English

My Guillain-Barre Syndrom

Hello everybody!

Finally, my fingers are working again, so I can start writing about a rare illness called Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS) which struck me down last October. There is so much in my head waiting to be written, and I know that those of you who know me have been waiting to hear about my life changing experience. This photo shows me in September 2012 shortly before I got sick.My Guillain Barre Syndrome

What is Guillain -Barre Syndrome?

Guillain-Barre syndrom has been known about for 200 years, it's an auto immune disease in which the immune system is reversed by a virus, and then begins to destroy the insulating (Myelin) layer of the nerves. The short explanation for electrician like me : Total short -circuit in the entire wiring harness.

The consequences are a paralysis of the whole body up to the respiratory system. The treatment aims to stop the immune system with immuno globines which ends the destruction process. Then the immune system re-starts and the myelin sheath grows back slowly and most of all paralysis can be healed within one year. It's a really hard experience, I can tell you!

A GBS is not a modern civilisation desease. It can happen to everyone at every age. Man and women get them almost at the same amount, and you will not get imune when you once had it. It seems to me its only a rare but fatal mistake of our imune system.

Acknowledgements:

But firstly, thank you all so much for the love and good thoughts you sent to me while I was in hospital. Especially for my tuff wife Claudia and my parents, who tried to be with me as much as possible.

I am deeply touched and still amazed how far my news travelled. I received compassionate messages and good wishes from everywhere: For example, so many of you took up my wife Claudia's idea to think of me every evening at 9 o'clock in order to send me healing and there were also some meditation circles in Orgiva who prayed for me.As if this wasnt enough, this healing spread so far afield that Anna the organiser of Osel Ling, a nearby Tibetan Buddhist reatreat centre, sent an email to northern India where 5000 Tibetan monks who live in exile, prayed for me. What a gift!

All this has touched me very deeply, especially as my serious illness has radically changed not only my own conciousness -opening my own eyes and heart- but also that of so many of my friends, who were suddenly able to see their problems in perspective. I have often cried tears of joy about the depth of love I experienced during that time, as I experienced such great kindness, always and everywhere. How should I begin...?

The Disease:

It all happened so suddenly and out of the blue. Like any illness also this one began with hardly noticeable small things. I hadn't noticed my first symptoms until a week earlier. I started losing my sense of taste, and after a few days experiencing warmth and cold much more intensely in my skin and also a tickling and numbness in my hands and feet. At first we thought I perhaps had only a circulatory disorder. Due to strong tension in my shoulders. Yes, literally something sat me in the neck. But when my legs suddenly got weak and when I collapsed on my doorstep it was certainly time to go to the hospital in Granada!

A good friend now drove me to the hospital, who I brought there a few months ago with a thumb injury. We both joked about this situation. Even within this one hour drive, I had no strength left to walk and I had to be pushed into the emergency room with a wheelchair from the car. My initial hope, that maybe I could go back home with just a couple of pills, was soon shattered. I went through a whole series of studies, surgeries, and a magnetic resonance imaging. At that point when all my personal belongings and my clothes were taken away from me, I felt degraded, as I would now be taken to a prison from which I would not come out again soon. But soon I was so disoriented that I no longer noticed all what has been done to me. I was overwhelmed with everything and slept most of the time. I was very lucky, the correct diagnosis was made and immediately treated within a few hours.

It was the 07.Oct.2012 and a close call, a day later and I probably would have choked.

The hospital diagnosed Guillain Barre Syndrom, a rare and sudden form of paralisis and I was immediately put into Intensive Care and onto heavy medication.

Yes, it was really bad especially at the beginning - Being so completely paralysed and lying there completely helpless and defenceless- My immune system reacted against the insulating myelin sheath of my nerves, and all I was able to do was to move my head slightly to one side. I couldn't move the rest of my body at all and even half of my face was paralysed. My lung muscles had no strength, so I had to be put onto mechanical ventilation in intensive care (ICU here in Spain UCI) for six weeks in order just to breath. I was given morphine in high doses to help combat the fierce pain, and I couldn't even speak. I could only whisper with my mouth, because I was ventilated through a tube on my neck (tracheotomy) and so my throat didnt got any air. Most could barely understand me. I couldnt ask anyone how things are going with me, or what was done to me. I couldnt ask anyone to help me if something hurted , or if I was scared about something.

