I was born purple. I was born my favorite color because I came into this world wearing my umbilical cord for a necklace. My mom said it was because even when in the womb, I was doing pirouettes. On the day I was born, I barely weighed five pounds. I was not premature, but right on time. To this day I do not like wearing things around my neck (chokers, turtlenecks…). On September 19, 1981, my first day in this world, I had my first near-death experience. It would not be the last.
I don’t remember the day of my birth. But I do remember sitting on the bottom of my grandmother’s swimming pool 3 years later, watching as if watching a movie, and seeing my dad dive in and scoop me up out of the water. I remember I was wearing a little pink bikini. I don’t know how I got into the pool, but I remember looking up from the bottom, seeing the glistening lights at the top (which was probably the sun glinting off the water) and it seemed like I was down there for a really long time. I remember being afraid to go under water at all after that, and being afraid of the dark shadows in the deep end of the pool. To this day I have a fear of drowning. Sometimes I have dreams about being under water, and I wake up out of breath and gasping for air.
My next near-death experience occurred at the age of 13. This near-death experience was self-inflicted, as I was going through a clinical depression. I’m almost ashamed to admit that I tried to take my own life. For months I had saved up dozens of pills, including my sister’s Ritalin, my mom’s birth control pills, sleeping pills I found in the medicine cabinet…I took the pills one night and I slit my wrist several times. I did it the right way too. When I woke up in the hospital I was almost embarrassed to be alive. Embarrassed because I did not accomplish what I set out to do.
After that incident, I saw a therapist for a few years (and I tried many anti-depressants, most of which did not work. I was on prozac for almost 10 years, and I went off of it myself because it was not doing anything for me, aside from giving me really bad side-effects. During the course of my therapy I discovered what I wanted to do with my life, my purpose: psychology. I read voraciously anything on the subject that I could get my hands on.
That’s when I became fascinated with near-death experiences, and when I found out the reason for my aversion to watches: Time. Duh! The symbolism is so apparent I could not believe I never noticed it before. All my life, every watch I have ever worn has stopped, after being worn on my wrist for a few hours. At first I blamed the batteries. I’ve gone through many batteries and many different kinds of watches over the years, and have gotten the same results.
Now I believe that my here is limited, that I was not meant to be in this world for too long. I think that’s why I love having my picture taken. How the photographer grants my image eternal life, and makes time stand still by pushing a button. I am not afraid of death. I’m okay with it. I just want to accomplish all my goals before I go.
Things were going pretty smoothly (no more NDE’s) until I turned 21. It was then that decided I wanted to go on a birth control pill. I didn’t even have a boyfriend at the time, I just thought it would be neat to be able to skip my period for special occasions or whenever I didn’t feel like getting it.
I paid little attention to the warning pamphlet that came with the pills. Never in a million years could those “rare side effects� such as blood clots, strokes, or heart attacks ever happen to me. That only happens smokers over 35 and people who are out of shape. Or so I thought.
The first day of the pill was my first day back at College. I was taking a dance class and felt very dizzy and hot all of the sudden. I collapsed. When I woke up, I thought I was at home in bed, and I wondered how all these people got into my room. A classmate brought me some water, which I drank and promptly through up. The ambulance came and took me to the emergency room. My EKG was fine, so I was allowed to go home that day. My fainting was not attributed to the pill, and was thought to be caused by dehydration.
During the next few weeks I developed a cough. I also felt an enormous pressure right near my heart, as if I was being tightly squeezed. The pain was constant, but still bearable. I have a very high tolerance for pain. I did not see a Doctor about the pain until I started to cough up blood. That really scared me, especially since I did not have a sore throat.
My Doctor said that my chest was probably just sore from coughing, and that I had a sinus infection that had moved to my chest wall. He prescribed antibiotics and rest for the next few days. I rarely listen when a Doctor tells me to get some rest, but the pain in my chest had gotten so bad that I skipped my dance classes.
I woke up in the worst pain I had ever felt in my life. That says a lot, because I have been in some pretty strange and painful accidents in my 24 years. I practically crawled to the bathroom, since I was so out of breath and dizzy from the pain in my chest. I was gasping by the time I walked downstairs to the kitchen table. My dad was there and could tell I was not doing well at all. I could barely walk. So my dad, who had just had knee surgery the day before, took me to the Doctor’s again. I felt like I was dying.
My Doctor suspected pneumonia and told my dad to take me to the emergency room right away. Once there, my chest was x-rayed and I was hooked up to an I.V. The x-rays came back negative. I was actually disappointed. If I didn’t have pneumonia, the Doctors might not be able to make this pain go away.
Several painful needles later, the nurse taking care of me told me I was going to have a Cat-scan of my chest. She assured me that blood-clots were extremely rare for someone my age who does not smoke and is as active as I am, and that she was just testing me for her own peace of mind.
The results showed that there was a blood-clot between my heart and lung, called a pulmonary embolism. I would not be going home. After being on “the pill� for less than a month, I was told to stop immediately, and never take it again, since having a blood-clot increases the risk of getting another one. I was given narcotics for pain and a shot of a fast-acting blood thinner in my stomach, of all places.
My first two days at the hospital were spent on the heart floor. I had 4 different roommates in 2 days. Morbidly I wondered if they died. Those first 2 days were a blur of needles and nurses. After that I graduated to the first floor, which meant I could go home in a few days. While I was there, someone told me that I was an angel, and angels were not meant to be in this world for too long.
After I got home, I had to take a blood thinner called coumadin everyday. I was not allowed to have alcohol or vitamin K, which might interfere with the blood thinners. I had to go to the Doctors once a week, where they would prick my bruised arm to test the level of clotting in my blood. That went on for almost a year.
That was 2 years ago, and so far (knock on wood) I haven’t had any more near-death experiences.