So without further ado, please read my father, Denis Velez, description of his ordeal with Guillian Barré Syndrome. I'm so happy he's doing better cause it was really scary last December.
I can only state what I have gone through, I can tell you right now I don’t know if there is an after life but what I’ve learned at age 63 and the experiences I have had up till now makes me believe that there is an afterlife based on my experiences. As I came down with Guillian Barré Syndrome last December of 2010, I found myself paralyzed from my shoulders to my feet in a matter of five days. I thought I was going to die and I was resigned to that. I said to myself, Is that all there is? After 62 years of life is this how it was going to end? My body slowly withering away until everything turned black? As I lay on the ICU table at the veteran’s hospital, only able to move my head and shoulders, I asked one of the many doctors who were taking care of me, point blank, am I going to die?
He looked at me and I was ready to hear, we are doing everything possible for you. Instead he said, No, you are not going to die. This was a very conflicting answer considering what I was physically feeling. They knew what I had and the course it would take. When treated early my condition had a 100% recovery rate and they had indeed treated it early. It took them a while to explain these things to me and for me to believe them. During that experience and the year of therapy that eventually proved the doctors right, I had long talks with God, we reconnected and I started to observe from my paralyzed body the outside world as God pointed things out to me.
We are here on earth to learn something. If we do not get the lesson God or that higher power you may or my not believe in knocks you upside the head to get your attention and you start to listen to that little voice in your head. I have learned that we are all connected, here in the present and to those before and those to be born in the future. The more we understand this and the more we flow with the river we call life, the more we benefit form our experience. It is our job to help others and especially to listen to those clues that God leaves us in plane sight. The voice may say to you to call your mom, do it! You may have a feeling that walking down that street feels funny and dangerous, go another way. Listen to your surroundings and your conscious feelings, learn these lessons of life.
When I thought and felt that I was going to die I did not feel fear, I felt a sense of curiosity, is this how it works? After almost a year of recovery I have met hundreds of people who have helped me physically and emotionally. Family, friends and strangers have given me a fresh outlook on life and what it is all about, connection to others. I no longer worry about the other guy and how I could do so much better running his or her life. I concentrate on my own life and seek happiness in helping others when and where I can.
Amazing I say.
Thank you as always for reading and I'll see you next time.
Take care,
Derek