I was just a head with a helpless lump of meat on it and every touch hurted like hell!

Never in my life I have been seriously ill, or even been in an hospital. But now I was lying there, surrounded by beeping machines that kept me alive.

I can remember the first two weeks in Intensive Care only very faintly. The doctors made me sleep almost the whole time. Had it not been for my wife Claudia who was able to explain what had happened to me in my very few clear moments, it would have been a terrifying nightmare, stuck in a body unable to move or speak. But she reassured me that within a couple of months I could be well on the way to health again.

Most of the time I felt so indescribably uncomfortable that very often I made a sound with the tongue, the only communication sign that still connected me with the outside world. This barely audible noise was the only signal for the nurses that I needed something. All the time some parts of my body were hurting, and it made me crazy that I could not do anything myself to alleviate this pain by a change of position. Again and again, the nurses had to put a pillow under my legs or take it away again, or put one of my arms in a different position.

I was so sorry to call the nurses so very often, they really had plenty to do. And I felt like a helpless nasty kid, that drives all into madness with his incessant needs. So I often was happy if I got my morphine, because then I was really quiet.

Every conscious minute took me like hours, every day seemed like many weeks. These eight weeks I spent on the UVI, are comparatively short for a lifetime, but they were certainly the longest time of my life, they seemed to me like an eternity. Sometimes in life you feel like you have wasted a whole year for nothing, and then there are hours you would never trade for anything in the world.

I felt not only locked up in my body, it was also like being locked up like in a prison of this modern transmission of a hospital ward. I was under heavy medication similar to an insane asylum, and I often thought that I would never get out of here again. I always lived a very independent life, and giving up the control was like a torture for me.

In the first 2 weeks I got a medication to stop the destruction of my own immune system. My immune system now no longer worked and I was very vulnerable to any disease. I got one pneumonia after the other, and consequently a lot of antibiotics to controll it. I always felt very sick of these antibiotics and once I had to vomit so hard that I puked out the entire contents of my artificially fed stomach, including the tube of the gavage in one single gush all over my bed. The only brief comment of the nurse on duty was: "Hostia" (damn).

Very often I had a fever and had mucus by a cold, which was very unpleasant especially in the lungs, because quite often this made me wanting to cough. But I could not cough because of my too weak lung muscles. The mucus often tormented me long before I could make myself understood. The only remedy was a dangerous looking procedure that had to be done sometimes every hour. A suction of mucus with the help of an approximately 50cm long thin plastic tube, which was inserted directly into the connection piece of the lung machine to my neck. I always had this fear they could hurt my lungs somehow with this long pointy thing. Also, the negative pressure during suction generated violent choking and if it took too long veritable panic.

Even in the ICU I got almost daily half an hour with Lola a nice physical therapist. She moved my legs and arms, which was always a great relief, because all my joints hurt. She was the only one with whom I could communicate reasonably with my barely audible speach. She had an incredibly good empathy and always seemed to understand me well. With her I had many good conversations that made me feel again as a human.

My near-death experience :

During this time I got so close to death that I had the opportunity to see a small part of my own future as if it was a short film. I was shortly, but very aware in another dimensions in which I was much closer to timelessness than of the time as we can normally experience. It occurred to me much more real than anything previously before. It was like an awakening from a long dream I had taken for reality. Or like a deep remembering, perhaps like when you return to a place from your early childhood.

I remember this happening when I was in a lot of pain and was hyperventilating. I could not feel my lower body because of the strong pain in my hips. A nurse was trying to put my legs in a better position, but the pain was still extreme. I was very desperate and insecure, how it might go on with my life. I wondered if I would be handicaped, or having to suffer for the rest of my life.

All alarm signals of my survival machines beeped like crazy already for a while. I seriously wondered if I would just die right now? But it hardly bothered me. Should I go on like this, desperately fighting to breathe more, to be able to stand this pain. Somehow I had enough. Maybe something in me wanted to die because I just carried on with hyperventilating.

