Six Months On (Episode 24) — My Darkest Day
When I set out to start chronicling this journey I had one rule for myself. Be honest. Whether it was writing about my physical health before this all started of how I felt about things that happened, I wanted this to be an open and honest account of the experience. If that meant sharing my embarrassingly high weight and the struggles it caused me, so be it. If it meant telling more about my family than they might be willing to tell themselves, so be it. I have had training jobs in which getting evaluated by others (on paper) was just part of the day. What I always told those who were filling it out was that they do me no good unless they are completely honest with me — good or bad. Likewise, taking this journey to explore what my family and I went through does us any good unless I do the same. It also meant no embellishment of the story. Nothing could be made up. I’m happy to say that I’ve stuck to that rule throughout. But there is one story that haven’t told yet and it may be the hardest one to tell.
You may recall that just two days into this ordeal I hit a point where I don’t remember anything. I can’t say that I was unconscious because I’m told I was awake and somewhat responsive but the doctor’s told Susan that the drugs I was on were so powerful that I wouldn’t remember anything that happened while I was on them. So for me, during those 17 days that I don’t remember, for all intents and purposes I might as well have been in a coma. But there is evidence that I was aware of a very bad situation that was going on with me. I was aware of the gravity of things. To put it honestly, I knew that things were bad. I knew that I was about to die.
The evidence for this is in what I do remember. It took me a long time to discover this because I thought it was just another crazy dream (and it was a dream) that I had from being on Fentanyl for 15 days. But when I got to looking at the chronology of when I remember having this dream and compared it to the actual events that took place, this dream lines up with the time in which things were the most grim. I now believe that what you are about to read is a combination of what awareness I did have of the things going on around me and the heavy doses of medication that I was being given. Some of it doesn’t make sense but the overall story points to me having an experience that paralleled what was actually happening. For all my incessant positivity and my unwavering belief that everything will work out for the best, this was the darkest day of my life.
My Guardian Angel of Death
I was in the hospital. I had pneumonia. Very bad pneumonia. I was not in great health to begin with and that only made things worse. The situation called for extreme measures to be taken. There was a process that I could be taken through that could get me through this but would take a long time and might not work but it was my only chance in the doctor’s opinion. It was also an unpleasant process that may have a lasting effect on me but the fact of the matter was if we didn’t try then lasting effects wouldn’t matter.
What I needed was what they were calling Sleep Deprivation Therapy. This would involve being given some medicine and being strapped into a bed in a separate room where I would be monitored by a single nurse named Ryan. Ryan was fully responsible for my treatment and would spend the first few hours monitoring and taking my vital signs while I lay awake in the bed. Ryan what a young guy who looked and acted a lot like Chris Pratt from Guardians of the Galaxy. But he had a fatal flaw. He was nervous and unsure of himself. He kept talking to himself about what he was doing and what he would do next. He also kept questioning whether what he was doing was being done right or if he had already done something that he needed to do. His nervousness became my nervousness, especially when it came time to draw blood or insert an IV. I’m know I’m a hard stick but this guy was making my arms look I was a heroin addict. I didn’t have to worry about dying from pneumonia. This idiot was going to kill me before it ever got a chance. In between checks my vital signs Ryan spend his time playing video games on his laptop while listening to reggae, his favorite kind of music. (I should have known what kind of incompetency hour I was in for when he said reggae was his favorite kind of music. I have nothing against reggae. I’m actually a big fan but anytime a white male says that reggae is their favorite kind of music, they are either a psychopath or a douchebag.)
After what seemed like 2 hours of me just laying there not sleeping and Johnny Karate pounding away in Call of Duty, I asked him how much longer. He said we needed to do 10 hours. I asked how long it had been so far. “15 minutes!” he replied.
At the 2 hour mark I would be moved to white, stand up pod that looked like the outer shell of a large Russian doll. In the pod I would be propped up to a standing position (with support). The top of the shell would be placed over me and I would remain there awake for the next 8 hours. This wouldn’t happen, however, as the Rasta Dumbass had forgotten to give me the anti-nausea medicine before giving me the actual drugs that would help to cure me. In the process of getting me into the pod I vomited all over him and the inside of the of the pod. It was now contaminated and could not be used tonight. This procedure would have to be rescheduled for a couple of nights from now. The problem was that I was running out of time and they didn’t know if I would be around in a couple of nights. This called for a more extreme process. It was something they called full on sensory deprivation.
