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SACRED MOMENTS
with Janis Amatuzio, M.D.
Provided to The EDGE by Phil Bolsta
Dr. Janis Amatuzio,
known as "the compassionate coroner," serves as coroner and regional resource
for multiple counties in Minnesota and Wisconsin. She is the founder of Midwest Forensic
Pathology, P.A, a company offering private autopsy services. She is the author of
"Forever Ours," a collection of real-life stories and experiences, and
she is currently working on her follow-up book, "Dancing Together Again."
Dr. Amatuzio is frequently invited to speak on "Beyond the Threshold of Death:
A Coroner's Experience" and "Lessons in Living from your County Coroner."
For more information, visit www.foreverours.com.
Back in 1978, I was in my last month of my internal medicine internship and doing
a rotation in the University of Minnesota Hospital, working a grueling schedule of
36 hours on and 12 hours off. Thank God I was in my 20s, because I couldn't do that
now! One night, I nodded off to sleep at 2 a.m. but it didn't last long. At 2:30,
a nurse called and said, "Doctor, we need you to get up and start an IV for
a man whose IV catheter dislodged. He needs a heparin infusion."
I considered myself a pretty seasoned intern by then, having spent 11 months at it.
I said, "Tell you what, hot-pack it (to make the veins more pronounced) and
call me in 30 minutes." I really, really wanted that extra 30 minutes of sleep.
Well, the nurse knew I had a habit of sleeping through phone calls, so 30 minutes
later she strode into the room, flipped on the light, stood at the foot of the bed
and said, "Get out of bed NOW, Dr. Amatuzio. This man's arm has been hot-packed
for 30 minutes and he's waiting for you."
Exhausted and only half-conscious, I dragged myself out of bed, grabbed a couple
IV catheters and a tiny 25-gauge butterfly catheter and trudged down the hall. I
remember being envious, because I could hear people snoring. There's a certain intimacy
to 3 a.m. in a hospital ward. As you walk down the halls, it's quiet, it's dark and
the only sound you hear is rhythmic breathing. I could see in the distance that one
of the rooms had a light on. I walked around the corner and into the room. The light
coming down from the ceiling made a cone over my patient, Mr. Stein, who was in the
bed closest to the door.
When I looked at him, my heart sank. He was a very large man and was immensely swollen.
The only thing that looked bright about him was his eyes. They pierced right at me
and I thought, "How am I ever going to start an intravenous catheter quickly
on this poor man?"
I sat down next to the bed on the side near the curtain that separated the two beds
and unpacked the moist hot packs from his arm. Since men don't have as much subcutaneous
fat as women do, they usually have good veins that are close to the surface. But
I couldn't see a vein anywhere on his arm, so I had to try to find one by palpitation.
I introduced myself and told him I had to start a catheter. As I was feeling for
a vein, this man looked at me and said, "You know, doc, I died once."
My first thought was, "Whoa, he's off his rocker, he's sundowning."
He read my thoughts like he was reading a book. "You don't believe me,"
he said, with such sadness that I was terribly embarrassed.
I said, "It's not that I don't believe you, but you know that's a pretty extraordinary
thing you just said."
"I know. But I did."
While I was feeling for a vein, I thought, "Well, I'm going to be here a long
time, I may as well hear a good story." So I asked him to tell me what had happened.
He said, "Well. You know I've got blood clots in my legs and they like to travel
up to my lungs."
I said, "I know, that's why it's so important to get this medication into your
veins." He told me he had had a filtering screen put in his interior vena cava,
the large vessel that brings the blood from the lower extremities up to the heart,
to stop the clots from passing to his lungs.
"That was two years ago," he said. "And that's when I died."
I nodded and said, "Yeah, but you're here now."
"Yep, I came back to life."
I felt a shiver go down my neck and I remember thinking, "What is this?"
But he looked so earnest. He told me that when the doctors had finished implanting
the screen in his heart, which had taken five hours, he had been wheeled into the
post-anesthesia recovery room.
"I remember laying there," he told me, "trying to come to consciousness.
A nurse was squeezing my shoulder, trying to awaken me. But I just couldn't quite
wake up."
By this time, I had palpitated for a vein, found one and was taping the IV in.
"Then the strangest thing happened," he said. "All of a sudden, I
left my body."
I looked at him and said, "And HOW did you do that?"
"Right through the top of my head."
"REALLY?"
"I remember looking down at my body from the ceiling. And I had such a sense
of compassion for my body; I felt really sorry for it. All of a sudden, I noticed
that the doctors and nurses were all rushing to my bedside. I was puzzled by that,
because I felt absolutely fine. But the most amazing thing was that I could hear
all of their thoughts. I could feel their concern, I could feel their love. It was
AMAZING. There was even one nurse who was upset because she had a date after work
and my cardiac arrest was delaying her. I went to the doctor's side and tapped him
on the shoulder. He didn't feel me so I got right in front of him and tried to grab
his arms. I said, 'Stop all of that, I'm fine.' But he didn't hear me."
"You could really hear every thought they had?" I asked incredulously.
"Yes," he said, "it was like reading their minds. And I watched them
work furiously on my body. I watched them bring the paddles out and open up my gown
to expose my chest. I saw my body jump every time they shocked me."
I was already staring at him in disbelief, but he was just getting warmed up.
"And then the most amazing thing happened. The man in the bed next to me, he
had a cardiac arrest!"
"I suppose he left through the top of his head, too?" I said.
"Yep," he said, "and was he ever surprised to see me!"
I laughed and asked what the two of them did next.
"Well, I communicated with him by just thinking and told him what had happened.