I was not afraid. I knew I was probably on the way to death, but even if I did not care. I wanted to know where it would take me. Yes, and somehow I was just curious of what was to come there. What did I had to lose now. I felt a bit like a little like a child, like a defiant little boy who didnt do what he should do. Somehow it felt right. It was only my decision what I wanted to do now. I felt a little like a child, like a little boy who did not do what he should do. But I felt somehow right, everyone should have the right to decide freely whether they want to live or not. And maybe that was my only chance to get out here now, because soon I could not even have the strengh anymore to do that. So I continued to breathe against the machines, as hard as I could. I gave everything I still had in me, and went on and on and on ....

Suddenly I floated farther away, as if I was 1000km above the Earth where, I circuled with my body, in a kind of birth position, around an axis. And then I even left my body and looked at myself from higher above. From here I was so close to this limitless universe.

I marveled at the sight of this giant planet below me, and I became aware that this earth is only a tiny place in this universe. This emptiness and limitlessness seemed overwhelming. I felt really smaller than small, a tiny dot of a soul, alone in this immensity of space.

I was not alone, but there was no one else to see but me.

Then I looked closer into the deep blackness and my vision got clearer and sharper. Now I suddenly could see billion little dots of shimmerning lights. Like the colourful reflections in a granite stone, or like all the shimmering information stored on a DVD.

I realized that they were pure informations. It seemed like a chronicle of the whole world. Some of these points of light seemed to be as connected to each other in a magical way. You only had to follow one point and you could see the information like a movie in your mind.

The space was not empty, on the contrary, it was full and massive. I had the feeling as if you could cut it with a very sharp knife.

Everything was contained in it simultaneously, the past, present and the future of all beings. What especially surprised me was being able to glimpse all these possible parallel realities for all of us. Really all paths of life that can ever be! Nothing seemed like to be predetermined, because all the possible paths and decisions were simply inmeasurable.

I could then decide if I wanted to dissolve in this ocean of timelessness, or go back to life and go back into time. Because of that I wanted to know what my life would look like after my illness and I was allowed to see a glimpse of my own future:

I saw myself walking up the track with my children, it was warm, the sun was shining, I was able to walk fairly well, and I was satisfied. I said to myself: Ok, thats not too bad, I would like to go back.

Then a voice, like my inner voice, told me: I would have to die some months earlier than if I hadn't had my illness. But that didn't scare me at all anymore. Everything was very cozy and nice here. Death is quite comfortable compared to our life on earth. But I guess if I had not felt that many of you would like to have me back on earth, perhaps I would have gone really easily, because there was no fear of dying here, and it felt very very comfortable. Yes, somehow it was really tight, but I decided quite spontaneously to life,

I then woke up again just a few moments later, as from a long dream, when my grumpy anesthetist loudly yelled at me and shaked me to get myself together and breath normal again. The next morning he was taken aback before my breathing machine screen. When he checked my values. He muttered something, and then said, as if to himself: Why only you regenerate so quickly?

Hyperventilating so hard was probably a very good training for my weak lung muscles.

Some impressions from heaven:

To be up there was a bit like when you go back to a place of your early childhood where you had maybe spent a few years time. First, you dont remember anything, and then when you look around a little, something draws you in, and you realize that it is a deep part inside of you. Something in you then remembers this place, and you are happy just to be there again.

But there in timelessness all these information had somehow the same taste and it felt as if it were completely empty and meaningless. It occupied me no more fears. Nothing, just wait and indifference without any emotion. Everything seemed from here to be empty meaningless. Nothing can ever get lost, and none of it is more than the drop that falls back into the ocean.

Everything here on earth what seems to be so full of meaning is there nothing more than a speck of information. Later I realized that a meaning is created only by the boundaries we draw ourselves: Beautiful /ugly, light /dark, good /bad, inside /outside, you /me, etc. In timelessness these opposites do not exist. They all have the same taste. Nothing is more important or more valuable than anything else. No life is better there, or worse. Everything is just as it is, completely neutral, without any assessment. It is certainly hard to imagine, but once you have had this experience, it will alway stay in your memory.

It was a place where there was absolutely no sense of time. It seemed to me as if I had always been there, and that I would be here forever. A single moment can happen here like a whole life, or many lives like a single moment.
From there the earth seemed to me like a time trap in the middle of this infinite emptiness and fullness of timelessness. On Earth we only have the presence ? Past and future are not accessible to us.

And it is only here where we have all our senses, that we can truly appreciate these wonderful experiences: Feelings such as love, happiness, joy, light and colour, wind and water on our skin, the taste of delicious food, the sight of this beautiful earth with all its wonderful creatures.

