I’ve been in pain before, I have, pain intense enough that I passed out. I have also nearly died. They’re different.
Before I had back surgery when I was twenty four, I couldn’t walk and while I was in the hospital, the staff tried to stand me up for a myelogram. They had injected dye into my spine and took X-rays. Sounds simple, right? But a nerve was pinched low in my spine , my right leg was numb to the knee, and every time they tilted the board with me on it to a vertical position, I would see a bright white flash of pain and my body would crumple into unconsciousness. I remember four people trying to hold me upright and more than one of them yelling at me, “Stay with me! Stay with me!” I passed out at least four times before they finally got the image. It was excruciating. To this day, white is the color of pain. I learned that indelibly.
But I knew I wasn’t going to die that day. I could feel death at a great distance. I felt potential to grow old, maybe in a wheelchair, but life in me was strong, despite the pain.
Another day, four years later, I came so close to death that afterward, I stood in awe at the side of a busy, icy interstate for twenty minutes or so and glowed in the joy that I got to live. I had skidded directly in front of a semi truck across the highway and hit a guardrail going 60 miles an hour. The railing was bent at least a foot and a train raced across a set of tracks about a hundred feet below me. My truck and I were fine, practically untouched.
Every time I think of it, I bless the thorough people who invented and refined that guardrail. You don’t think about guardrails much, do you? I just went down a rabbit-hole of looking on the internet for the the name of the guy who invented it: Samuel R. Garner in 1933. Then I read a technical paper about improving the function of a guardrail and came across this line:
Criteria for structural adequacy are intended to evaluate the ability of the guardrail to contain and redirect the vehicle.
…contain and redirect…
Yes! That kind of dedication to detail saved my life and no one except the people I called from my hotel that night in my complete and utter joy at finding myself alive would ever know it. Here’s the link in case you’re a nerd like me and can relate to the details of engineering and science that we take for granted every day.
My knees still tingle at how near I was to death that night. I even wonder about the driver of the semi truck, so close that if we’d been in a house, he would have sat across from me in a living room. Does he remember me, the girl in the red Blazer who lived? I think of him sometimes too.
Death came so close that night. I felt it. I wasn’t ready. Thirty one years later, I still don’t feel ready.
Yet with this odd pain I feel in my heart, this dull ache and a feeling of dropping, like that first descent on a roller coaster, I find myself afraid of death. Next week, I’m scheduled for an angiogram to see if I have a blockage or inflammation in my heart. I have autoimmune disease and heart disease runs in my family, so it could be either one.
Seven years ago, when Mike had his heart attack, we never talked about what death feels like when it comes near. I wanted him to deal with that in the way that he was most comfortable. Now it’s my turn to feel that nearness again, and not just for twenty minutes by the side of a wintry highway. I can’t be as quiet as he was.
I’m not in very much pain. I’m not. But I feel the nearness of death. Death might be easier than I imagined, but I’m not ready yet. I know I’ve lived a good life. I’m still not ready.
Would you pray for me? And would you also bless the person who developed the angiogram? I know I will. I guess I should bless the guy who invented the myelogram too. Who should you bless for the gift of your life?
Thank you for listening, jules