A SPIRITUAL LOOK AT CARDIOVERSION

Yesterday, as many of you know, I had Cardioversion for the third time at the Catharina Hospital in Eindhoven. When the appointment was actually made I thought at the time, how appropriate, it is exactly 2 years and 2 days difference since the last time (15th October 2015 as to 17th October 2017).

It felt as if ‘everything was finally coming together’ with my heart problems, which started when I was young. I have arrhythmia (irregular heart beats) and Atrial Fibrillation. In medical terms this means that the electrical circuit in my heart is ‘out of sync’. It is not sure whether chambers in the heart should be pumping or contracting. There is a sort of labyrinth of signals going on, but they are not clear. You have the feeling in your throat, almost as if you are choking. There is an official name for this: globes feeling. Hard to describe but not pleasant. Personally I think it is because you feel your irregular pulse in your neck in the major arteries and veins that go to the brain.

So after 6 months of taking beta-blockers (which I disliked intensely), my cardiologist decided to give my heart a new boost and bring it back into rythmn. This is called Cardioversion. And stop the beta-blockers! Good.

A lot of people think this is a scary thing. When you think about it rationally it is and the thought that your heart is actually going to stop (probably for fractions of a second) and then re-start sounds strange. It is. A physical moment of death and re-birth?

Medically speaking, that is exactly what happens. Yesterday morning I arrived very early at the hospital. The normally full car park was empty. The hospital is waking up from the night, staff arriving and other patients booked in like me for ‘treatments’. It is much quieter than usual. Having found my way into the new Heart Centrum that is actually above the large reception area, waited for a few moments before being called at about 07.45am.

After you have settled yourself into bed, the 12 lead ECG has been attached and you have a IV DRIP in your arm, it is all a waiting game until the assistant cardiologist arrives together with the anaesthetist. I needed extra oxygen; apparently this is a normal procedure to give all those red blood cells a boost beforehand. After the sedation was administered into the IV drip, I felt myself falling asleep, almost ‘fighting against the feeling’ and I remember I handed back the oxygen mask I was holding and then nothing… Just blank. A void.

Then they attach the two paddles of a large defibrillator to parts of your chest, and then give you what basically is a huge electrical shock. This literally stops your heart. Then it is up to the heart to take over and do what it does naturally and that is hopefully what happens, it starts to beat again and regularly. This is what happened although I can tell you nothing about this actual moment. It is a complete blank to me.

The next thing I remember is that I am awake, drowsy, but awake and asking the nurse: ‘when are they going to start?’ He tells me it is all over; ‘look at the clock’ about 20 minutes have literally disappeared. I can hear my heart on the monitor, regular normal beats and then he tells me to have a rest and I fall into a place of ‘in between’. I know I am in the room, but it seems as if my memory has been erased. I am slightly confused about why I am actually there, it feels as if you are moving in between the rational world as opposed to being in another place. Another place of consciousness.

Eventually, they come and remove the ECG leads and the drip, which bleeds quite profusely because I am on anti-coagulants and when I feel that I can sit up, get dressed, I can then leave and have something to eat and drink in the waiting area. It all feels a bit surreal to be honest.

Time is now 10.15 am. The entire procedure finished and I can go home.

When I got home, I felt so incredibly tired, all I wanted to do was sleep and I did just that, went to bed and drifted in and out of different dreams and thought about different people and places. A thumping headache eventually got me up (no doubt caused by the sedation) and after a warm drink and something sweet I actually begin to feel that I am back, alive and knowing where I am.

This is all fact, now a look at what I feel I went through spiritually.

Having had a Near Death Experience when I had my heart operation many years ago, 43 to be exact, I know how easy it is to slip right out of my physical body and move in other realms or dimensions. Whether or not you believe they exist or not, I can tell you they do!

That is exactly the same feeling I had yesterday, momentarily, a feeling of intense freedom. Being able to move without anything holding me back whatsoever and into another dimension. Totally away from the hospital, the bed, the staff, just everything. This literally can be only for a split second in fact, but it feels like an endless moment. Endless possibilities stretching ahead, I can go where I want, when I want and do what I want. There is no pressure whatsoever.