This experience maybe lasted only 10 minutes, but it will influence and rule my second life now, I am starting anew. I enjoy all these worldly gifts with so much more gratitude and awareness. What a precious gift! Every day! Every moment !This experience lasted perhaps only about 10 minutes, but they will always accompany my second life I now begin here and exhort me to perceive all these worldly gifts and much more grateful and confident. What a precious gift ! Every day! Each moment !

Later we can be dead still for half an eternity. But only now we are alive here on earth, now our ticket is valid in this unique, wonderful event, which certainly so many souls would love to come, too. It is probably one of the greatest gifts in the universe, or perhaps the greatest attraction of the cosmos.
I was once again so much aware that I'm just a guest here on earth, a time traveler, and we are all here only for a very short time, because the days and years go by so quickly. And at some point I anyway will have to say goodbye again.

Still the most dominant feelings that have remained in me from this experience are: Love and happiness.

Love is undoubtedly the basis of everything. It is the reality of realities. The incomprehensibly glorious truth of the truths of all that exists or ever will exist, of all that lives and breathes. Love in its purest form, it is not jealous or selfish, but unconditionally. Love that just permeates everything.

Maybe it had something to do with this wild happiness I felt in me. I understood for the first time who I really am and in what kind of world we all live. I was so happy to be back with the people that I loved. I knew now, every being here is deeply loved and valued forever, no one has really something to worry about, or anything can go wrong. And anyone, who has felt this all-embracing divine love even only for a single second knows for sure, that his life was worth up to this point. And anyone who doesnt, has no glimpse, or can obtain an approximately accurate understanding of who or what we are.

And I do not mean here any abstract or mature form of love. This love feels so ordinary like any love we can have for our fellow human beings, or even to things or situations.

The mood of this "other" timeless world remained a presence in me for long. There I was as divorced from personal attachments. I was not more concerned about worldly things. There were no places that I missed, or people that I could grieve about. I was a soul that had nothing to lose. I have come out of nowhere and I was a nobody, and I had no personal history anymore. I also accepted my circumstances fully and completely released.

For the first time in my life I was appeased, not satisfied or happy, but appeased. It was as if a great hand make the clock stand still in my head. A clock that had ticked otherwise constantly, and never gave me that inner peace that now I could feel there, almost compleately paralyzed in my hospital bed in the UVI of an hospital in my favorite city of Granada.

It was as if eternity had begun to beat in my roots, and has started to think his own eternal thoughts with my brain. Before my illness, it had not come so far with me, the boundaries were strictly drawn. Far too often still, my thoughts were so confused.

Now I found it often difficult to keep my past and my present self apart.

The new me that I'm not sure that it is not absorbed slowly from a larger We.

Many years ago, this transformation started in me. But now it has become almost impossible for me, in this buzzing and chirping "silence" of the UVI, among all the people in this hospital, to feel like a single and separated self. A small, blind, stubborn life that does not want to insert into the great community? Once it had been my pride and joy to be such a life. But now it suddenly seemed to me very miserable and ridiculous. An inflated nothing. Who I was if not one of the many eyes of God. We're all from the same origin. The fact that there is all information of the whole cosmic history freely available around you, gives you a sense of omniscience and a deep peace of mind.

The only thing that was hard to take here was loneliness. To be able to be everywhere at once really makes very lonely. Everyone knows everything, everyone is the same than me, everyone is me. You have no one you could teach with his omniscience. There is nothing else than you. There is no playful ignorance in which I could bring in a tiny little bit of my self, with hope for a kind of a confirmation of my existence.

I realized that all becomes a much deeper meaning, because of the fact that we will have to die. Especially with all these lovely people who surround us. And very much with those we have such loving exchanges. The unconditional love and acceptance that I experienced on my journey into this other dimension is the most important discovery I've ever made. Perhaps love is the only truly timeless thing on earth, and so it is our only bridge to the ultimate timeless reality. I think perhaps it is the most important thing in life and the best to which we humans are capable of. And I can only say to you again and again: Hey, enjoy life. It is soooo wonderful!

The long way back to life:

The photo here shows me the first day I was able to breathe on their own again and I was finally freed from the lung machine.

