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Guys? This is nuts.
Jan. 19th, 2013 03:12 amSeriously crazy. Are you ready for this?
I got this book for Christmas, right, it's a current bestseller I didn't know much about - "Proof of Heaven," which is an embarrassingly cheesy title, but I wanted it becauseit was available cheap at BJ's of the subtitle - "A Neurosurgeon's Journey Into the Afterlife," which led me to the back cover. The synopsis there told me it was about some super skeptic scientist doctor who had his own near death experience that can't be explained away because of this and that imaging while he was out of commission.
Backtracking slightly: I have been fascinated by the topic of near death experiences in spite of myself, since I felt myself dying in 2007, and sensed absolutely nothing but my body being about to give out. It was a terrible time of nothing but blackness seeming to stretch out in front of me, during which I was in no way able to sense the presence of God, and it punched a lot of holes in my faith at the time. Anne Rice, who I follow on facebook and have a sort of long distance fan-friendship with, is also fascinated by near death experiences and is always sharing them, so links to news stories and books on them pop up in my facebook feed from time to time. Typically, when they do, I click on them with a kind of intellectual detachment stretched taut over heart-in-my-throat emotions I try to ignore. Generally they are either flimsy accounts or have links in the comments/reviews to debunkers, and I come away with a small amount of bitter relief masked by indifference, as I move on to the rest of my wall's offerings for the day. Anne Rice did mention this book briefly at some point, and I went, "Oh, I saw that at BJ's" and some part of my mind went, "OOooh, neurology and near death experiences mixed together, bring it."
So I got the book for Christmas and it's been sitting in my library in the weeks since. Yesterday I got it out and took it to PATH with us, after reading a bit more of the first pages/blurb quotes from critics. Kind of a resigned, "Alright, convince me" sort of thing that was half joke, half hope.
I had it sitting on the table in front of me when Mia noticed it and asked what I was reading. As I talked about it a bit I caught site of the guy's picture for the first time, at the bottom of the back, and laughed - I said something like, "does every neurologist go around in freaking bow ties? Is this a thing?" And then I read his mini-bio there.
He's spent 15 years AT BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S AND BOSTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL IN BOSTON. I noted the name, and texted Grant, and looked up more on my phone, and dude. DUDE!
This is the fucking guy! This is the man who sat remote and seemed to lack people skills, who sat in a room with me sobbing my eyes out explaining Elise's prognosis; Mr. Everything That Makes a Person an Individual is Destroyed. The super brilliant eccentric person in polka dots and a bow tie who would only talk to me in jargon until I asked, "Yes, and what does that mean?" so many times that he was clearly uncomfortable (thus indirectly cementing my interest in becoming an armchair neurologist). He's wearing bow ties in every picture of him that exists, as far as I can tell, including while being interviewed by Oprah.
Apparently in 2008, while I developed a massive hernia from reparative surgery, struggled with PTSD, and collected a half million dollars in lawsuit settlement money, he caught some kind of super rare meningitis and slipped into a week long coma. And now he believes in God, Heaven, and so forth, strongly enough to come out saying it's his spiritual duty to tell everyone else all about it. His prologue says, "I am especially eager to tell my story to people who might have heard stories similar to mine before and wanted to believe them, but had not been able to fully do so. It is to these people, more than to any other, that I direct this book, and the message within it."
A lot of things go through my mind, like, "WELL HE HAS BEEN WRONG BEFORE :p" and, "...I wonder what he would think of my little's girl's wild story." I mean I'm willing to bet he'd remember us; the crazy family who had driven all the way from South Florida to attempt a HBA4C with the infamous Nancy (and later threatened with a massive lawsuit for retained surgical instrument)...I dunno.
I just do not even fucking know.
I got this book for Christmas, right, it's a current bestseller I didn't know much about - "Proof of Heaven," which is an embarrassingly cheesy title, but I wanted it because
Backtracking slightly: I have been fascinated by the topic of near death experiences in spite of myself, since I felt myself dying in 2007, and sensed absolutely nothing but my body being about to give out. It was a terrible time of nothing but blackness seeming to stretch out in front of me, during which I was in no way able to sense the presence of God, and it punched a lot of holes in my faith at the time. Anne Rice, who I follow on facebook and have a sort of long distance fan-friendship with, is also fascinated by near death experiences and is always sharing them, so links to news stories and books on them pop up in my facebook feed from time to time. Typically, when they do, I click on them with a kind of intellectual detachment stretched taut over heart-in-my-throat emotions I try to ignore. Generally they are either flimsy accounts or have links in the comments/reviews to debunkers, and I come away with a small amount of bitter relief masked by indifference, as I move on to the rest of my wall's offerings for the day. Anne Rice did mention this book briefly at some point, and I went, "Oh, I saw that at BJ's" and some part of my mind went, "OOooh, neurology and near death experiences mixed together, bring it."
So I got the book for Christmas and it's been sitting in my library in the weeks since. Yesterday I got it out and took it to PATH with us, after reading a bit more of the first pages/blurb quotes from critics. Kind of a resigned, "Alright, convince me" sort of thing that was half joke, half hope.
I had it sitting on the table in front of me when Mia noticed it and asked what I was reading. As I talked about it a bit I caught site of the guy's picture for the first time, at the bottom of the back, and laughed - I said something like, "does every neurologist go around in freaking bow ties? Is this a thing?" And then I read his mini-bio there.
He's spent 15 years AT BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S AND BOSTON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL IN BOSTON. I noted the name, and texted Grant, and looked up more on my phone, and dude. DUDE!
This is the fucking guy! This is the man who sat remote and seemed to lack people skills, who sat in a room with me sobbing my eyes out explaining Elise's prognosis; Mr. Everything That Makes a Person an Individual is Destroyed. The super brilliant eccentric person in polka dots and a bow tie who would only talk to me in jargon until I asked, "Yes, and what does that mean?" so many times that he was clearly uncomfortable (thus indirectly cementing my interest in becoming an armchair neurologist). He's wearing bow ties in every picture of him that exists, as far as I can tell, including while being interviewed by Oprah.
Apparently in 2008, while I developed a massive hernia from reparative surgery, struggled with PTSD, and collected a half million dollars in lawsuit settlement money, he caught some kind of super rare meningitis and slipped into a week long coma. And now he believes in God, Heaven, and so forth, strongly enough to come out saying it's his spiritual duty to tell everyone else all about it. His prologue says, "I am especially eager to tell my story to people who might have heard stories similar to mine before and wanted to believe them, but had not been able to fully do so. It is to these people, more than to any other, that I direct this book, and the message within it."
A lot of things go through my mind, like, "WELL HE HAS BEEN WRONG BEFORE :p" and, "...I wonder what he would think of my little's girl's wild story." I mean I'm willing to bet he'd remember us; the crazy family who had driven all the way from South Florida to attempt a HBA4C with the infamous Nancy (and later threatened with a massive lawsuit for retained surgical instrument)...I dunno.
I just do not even fucking know.