I’ve heard the term sensory deprivation before. Many of us have seen it the show Stranger Things when 11 floats blindfolded in a pool of salt water. There are places where you can go and get in a sensory deprivation tank and it’s suppose to be the ultimate in relaxation. The idea is to deprive you of all senses to help clear your mind and bring you to a meditative state. It is said to be good for depression, stress relief and enhance creativity among other benefits. The tank is completely dark and completely void of sound. Most treatments last an hour.or so. Sounds pretty nice, huh? Since lots of people pay money to do it there must be something to it. But drug induced dreams and a very bad situation going on around you can take something that sounds relaxing and twist it into something that is anything but pleasant. Welcome to my nightmare.
Burning Man Meets The Shire
The the place I was going to was a cultural experience as much as it was a personal one. I was brought into a dimly lit room where I was moved from my bed into a metal cage that was completely open on the top side. I was chained to the side of it and each cage was on wheels and attached to other cages like a train. There were other patients in the other cages before and after mine. Ryan was one of a handful of nurses and orderlies that wheeled the train of cages outside to the strangest world I had ever seen.
There was a large open area much like a public park or garden. In the center of the garden was a single, large tree that resembled in size and shape the iconic Tree of Life at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Around the tree and scattered throughout the garden were large groups of people of all different kinds. Some were patients in gowns, some were nurses and doctors in scrubs. Some looked like (and probably were) hippies, drug abusers and psychiatric patients. There were musicians, artists, poets and dreamers. They were young, old, black, white, gay, straight. Some were dressed like wizards and some like Hobbits. There was a short, curly haired Irishman who played a long, golden horn. At the end of his horn he would blow the biggest, most beautiful colored bubbles that floated into the air as he played his songs. As different as everyone was, they all had one thing in common. They were all there for the psychotropic and hallucinogenic drugs. (Like the ones I was on.) They wanted to experience the world the way that I was experiencing it. A world that was full of color and free of pain.
This place was the complete opposite of sensory deprivation. This was sensory porn. It had every color, smell and taste that you can imagine. It felt peaceful and enchanting but it also felt mysterious and dangerous. I got the feeling that the people here had stayed for days at a time. Losing themselves in the music, the vibe and the drugs. I suspected that there was also a lot going on in this place that I didn’t want to know about. It was an odd way to start my sensory deprivation treatment but we were just passing through here. Perhaps it was to bring our senses to new heights before they were snuffed out in what came next.
Making our way through the garden we came to another building on the other side. As we passed from the sunlight and colors of the world outside we found ourselves in the dreariest place you could imagine. It resembled a kennel with empty cages stacked on top of each other. The fluorescent lights were dim as though the place was experiencing a brown out. The floor below was a speckled linoleum with drains scattered throughout. The floor seemed to be made for easy clean up of whatever fluids made their way down to it. There was no smell which was a sharp contrast to wide the assortment of aromas we had just passed through in the garden. Our train came to a stop in the room when the backend reached the inside. No words were spoken about what was about to happen but we knew what was coming. Nothing. Absolute and complete nothing.
So This Is How You Die
The lights dimmed even more than they already were. The brown out was becoming a hazy darkness. The air stopped anything resembling circulation. The air was stagnant and the humidity was rising. Humid, stagnant air is what makes me feel the most uncomfortable. Then came the sounds. The buzzing of the fluorescent lights, the clanging of the chains that held us to our cages, the hum of some machinery in the room that was used for God knows what. These all melded into an unpleasant droning that made it difficult to concentrate. Everything around me was the most unpleasant form of whatever it was supposed to be. It was as though they were not just trying to deprive the senses but the soul as well.
Ryan and all the other nurses left the room without a word. Leaving us alone in the stagnant haze. There was a call button in each cage that was supposed to summon the nurses when we needed them. They either didn’t work or were being ignored as no one came in the room for long periods of time.
After what seemed like hours (but I’m sure was not), Ryan came in if for no other reason than to make sure we were still chained to our cages. By then the lights were almost out, the air was suffocating and the sounds had grown so constant that I was sure they would ring in my ears for weeks even after they stopped. I yelled to Ryan but my condition had weakened my voice. He final heard me and seemed annoyed that I was bothering him.