My happiness about life has been with me during the whole illness. I was just happy and deeply grateful to be still alive and I just had fun in life, even if I was completely paralyzed. I had just accepted my fate, nothing in me resisted more about it. It was just how it was, and I would come back again. Because I knew nothing remains as it is, and everything is changing all the time!

I'll never forget that day, because I suddenly could speak again. What a breakthrough to make myselve understood again. I felt that I got a part again of that was what was happening around me .

This experience will gave me so much more understanding for people with disabilities and for all the frustrations they might have every day of their lives.

I cried at that time very often, was deeply moved quickly because of tiny little events, eg some lyrics I heard in a song somewhere. A deep, knowing, loving look of someone who passed. A beautiful memory or a thought about someone I liked very much. Or simply because the cleaning lady today was not in such a good mood as usual and wasnt humming to herself during her work.

This attitude made the experience of being helpless not too heavy, even though it really wasn't that easy for an old control freak like myself! But I was very pleasantly surprised at how I could accept all the help so easily and I was so grateful for it.

I admit, however, I sometimes did try to get control by whining or doing some drama in situations that were disagreeable.

Especially in the early days, when I still had a lot of pain and wanted to have changed my sleeping position very often. And later then when I learn sitting again. Sometimes it was like a little power struggle for help or attention, and often my real intentions were unmasked quickly from the very experienced nurses.

My physical regeneration progressed very quickly. I still felt like a motionless lump of flesh, but little by little I gained piece by piece back. First the sensations and then the ability to move. It started first in my face that no longer hung in half, then in my shoulders, which offered me a way to move my head on the pillow into a different position. Then I got these strong cramps in the arms. My fingers often clenched upon at where they lay. If that happened to my other arm, I felt it tweak very painful. Often I woke up and could not move my hand, it cost me a lot of effort by moving the shoulders to get away the hand from where it has cramped. Because of these cramps I later had pain and stiffness in all finger joints. My tendons were overloaded. It was like a tendonitis in the fingers. Up to today I can feel this pain in my fingers, it didnt wwent compleately away, even with lots of training.

The whole time in hospital I was accompanied by the beautiful and extraordinary music of Johanna Kunin. I actually heard nothing else. She was like a warm hand of a good friend through the darkness of many lonely nights. And even if I didn't listen her on my MP3 player, she played in my head like a lullaby and I loved her deep and spiritual lyrics more every day. She has given me a lot of human warmth and so incredibly much hope and courage with her strange, gentle and at the same time very powerful music. I am deeply grateful to her and I wish I could tell her one day into her face what an incredible genius she is. Maybe because of her music I recovered so amazingly quickly.

A few wonderful songs you can find on her website:

www.johannakunin.com

Johanna Kunin is one of these musicians who started their own label in order to remain completely independent and to be able to develop their own personal style. Far away from the commercial interests of the entertainment industry. She earns thereby unfortunately very little with her music. Although I find that she deserves to get as much money that she would no need to do anything more than to continue writing such wonderful songs untill her very end.

Who ever likes her music too and can support her by buying a CD should really do that.

My morphine-dreams:

I still remember a few funny and horrible experiences that were probably heavily influenced by the big amount of morphine I was being given. Often I was so high that my muscles were twitching. I had a dry mouth and my tongue felt like half deaf. At night sometimes I was really afraid of falling out of bed. I often felt as if I was floating on my bed about 100m above the city lights.

Many GBS patients report such horror visions, they could also be a neural fear reaction of the brain. Any intervention by doctors or nurses were usually very painful for me. Infusion needles have been drilled into both armpits, and each change of position was like a nervous firework in my head. So it was that I often got already fear again when someone came to my bed and did something to me. Far the worst was for me to be completely delivered and dependend.

Often I could not see properly, perhaps because the nurses forgot to put my thick glasses on in the morning, and often I did not understand what they were saying, especially when they speak this very fast andalusian Spanish.

