Call me Lazarus…

**The trouble with explaining near-death experiences is that they're so much like other experiences. We've all felt faint, had fantastic dreams, been knocked unconscious or had limbs fall "asleep." NDEs can feel like some combination of these. And that's because they all involve more or less the brain's sensory apparatus, which is susceptible of all kinds of tricks rendering unreality "seemingly" real.

From what I've been told, there was a moment recently when my heart stopped pumping. It was the moment a surgeon threaded a tiny catheter, a long wire inserted in an artery in the groin, into a a main artery feeding the heart. The opening was at the time 99% occluded, meaning it was only 1% of its normal size. This apparently had been causing me some problems with chest pain and shortness of breath because the heart itself was not getting enough oxygen. The introduction of even the tiny catheter into this space produced a 100% blockage, which caused the heart to shut down, its lifeblood literally choked off. Mind you, this is only my very ignorant layman's interpretation of what I've been told, but as far as "near-death" this was as close as I've ever come.

When all the alarms went off, apparently the crew switched to resuscitation mode and eventually brought me around sufficiently to continue with the installation of three stents.

These tiny metal mesh tubes prop open the artery so that blood can flow through normally. I was flushed with a powerful diuretic, so much so that the only thing I can remember of the experience is that of drowning. Nurses in the ICU told me that my color was completely grey when I was wheeled in. There was so much diuretic that I voided over 5 liters of urine in the next 24 hours. And there was still fluid in my lungs, prolonging the experience of drowning and suffocation over the next few days that I could not get to sleep. More diuretics were prescribed and the problem eventually eased up enough for me to get some sleep.

The serious part of this experience came only a few days after leaving the ICU. Apparently, I had a susceptibility to nose bleeds in my left nasal area. When one has the kind of coronary procedure I had, powerful blood thinners help to keep the body from attacking the stents and forming clots. The problem with this of course, is that blood can no longer clot normally. In other words, a "normal" nosebleed turns into a life-threatening torrent of blood that takes extraordinary measures to stop. Three trips to the ER managed to stem the tide, for awhile but the solutions were all temporary -- and ugly. I had a bloody plug protruding from my left nostril for several days. I was sent to an ENT who introduced exquisitely painful cautery and inflatable nasal tampon.

This involved shoving a tool into my nose, around the septum and into the sinus cavity whereupon it "burned" the susceptible blood vessels causing them to scar up and thereby strengthen the area from further breakages. Then a long nasal tampon shoved into the area and inflated so as to form a strong compress against the blood vessels that had been rupturing. Aside from the area being naturally sensitive to pressure and burning, the expanded plug generated much more pain as it worked to allow the affected vessels to heal. This remained in place for five days. Five days of headaches so bad that a strong painkiller had to be used every 4-6 hours just so I wouldn't scream. (It also helped me get a little bit of sleep.) It also produced a shiny dark red "tusk" of hardened fabric that protruded from my nose like a killer booger. After the five days the object was removed and I got a few minutes of relief as I breathed normally for the first time in a week. But that pleasure was soon thwarted in favor of more precautionary measures to ensure that the area wold heal strongly and not be the site of future catastrophic nose bleeds. Yet another fabric object was insisted far up into the sinus, coated with some kind of coagulant gel, and I was asked to live with the resulting pain for another five days. Today promises to be another bright one as I have the last of these invasive object removed. My strength has been coming back and my spirits have brightened since I haven't had to take the painkillers. I can finally sit down at a keyboard and type up these even-now-receding memories of what is has been like being a heart patient for the first time, and a near-death survivor.

To be sure, there's nothing "spiritual" about this experience, either the dying or the recovery. Ten or fifteen years ago these techniques were unknown and people died quickly. Only the relentless pursuit of knowledge led to this kind of healing. All the breathing techniques, herbal teas and goop, all the positive thinking and prayers cannot substitute for this plodding path of progress. I still have people telling me I am in their prayers, that they are praying for my recovery. I don't have the heart to tell them that their prayers affect only themselves, make them feel there is some larger force acting on their requests. I don't have the heart to tell them that if prayer were such a potent tool, it should have been used BEFORE any of these harrowing events and not after.

It's true, being alone without a big Imaginary Friend in the sky, is not the most ideal world one can imagine. That kind of idealism belongs to fools who attribute their great luck to it. But it is the real world, and for all their many faults, those in the medical profession, have my respect for the relentlessness with which they pursue their chosen art. It's senseless to imagine that there will come a time when all of this concern for health will be obviated by a 100% perfect system. But having lived from the perilous perspective of Christian Science and the "alternative healing" schools of medicine I would rather any dear friend of mine have the best medical care they can find and use "spiritual means," like prayer, as a kind of pain killer and comforting reality distortion field. Any connection between spiritual means and healing is purely conjectural, driven mostly by a pathetic need to affirm one's beliefs in front of others. I'm one of the lucky ones, the very lucky ones. I had the luck of a wife's insistence on checking me into the ER in an era when so many life-saving techniques are available. A brother-in-law who dropped dead a couple weeks after having received a perfect physical exam, wasn't so lucky. Doctors didn't know what to look for twenty years ago. He's dead, fully dead, and I'm alive, though having been momentarily dead, all because of good timing. Two brothers are also alive because of the advancing progress of the medical establishment. One had a bypass several years ago, and the other had a procedure similar to mine (but without the bloody apocalypse).