When we realized we couldn't communicate with the doctors and nurses, we watched
them work on our bodies for a while. There was only one crash cart and they had used
most of the supplies on me. I watched the doctor shock me, turn around and shock
him, turn back and shock me, then shock him again and so forth. We saw them call
for another crash cart. It was absolute havoc down there. Finally, we decided to
leave. I know it sounds odd but we really didn't feel attached to our bodies."
I had the IV in by now and had taped it down but I was hooked on his story, even
though it was now 3:30 in the morning. In my typical twenty-something fashion, I
said, "And HOW did you do that?"
"Doc," he said, "you're not going to believe this but we just THOUGHT
our way through the wall."
I said, "You THOUGHT your way through the wall?"
"Yep, we didn't go through a door or a window, we just thought ourselves through
the walls and into the next room."
"Where did you end up?" I asked.
"In the waiting room. There were several people sitting there and I could feel
their concern for the well-being of their loved ones. But we couldn't communicate
with them either so we decided to leave the hospital."
"Did you use the elevator this time?" I asked.
He smiled and said, "No, we just thought our way through the hospital wall.
I remember looking back and seeing the red brick and mortar."
"Well, what happened then? I mean, you're here now."
"Doc," he said, "when we got outside it was nice and warm and comfortable.
And then...I saw it." He paused for a moment to collect himself. Then, with
tears streaming down his cheeks, he said, "Off in the distance I saw -- no,
I felt -- the most amazingly beautiful Light. It was so bright, and it was made up
of every color of the rainbow and more. I was instantly drawn to it and so was my
companion. As we approached it, I felt the most incredible joy and awe and sense
of grandeur I've ever experienced. Then the Light opened up into a tunnel. I felt
a rush as I moved through it. It was like standing in an enormous wind" -- and
he gestured at my long hair -- "only your hair wouldn't blow. When I got up
there, it burst open into this magnificent display of colors, colors I had never
seen before even though they seemed so familiar.
"And then I saw my mother and my father and my brother who had died in an accident
40 years ago. My dog was there, too. I was absolutely overjoyed. It was a wonderful
reunion. As I traveled upward toward the source of all this joy, I grew more aware.
The brilliant, dazzling colors shimmered, and I began to realize...well...everything.
I can't explain it. I saw my life in its entirety, and I saw that everything that
had happened to me had been perfect. Then suddenly, I knew with crystal clarity that
I couldn't stay and why."
He paused again, so I said, "Well, what happened then?"
He said, "You know that other guy?"
"Yeah?"
And he said with an absolutely distraught voice, "The other guy got to go on
and I had to come back." And he just wept.
After a few moments, he was able to compose himself. He confided that he hadn't told
that entire story to anyone before, that he had been afraid to talk about it. I squeezed
his hand and thanked him for sharing his story. We sat there together in silence
for a minute or two, sharing the intimacy of his story and the early morning hours.
Finally, he spoke again. "When I got back, everything in my body hurt. My chest
was burned from the paddles, my ribs were broken from the CPR, there were needle
puncture marks everywhere on my body. But even though everything hurt, I was filled
with an overwhelming sense of peace that I had never experienced before or since.
When I was up there, with my family, I had been overwhelmed and stunned by the loving
kindness that surrounded me.
"The next day, in the recovery room, my doctor told me what had happened to
me. I had had a heart attack and they had almost lost me. I didn't say anything but,
a month later, I went to see him for a checkup and I told him about my experience.
I was still experiencing that sense of incredible peacefulness and purpose. I told
him about leaving my body through my head, about floating up near the ceiling, about
watching him try to resuscitate me and resuscitate the other guy, about that wonderful
light.
"The doctor looked confused. All he could say was, 'You must have had a reaction
to a medication.'
"I said, 'No, it wasn't a reaction, it was the most real thing that has ever
happened to me.'
"And the doctor said, 'Listen, you don't know what you're saying. You were dead,
dead and gone for 15 minutes. Your heart wasn't pumping. Then, bango, your heart
started again and here you are.'
"I said, 'Doctor, I watched you during that resuscitation. I saw that the man
in the bed next to me died, too, and that you only had one crash cart and not enough
medications and you were using the same set of paddles on both of us. And I felt
how worried, frustrated and concerned you and the staff were.'
"He shook his head and said, 'Absolutely impossible. You could not have known
any of that. You were unconscious. The nurse must have told you.' He held up his
hand and said, 'You know what, I don't know what you believe, I don't know what happened
to you, but for all intents and purposes you were dead.'
"And I said, 'I know.'"
I looked at the clock. It was almost 4 a.m. I sat there for a few minutes. And then
I asked, "Did it change your life?"
"Oh, yes," he said, "in several ways. First of all, I don't fear death.
I know we don't die. The experience that the doctor called dying was the most magnificent
thing that's ever happened to me. Secondly, I know that love is all that counts.
I still love my stuff, my things, but they don't matter to me the way they did before.
It's who we're being that matters, not what we're doing. And lastly, I try to learn
something each day, to gather knowledge and then try to apply it to make this world,
my world, a better place."
After that, he was very quiet. I remember how embarrassed I felt that I had doubted
him. I told him that I believed him and the incredible journey he had taken. And
I remember thinking, "I'm going to remember this wisdom." And I have. And
it's made a difference in my life. It's helped me to remain sensitive to patients
and their families. And when my parents die, it comforts me to know that it will
not simply be the end, that we will all be together again someday.
Phil
Bolsta, a freelance writer, lives in Rogers, Minn. Phil can be reached at (763) 315-1130
or at philb@impella.net.
Copyright © 2004 Janis Amatuzio, M.D., all rights reserved. |
| Dec 2004 |
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