make me proud.
My best wishes for this day. I am so glad you are here.
Your friend,
Marty
April 6, 2011 9:43 AM
rturri said...
Marty,
Wow! Could I possibly be worthy of all that? You are a wonderful person,
Marty. I read each of your posts and you always give me more to think about.
Now, to uncover a little secret... your blog, HEART STOPS, is the model for
starting my own! I got all the confidence that I needed, from you. You ARE
my friend.
Always,
Bob
April 8, 2011 4:43 AM
When I arrested, I was on my exercise bike, trying to reach a heart rate of
136. The last thing I saw in that life was the monitor reading 139. Then my
legs stopped moving, my foot fell off the pedal and hit the floor, and
everything was suddenly silent and dark. I thought that I had fallen into deep, dark water and was weightlessly sinking. I realized, then, that I didn't have to breathe anymore, had no fear at all, and as they say, I just "went with the flow". At least 15 minutes, plus the time it took for my wife to discover me, would then pass before the EMTs would get my heart beating again. It would be 13 more days until my eyes would open and I would breathe again, on my own.
As this day continues (it is now 4:38am and who can sleep?), I feel like I'm
sinking again. Feeling the feeling all over again. I'm sure it will stay with
me all day. In fact, there has not been one day in three years that I haven't
been aware of this feeling being somewhere inside of me.
Today may be a weird experience, even for me, as I am attending a funeral
service this afternoon at 5:00pm. Give or take a minute or two, 5:00pm is the
time that I arrived at the Emergency Room by ambulance - dead. I should put it this way - I was not in my body anymore -and THAT is dead.
Now, it happens that a few days ago, my Mother-in-Law passed away in her sleep, and I suppose the experience, for her, was the same as it was for me - except that she didn't have to wait an eternity in a coma, as I did. She has moved on.
The "viewing", this afternoon, is for her.
I will be the only one present who will be able to stand alongside of her and
not have to wonder, "What is it like to die?"
April 19 will be a better day. That is the day I opened my eyes and with a gasp began to breathe again. Something they said would not happen. It is the day I call my "New-Birth Day". Then I was crazy for the next four weeks - another thing I'll never have to wonder about.
The neurologist said that I would probably remain "psychotic" for the rest of my life, but today we know the truth about that, too.
"Hey, Doc... nah na nah na nah nah!"
In the words of the great Lakota man, Crazy Horse... it was a good day to die.
- - - - -
Originally published by me on Wednesday, April 6, 2011
2 comments:
Marty said...
Bob,
You write beautifully. So powerful and so touching.
You make me weep and you make me proud.
My best wishes for this day. I am so glad you are here.
Your friend,
Marty
April 6, 2011 9:43 AM
rturri said...
Marty,
Wow! Could I possibly be worthy of all that? You are a wonderful person,
Marty. I read each of your posts and you always give me more to think about.
Now, to uncover a little secret... your blog, HEART STOPS, is the model for
starting my own! I got all the confidence that I needed, from you. You ARE
my friend.
Always,
Bob
April 8, 2011 4:43 AM
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