Total freedom.

Even though I know rationally that we are talking about a split second here, I think, what is time? Time does not exist, it is something we have created ourselves. But this split second seems almost like eternity.

Then I hear that voice, my inner voice, calling: ‘come back’. I have a moment of choice; do I want to or not? But my heart is strong, it has proven that over the years, it wants me to come back and I have a feeling of almost giving in, yes, OK, I will come back. This life is not over just yet.

Once awake, you automatically begin to think rationally: what has happened? But all memory is erased. This I think is because of the new type of sedation you are given, a moment of sleep; release and then you cannot remember a thing about it. Perhaps people don’t want to remember anything about it, but I sort of need to put all the pieces of the puzzle into place and understand it. I have no idea why; this is my rational self talking and not my spiritual side.

When I got home and sank back into my comfortable bed, I drifted in and out of dream scenarios. I hear the voice of my own cardiologist telling me that he knows everything is OK again. I know he knows, even though he was not physically there. I see family and friends coming to have a look if I am OK. They are not doing that physically, but in my dream state I am obviously making a spiritual connection with them all, letting them know all is well. I hear my own heart beating, regularly, it feels strong and in rhythm and it feels so totally different from the past few months. The pulse on my wrist is definite again and in time. Physically a lot has happened today, but a lot has happened on a much deeper, more spiritual level too.

Numbers, signs and synchronicity keep popping up. I think about the fact this is the third time, the difference in the dates and the fact that I have had yet another opportunity to totally go out of my physical body state into another world, a much more perfect world, harmonious, other sounds, my physical body weight feels literally weightless, I can move at incredible energetic speed.

Dreams that melt into real thoughts and then drifting back in dreams again. The physical movement of turning over in bed, makes me realise between the moments of sleep and being awake where I am but still I have the feeling that a part of this day has gone missing. I cannot remember anything about it. I literally know I was there this morning, I know that the procedure has taken place, but still there is a gap. Mind the gap! I must remember to actually ask about that later on my next visit. Do other people have this same sensation?

I am sure that a lot of people experience this totally differently, and much more ‘matter of fact’ than I do, and may even think that my words are just a figment of my imagination, but I was brought up in a very spiritual environment as a child and it has fascinated me ever since. I try at all times to live my life following my intuitive feelings. Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes not, there is an awful lot of pressure from society to do things I don’t want to do, but I have to. But in the main, I only do things if they feel right, if they feel right for me. It does not have to be something big or small either, just as long as I feel in my inner self, my inner core, that I am not forcing myself to do something that feels totally wrong for me. I felt that strongly when taking the beta-blockers, they felt wrong for me, they slowed my heart down too much, made me feel lethargic and just slow, a total lack of any energy. So glad that I don’t have to take them anymore.

Now I hope that my heart will physically keep in rhythm now for a while. It needs a rest, I need a rest. I need to gently step up the pace now, move about more, especially now my heart is pumping the blood properly around my body, I got up this morning, after another long sleep, feeling more energetic and not sitting on the bed with the feeling, ‘why don’t I just sink back into bed and stay there all day’.

I know that a lot of you who were following my story yesterday and at other times may think that cardioversion is something really strange and that your own mind then gets going with the basic idea: how scary and weird is that to actually stop and re-start a heart. Believe me the actual procedure is very simple, even though there are always risks of course, but it is a routine procedure, going on all day, every day in the Heart Centre at Catharina.

This morning I can still see the physical places where the ECG were attached yesterday, because believe me they adhere very well to your skin and I feel my skin is sensitive, as if I have got sunburnt yesterday where the defibrillator paddles administered the shock itself. I still feel there is a gap in my memory about yesterday, even though I have been able to write this blog today. Even so, there is a gap, where has it all actually gone? Why can’t I remember it better?

This was phase one of the plan I made with my cardiologist, first of all, heart back into rhythm and hope it stays that way for a while. Then physically losing weight and then maybe the second phase, cryo-ablation to fix the electrical impulses in my heart once and for all.

So far so good then, phase one: check!