Am I Dead?

Once I had a rather strange experience on the operating table. It was actually so much fun that it has affected me to this day.


I had kept getting what I thought was malaria but turned out to be kidney infections and had to go in for a routine procedure of a urethra dilation.


It all happened during one of those dark dips that life chucks at you from time to time – a pre-divorce breakup, work not selling, dead broke .... oh you know the sort of thing ... nights peppered with glowering beings bearing sharp spikes to prod you painfully awake, the dull ache in the solar plexus … all that stuff. Days seemed out of sync and fuzzy, normal actions a little blurred around the edges.





So I went to reasonably priced Greek urologist in Lusaka who told me to take antibiotics and wait for the op.



I had to hole up feverish and ill in a friends apartment in Lusaka for about ten days while the infection cleared. Awaiting the event.


I stayed there alone as my friend was away but her neighbor kept telling me rather horrific tales about a bunch of fake Taiwanese anaethetists that Zambian Ministry of Health had imported into the country on the cheap (thanks a lot mate – I'm about to have contact with said unknown anaethetists, great), all of whom had Mickey Mouse licenses. With as much value as if they had come out of a cornflakes packet. Thanks again.


Very recently even before these nasty stories, I had heard two first hand frightful ones – one from a women who woke up during an abdominal op in Zim and was unable to move … trying to signal the anaethetist with her eyeballs … no one saw … nice.

The other was our friend Douggie the safari guide who went to our local mission hospital for a leg op and woke up in the middle of it. We all found that pretty scary

So yeah, OK maybe I was primed for disaster – totally brainwashed, and primed.

BUT when I arrived by taxi to the Garden Compound Clinic attached to Coptic church complex



picture from internet

and saw whitewashed mud buildings – quick views of black shrouded figures slipping past the alleys of the church part (who I am sure were simply going about their rightful ecclesiastic business), but...hnmm...somehow sinister, I thought ho hum.



picture from internet

The low roofed mudded interior of the clinic section looked a bit like a goat shed. When I was wheeled into the mud walled theatre there was a plank with a piece of medieval iron bar with a leather STRAP on it next to where you arm goes on the operating table, filthy light switches, a really dirty plastic bottle on the floor behind the operating table … I kinda thought … whooops.


Now while I dont like generalising especially about nationalities, I didnt want to see a Taiwanese person in the vicinity at this stage, but my prostrate view from the table was ... surely not … yup looks like it - definitely a small man slipping himself into the blue paper suit and pulling up a mask, (like Zorro?) with only his eyes showing – oriental eyes.


When the urologist came by words tumbled out fast...

“He didnt ask me any questions (language?) … he didnt weigh me or ask my weight ... or if I was on any medication ...”

“ARE you on any medication?”

Oh good idea. Thanks for asking. YES...PROZAC by the dozen, pal.

“OK fine”


My arm was hauled into position and stretched out over the plank. That mean looking iron shackle, the slanted eyes looking at me over the mask....one, two, three, four...g'night”

Next thing I knew I was AWAKE. My first thought was …. Oh no, not me too. Like Douggie I have also woken up on the operating table...yup there it was - there was the big bright operating light above. Yikes.







Oh no, but hang on, there was my dad peeking out from behind the light ...oops he died last year.... and who were those other people behind him? Great curiosity, who ARE they? I was sure I knew them. I craned my neck to see.





But couldnt quite make them out.


I so wanted to.


And the second thought was that I suddenly knew I had died and I distinctly remembered that, oh yes, of course, I'd forgotten, there is no loss of consciousness when we die - duh – we are the same, just carrying on thinking but not with the physical bits. I thought that very clearly.

My overriding feeling was “YAY! WOW! Yahooo. Yessss! YEEEHAH This is fantastic!”


God I felt good. No more mothers little helpers needed here pally.


And familiar. It was like, “Oh yes, of COURSE this is what its like in the normal world, not all that other damn stuff.”


I was so looking forward to going up there – to “the light” (yeah, yeah, probably I am primed in my subconscious and through my neurons by all the near-death experience stories, but there it was anyway), but just as I was so looking forward to going there my dad stepped out and put his hand out to stop me. “No, not yet” he said.

Damn.

Bugger.

The disappointment was palpable.

I woke with the nurse Charity Phiri – I always meant to take her to lunch to ask some questions but never did - sitting very close to my head and talking me through a strange conversation in Chinyanja, about my dad and various other things. She was sticking close thats for sure.

Instead of the taxi my friends came to pick me up and take me to their home to recover. They were refused entry and kept waiting outside for ages.

When I got home to the valley I showed my friend Janelle the bruises on my sore chest. She asked the resident doctor what they were and he said,

“Thats from resuscitation. No doubt.”

Yikes.