Now I was back on my own, just me, myself, and I. But my attention stayed with my breath as it continued to flow in and out of me.

"As long as I'm breathing, I'll know that I'm still alive," I thought.

Now, I had been meditating for many, many years, and part of that practice is to focus on your breath, but this was completely different. Before, the breath was a calming presence. Now, it was literally my lifeline.

Breathing no longer felt like an automatic process and I made no assumptions about it. As each breath went out, it was clear that the next one might not be coming in. Instead of just feeling an automatic, mechanical motion, it felt more and more like each breath coming into me was like I was receiving some kind of a consciously given gift.

After some time, I started feeling a little better. My eyesight problem was still the same, but my system seemed to have stabilized a little.

I got up and walked around the pool for a bit. I kept feeling better and better, but I still could barely see. I could make out the time on my watch and was surprised to see that the whole episode had happened in about 30 minutes. My wife, Sally, hadn't even come down to the pool yet.

I decided to relax and see if I kept feeling better. Maybe my eyesight would clear up and it would all just pass.

Sally came down about ten minutes later and she was pretty alarmed when she saw me. I felt a lot better, but she was very concerned. After a little while, she convinced me to go back up to our apartment with her and get into bed.

I must have dozed off for a while because the next thing I knew, our family doctor walked into our bedroom. He was actually a member of our pool and when he got there for the day, some friends told him what was happening with me. He called Sally and she asked him to come up and give me a quick exam.

I was surprised to see him. I asked him if he was planning on playing any golf over the weekend. He didn't answer. He just took one look at me and said, "You're going to the hospital right now. " He took my pulse and said to Sally, "Go get an ambulance and tell them it's urgent."

When I heard the word "ambulance" I said to Sally, "Make sure they're taking me to Lankenau and not Roxborough," Our condo is on the border between two hospitals. Lankenau is much more of a suburban hospital and Roxborough is located within the city limits. They always tell you to pick Lankenau if you get your choice.

She came back in the room in a matter of moments.

"OK," she said to me, "They're on their way over and they're taking you to Lankenau."

"Is that for certain?" I asked.

"Absolutely," she answered. "They understood completely. There's no question about it at all."

At that point, a whole different momentum started and I realized that my responsibilities in the world had just come to an end. I was about to become a patient, and the only thing I had to do was cooperate with the people who were about to take care of me. Whatever they told me to do, I would do. It was all out of my hands now.

Was I going to live? Or was I about to die? Who could say? I thought I had been feeling better, but from the look on my doctor's face, it was obvious that I was clearly in serious trouble.

All that I had left now was my breath. It was the only thing that I could rely upon. "As long as I can feel my breath, I'll know I still have a body," I thought. "If I'm still conscious, but I can't feel my breath anymore, then I'll know the change has happened and I'll just have to take it from there. But as long as I'm still breathing, I'm still here."

The ambulance came within a few minutes and I was on my way.

The next 36 hours were pretty much of a blur.

Sally told me later that I wasn't given any drugs or sedatives at all, but I kept drifting in and out of consciousness.

They took me to Lankenau, which is one of the top hospitals in our area. But after a CAT Scan, they immediately decided that my condition was critical and rushed me downtown to the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital of Neuroscience in the middle of the night.

They determined that I was long past the point where they could have given me a "clot buster" to take care of the stroke. There was absolutely nothing they could do now but put me in intensive care and monitor me closely. While they hoped for the best, they gravely told Sally to prepare for the worst.

"Stay with him. Hold his hand. Talk to him," they said. "We might lose him tonight. Just…just don't let him slip away…"

The next thing I became aware of, I was lying in a hospital bed and Sally was holding my hand. When I opened my eyes and looked at her, she looked like she had really been through hell. She told me that I had been out of it for about 36 hours.

"You've had a stroke," she said. "But you're going to be alright," she assured me calmly and kept holding my hand.

I looked around. I was obviously in an intensive care room. I moved every part of my body to see if everything was working okay and it was. I actually felt fine.

Two close friends of mine had been through small stroke episodes over the past year. They were mini-strokes. They had to stay in the hospital overnight and then they went home. They were told that it wasn't a big deal. I was pretty sure that's what had happened to me.

I felt completely fine. My vision had cleared up, except I had lost a small part of my upper left peripheral vision. But other than that, I seemed fine.

Doctors and nurses came and went over the next half hour. They seemed happy to see that I was awake and gave me some very quick exams. One of them told Sally that I seemed to be doing pretty well and that she could take a break.

I don't know how long she had been there for, but she decided to go stretch her legs a little and get some coffee. The room that I was in had no windows, so it was impossible to tell what time of day it was.

One of the nurses suggested that I relax and doze off for a little. Soon, I was lying in the room by myself. I closed my eyes to take it easy, but I had a funny experience. I found that I had some kind of inner vision. I could clearly see images inside of myself with my eyes closed.

I saw an endless parade of black and white sketches. They were all of rabbis dressed in religious clothing, all from centuries long ago. It was crystal clear. There must have been hundreds of them, one right after another. Black and white sketch after sketch.

It went on for a really long time. Then suddenly, instead of sketches, a small grey statue appeared. It was the image of the Madonna holding the Holy Child and it was really exquisite.

As I stared at it, it rotated, giving me several different views. Then, all of a sudden, a full color figure burst out ...

EP 127 - The Friend at the End - Part V

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