Again I continue to support the right of anyone to delude themselves with whatever idealistic theories give them any comfort. What I don't want is anyone suggesting that if I took up their delusions I'd be more lucky than I am.

Poor but typical defenses of Christian Science

There are two predictable responses you'll get from Christian Scientists when they are challenged about the ineffectiveness, and danger, of their particular brand of spiritual healing:

1. People have bad medical outcomes too
2. They know without a doubt that healing happens because they’ve experienced it themselves.

I was Christian Scientist who had no medical insurance for over 30 years, but never needed it anyway because I never got seriously sick. Then I started to get old and age-related things started to happen. This was coincidental with a complete loss of faith in any deity and any religion. I now have frequent medical interventions and take a few medications every day.
A critic might conclude that it was Christian Science that kept me healthy enough for those 30 years and it was only when I lost my faith that I started to get sick. I don’t think this is true. I have three other siblings. Two of them have several health issues, some of them serious enough to require major surgeries. The eldest of the four, my sister and I, have been relatively healthy all our lives. She worked in the health care industry during the time that I was a practicing Christian Scientist. It seems obvious that we either got the good genes - or else something changed after our births caused our mother to give birth to sickly children. Nutrition? Smoking? Diabetes? We don't know and it would be hard to find out. My point is that my sister didn't have the "benefits" of Christian Science and she has been pretty much as healthy as I.
The fact is that if public health had been left up to the teachings of Christian Science and those who seriously practice it, we would be a third or fourth world nation today. For instance, bad water, a major source of disease, would never have been purified because microbes are considered by Christian Scientists to be illusions. (Besides, right thinking of this sort would make everyone invulnerable to any suggestion of infection.) If Christian Scientists were in charge no one would have done the research to identify the microbial source of disease and nothing would have been done to purify water. Prayer alone and a highly spiritual life would have been sufficient, in that belief system. And yet today even Christian Scientists benefit from the fruits of those who worked on the problem.
Yes, medical practice isn't perfect, and yes there have been serious mistakes made in its history. And yet, on the whole, today people are generally healthier and live longer because they get regular medical attention. Progress still needs to be made, especially in America where Corporate Scientists have taken charge of the food and pharmaceutical industries. But this does not warrant the kind of condemnation implicit in the retorts of Christian Scientists that medicine has its failures too. As I have said many times before, if Christian Science prayer were truly as effective as its adherents claim, it would have overtaken conventional medicine by now. There would be huge industries dispensing that kind of treatment because it would be meeting a vast need. And yet, Christian Science practitioners are an infinitesimal portion of the health care industry, catering mostly to church members who have been taught from infancy to fear doctors and abhor medication and who are all too eager to testify to the supremacy of Christian Science treatment even when it means bending the facts or exaggeration. Christian Science is not the better mousetrap that the world will generously pay for.
Despite the lack of evidence, Christian Scientists desperately fall back on their own inner convictions as a final defense against the claim that its health care system is impotent and therefore dangerous. But every philosophy student knows that basing an argument on unverified personal convictions is bad logic and provides unreliable guidance for others.
While it's true that there seems to be a "god hole" in human consciousness, this is no proof that a god must therefore exist. Not all dreams come true. In fact, most don't. Delusions may be comforting, but they are still delusions. You can't always get what you want, but for most people, most of the time, they get what they need from the conventional medical community.
A recent article in the Washington Post provides an overview of these issues.

Why there is no "spiritual healing" industry

For over 30 years I practiced "spiritual healing" and never could make a living from it. And I never knew anybody else who got rich off that kind of practice. The little money I did make was from faithful people who believed they should support the practice, or from people too timid to complain they weren't healed, or from people who simply wanted a dial-a-friend. (Yes, there are a lot of lonely, hurting people who just want someone to say nice, positive things and express some love to them.)

But aside from the theological issues, a strong reason I stopped that kind of quackery is that there's no money to be made in it because spiritual healing simply does not work. If it did, it would be the hottest industry in the world. There would be millionaire spiritual healers. IPOs would spring up like mushrooms over every latest wrinkle in prayer technique or practice. Apologists for spiritual healing explain the vacuum by citing the evil materialism of opponents, even while they often admit that medical practitioners are sincere and humanitarian. In other words, most people who rely on or practice medicine just aren't spiritual enough.

And yet, in spite of - or even because of - their greed, there would be a spiritual healing industry larger than modern medicine. Sheer pecuniary interest would make converts of atheists and those billions of vulgar materialists - just as they now invest in the oil and defense industries, that while they do so much damage still have huge markets for their products.

But there's no such investment opportunity. Spiritual healers are pretty much loners, cultivating groups of followers who have more faith in them as shamans than in the spiritual "science" they purport to practice. And I'm not talking about the flashy televangelists who mesmerize millions with their obviously tricked up displays of faith healing. I'm talking about "professional" solo entrepreneurs, like I used to be. And even ordinary folk who offer to pray for sick people.

In the following article, Why Use Medicine If Prayer Works?," this conversation sums it up:

Nurse: “Would you like me to say a prayer for you?”

Me: “Feel free. Now I’d like to ask you a question… why did you go through all the necessary medical training if you believe that prayer can heal people?”