The school of witchcraft:

I was in a University Hospital and once a doctor came to me with two students, to show them how to make the dental care with paralyzed patients. She explained in detail the two different-colored liquids that seem to smell very bad, because they all srewed their faces up as they sniffed it. One student at first refused to use the stuff on me, because he said it was as strong as petrol and certainly not healthy if I swallowed it. I became as scared as hell and it felt almost as if I had got into a torture chamber of bad witches. The doctor then injected a huge load of the stuff into my mouth and sucked it out again with a terrible roar. It tasted disgusting. But I just managed to hold my breath long enough so that I didnt swallow a lot of it. Then a student nurse cleaned me with a sponge and the other liquid. First he apologized to me that this was his first attempt I was his practice rabbit. He promised to be as gentle as he could. He did it really well and it was not as bad as I expected. I smiled at him gratefully and nodded kindly. I was glad to have at least one friendly and normal person here among all these evil witches .....

The police was here:

Once, my suspicions grew so much that I thought I was not in a hospital, but at a private outpatient care house in the midst of a quarrel which had broken out among the nurses. They shouted nastily at each other and as each one disappeared it occurred to me, that the whole place would probably be illegal and the police already had an eye on them. When I heared a police siren I was glad that the whole thing would soon be over and I would be able to go back to a proper hospital! just hoped that Claudia and the children were not involved somehow. But then the men who came in didn't look like policemen. Were they working undercover? I was unsure if I should do something, but I could not even speak. Later, when I woke up again, Claudia was there and I was so glad to see her. I tried to explain to her that the cops were here and she would have to get me out of here quickly. Thank God she was able to calm me down and tell me that everything was only a bad dream.

I had never felt so helpless felt like in those moments. Sometimes it was all too much and I gave up and fell asleep.

The holiday dream:

But sometimes I had really nice dreams. Once I was in holiday in Cabo de Gata with Claudia and our old camper van. We traveled with another very nice young couple who also had an old camper. It was summer and we had a lot of fun together, enjoying ourselves on the beautiful beaches. When I woke up I first could not believe that I was actually paralyzed and in the hospital and it was really winter. Outside it was raining like mad. How I wished I'd stayed a little longer in my dream ....

The big prank:

I also had a very funny morphine-dream experience. I thought I heard that my friends Armin and Jessi were visiting, but they did not come into my room, only speaking to the nurses in the hallway. I thought they were probably having a lot of fun because I could hear them laughing and I was kind of jealous. But then they did come to me, but they were dressed in green coats and put all sorts of old hospital junk into my room - An ultrasound machine and various old looking infusion stands - How funny, because I thought that Armin and Jessi had found the stuff somewhere in the garbage, and they were doing one of their wild tricks. I thought they were just dressed as nurses and behaved as if they didn't know me.... Only at the very end of the visiting time Jessi came in then for a brief visit. I said, how nice you came to see me... but she couldn't understand me and went away again. I heard a truck engine outside and thought they had gone away again. Later the nurses discussed what to do with all this stuff and seemed very clueless about it! They ordered a cleaning lady, but at some point, thank God everything was taken out of my room again.

Later I told that story to Armin and Jessi and they laughed a lot, because none of it was true.

I had made it all up. This often happens with morphine, all your strange dreams seem completely real, even if it's totally absurd. Often my eyes crossed and my brain combined both images into a single image. This sometimes created the funniest and most disturbing images, such as a flower pot sitting on a chair for a long time staring into a laptop.

I often fell asleep while I had visitors, and very often I could not really distinguish between dream and reality. I was also really confused thinking that the Spanish nurses were sometimes talking in perfect German dialects, but then often I couldn't understand anything at all. Many times I felt completely broken and incapable of living. The presence of people I knew well was so indescribably important to me. I so desperately needed contact with reality and the confidence of the people I knew from my real life.

Leaving the ICU:

My new life started in the UVI of the hospital "San Cecilia" in Granada. After seven weeks in the ICU, I already felt at home there.

I was very well treated and monitored closely. The team of doctors and nurses were fantastic, everyone there ran tirelessly from left to right and from right to left. Often it seemed to me like I was at a tennis match.

Like any intensive care unit it is in many ways the place that in our days most decide about life and death. I saw here many patients come and go and sometimes I realized if one died. In general, th pacientce here were only patched up again after an accident. They usually stayed only for a few hours or some days until they were transferred to other stations.

