Proof of Heaven- Eben Alexander by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub

Almost like he was trying to open them. I am sure of what I saw.”

“I don’t doubt you did,” said Dr. Wade. “His white blood cell count has come down

as well. That’s all good news, and I don’t for a minute want to suggest that it isn’t. But

you need to see the situation in context. We’ve lightened Eben’s sedation considerably,

and by this point his neurologic examination should be showing more neurological

activity than it is. His lower brain is partially functioning, but it’s his higher-level

functions that we need, and they’re all still completely absent. A certain amount of

improvement in apparent alertness occurs in most coma patients over time. Their

bodies do things that can make it appear that they’re coming back. But they’re not. It’s

simply the brainstem moving into a state called coma vigile, a kind of holding pattern

that they can stay in for months, or years. That’s what the fluttering eyelids are, most

likely. And I have to tell you again that seven days is an enormously long time to be in

coma with bacterial meningitis.”

Dr. Wade was using a lot of words in an attempt to soften the blow of a piece of

news that could have been spoken in a single sentence.

It was time to let my body die.

22.

Six Faces

As I descended, more faces bubbled out of the muck, just as they always did when I

was moving down into the Realm of the Earthworm’s-Eye View. But there was

something different about the faces this time. They were human now, not animal.

And they were very clearly saying things.

Not that I could make out what they were saying. It was a bit like the old Charlie

Brown cartoons, when the adults speak and all you hear are indecipherable sounds.

Later, upon looking back on it, I realized I could actually identify six of the faces that I

saw. There was Sylvia, there was Holley, and her sister Peggy. There was Scott Wade,

and there was Susan Reintjes. Of these, the only one who was not actually physically

present at my bedside in those final hours was Susan. But in her way, she had, of

course, been by my bedside, too, because that night, as the night before, she had sat

down in her home in Chapel Hill and willed herself into my presence.

Later, learning about this, I was puzzled that my mother Betty and my sisters, who

had been there all week, holding my hand lovingly for endless hours, were absent from

this array of faces I’d seen. Mom had been suffering from a stress fracture in her foot,

using a walker to ambulate, but she had faithfully taken her turn in the vigil. Phyllis,

Betsy, and Jean had all been there. Then I learned that they had not been present that

final night. The faces I remembered were those who were physically there the seventh

morning of my coma, or the evening before.

Again, though, at the time, as I made the descent, I had no names or identities to

attach to any of these faces. I only knew, or sensed, that they were important to me in

some way.

One more in particular drew me toward it with special power.

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