“How long do we have to do this?” I yelled.
“24 hours!” He yelled back.
“I can’t last that long.”
“Then you’ll have to come back and do again until you can!”
“I can’t!”
“Sorry, bud. It’s the only way you’re gonna get through this.”
There was no way I could endure this for 24 hours. I was stuck.
For the first time in my sheltered life I was suffering. And not in that “white people problems” way. There was no physical pain. All there was was nothing. No emotion, no joy, no sorrow. There was only nothing. I remember thinking that this must be what Harry Potter felt when the Dementors were sucking the joy out of his life. And then it hit me…this is how you die.
This is how it happens. It was nothing like I had ever thought it would be like but to be honest, I really hadn’t thought about it much. Death is not something I’ve spent much time thinking about. It would happen when it happens and that will be that. Some people spend a lot of time thinking about it, worrying about it and preparing for it. Not me. I really didn’t know what to think. I was in a horrible place, in complete misery and it was going to last for a long time. I just didn’t see myself lasting 24 hours in this place in my condition. If sweating releases toxins from your body then this place was releasing all that was good from me and there’s only so much of that that I can take.
So the way I saw it I could either give in to it or resist and fight it. In a way, giving in was the easy option. It required me to do nothing but who knows what result would be. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what comes after death. Be good to other people and try not to cuss too much and you should be fine if there is something. If there’s nothing then it won’t matter and all you’ve missed out on is some extra cussing in life. Fighting it would be hard, an uphill battle and I really don’t like hills. Then there’s the question of how I would fight. I was chained in a cage in a dreary room. I couldn’t break chains even in my strongest days, much less in my current condition. It’s not like I could make a break for it. I guess I could think positive thoughts but I was still staring a minimum of 17 hours in this place. No sleeping to make the time go by faster. Nothing to occupy myself with except the prospect of dying.
At some point my thoughts turned toward giving in. I believe the words “Take me now” may have even crossed my mind but those thoughts were short lived. There were way too many reasons for me to live and not much that I wanted to leave behind. I am way too practical to die. Dying would accomplish nothing. So I began to think of what I could do to survive.
First, I made a proposal to God. “If you get me through this then I’ll do…something…everyday. I promise.” ( I don’t even remember what it was I promised.) Before the words finished rolling off my tongue I wanted to pull them back. The practicality that would keep me from dying was starting to take over. I knew (and God did, too) that there was no way i was going to do whatever it was everyday. I’d start it but after about 2 weeks something would come up and then another thing and before long I’d forget about it completely.
“Okay, not everyday but once a week.” That was my next offer, but even that was a flawed plan and I knew it.
“Once a month.” I don’t even know who I was trying to convince at that point.
“Look. Just get me through this and we’ll work out something.” That was the best I could do.
So I sat there. It was all that I could do. Hours and hours of it. And just when I thought the suffering would end it just kept going. My biggest fear at that point wasn’t that I would die, it was that I would never leave this place. That this was my eternity. Early on I had lost all sense of time so i had no idea how long I had been there and no way to know how much longer until Ryan came around. Each time I asked him how much longer his answer was always about 7 hours longer than I thought it must have been. At some point after he said there were about 7 hours left I quit asking.
When the 24th hour had passed the noise began to subside and the air began to slowly circulate again. I didn’t notice at first as i had gotten so use the misery all around me. When the lights began to brighten I finally noticed things were changing. The nurses came out and proceeded to wheel us out the way we came in. It was daylight outside and the party in the garden was still going on. I got the feeling that it never ends.
As we approached the giant tree in the middle we stopped with my cage right in front of it. I hadn’t noticed but the chains that had held me in the cage were unlocked and I slipped out of them and got out of the cage. As I approached the tree I saw a large wooden door at the base of it. When I stopped in front of it the door opened and I leaned forward to see what was inside Darkness, complete and total darkness. The door opened a little wider as if it was welcoming me in. I leaned a little further in but didn’t move my feet any closer to it.I looked up, down and side to side for any sighn of anything inside the tree. Nothing. I stared into the darkness for a moment longer then took a step back, turned around and walked away. I got back to my cage and we were rolled back to through the rest of the garden. I turned to get one last look at the garden, the party and the tree.
I was done with this place.