Just me and a half- dead man in the bed diagonally opposite stayed here for many many weeks. At first I heard some signs of life sometimes, here and there a rattle, a cough, or even sometimes an irregular beeping of his survival machines. But he soon seemed to me just like a dead man obtained here alive artificially. Was his soul already gone? His family was always just completely baffled stading around by his bed, but no one here seemed to want to pull the plug. This went on for many weeks.
Then one day, the man's body was washed and oiled with a smelly liquid, and his bed was elaborately and intricately decorated with all sorts of religious -looking things. So I thought to myself, this seem to be the modern death here in Spain, a funny absurd mixture of old Catholic traditions, Andalusian magic and the most modern hospital technology. All this probably was only to help the family to say good bye more easily.

After this magic show where the entire family was standing in front of his bed, only a little while later a nurse secretly unplugged this man without any other witnesses. The body was wrapped in white sheets and later driven away by two men in black clothes on a tiny little bare. Suddenly nothing had anymore magic. The cleaning lady came soon after and his bed was cleaned, and a few hours later a new patient layed already in the same place.

There were sometimes quite absurd things to see. Once a little boy died as a result of a car accident. The mother was crying so hard that she was quickly brought out of the station. His grandmother was sitting next to his bed for al long long time. Suddenly she tried to light a huge oil lamp, probably to escort his soul better to heaven. But that was of course a real trouble, as the nurses discovered this. The old woman was also asked to leave. She was very distressed and asked then to at least cut off a lock of hair from the boy to pray better for him at home. She got this hairs and went away.

Sometimes I felt here like a little boy beeing mothered, I was helpless like a little baby. They all looked well after me and I was really observed very intense. Almost every hour my blood pressure and the temperature was measured and recorded. The bundle of all of these records was already a thick pack of paper.

I soon knew all the doctors and nurses, so they became a bit like my new family. I liked them all very much and felt very well liked by all of them. All knew me up to the underwear, they had often washed and cleaned me, they fed me very paciently. With some I even had long philosophical conversations about life sometimes.

It was really hard for me to leave this new home after these 8 long weeks. They all came, one after another, to personally say goodbye to me. They all wished me good health and gave me useful tips for my further recovery. I was so very touched every time that I always had to cry.

Then I was moved for the next few weeks in neurology. My parents always helped with the move. I got a room with a beautiful view, north facing, I could see a hill where I once did my most beautiful paragliding flight.

I was still hanging on a drip and still got strong painkillers. My legs ached terribly, especially at night. My knees brought me many sleepless nights.
Almost every day, Lola still came to me, my beloved physio-therapist. She bravely made her exercises with me. With her help I was halfway upright for the first time. It probably looked more like a potato sack, but I stood for a few seconds on my incredibly shaky legs. I was immediately very dizzy and I felt like totally done for hours. I remember that I thought that I would never be able to walk again.

In the rehab clinic:

In the first week of December, I got a place in the nearby rehab clinic "San Raphael". On my first day I was in a kind of a waiting room. Besides me layed a very very old man. My first thought was: He might doesent makes it not for very long ... And in fact, already an hour later he breathed his last breath. He just waited until his wife arrived to be with him.

I was very clear and cool, it didnt feared me anymore in any way, because I knew now where he would go. I was rather glad for him, and much more sad about his family, who were going through a lot of pain. I was sorry for them not to see the sanctity of this silent and so important moment of this man.

The rehab was great, I even got a bright room on the south side of the building and so for the first time I had direct rays of the sun in my bed. A very different wind was blowing here. There were a lot of old people, but also many young and cheerful nurses. My parents had taken three weeks time for me and really spoiled me all day long.

The worst part was actually learning to sit again. They started making me try sit in a chair very early on. Even in Intensive Care they lifted me up from the bed into a chair with a small crane. The first time I had great difficulty just keeping my head straight. I didn't have enough feeling in my butt to be able to feel pain, but soon that changed and those sitting times become my worst hours. This finally changed when I managed five hours of sitting and could then sit in a wheelchair with a special silicone pillow which my father bought for me, which to this day I still like use when I sit for long.

Now I really enjoy all the little things that I'm re- learning all the time as I regain my normal life and win a little piece more freedom every day. I remember how proud I was when I could slip out of my wheelchair over to the toilet and no longer had to shit into the bed.

When I first was equipped with a wheelchair I make my first exploratory trips through the clinic. I couldnt wait a second and in the next moment I was already out of the room outside and exploring my surroundings.

I discovered a small window through which you could see a busy street in the heart of Granada. Stunned, I watched the passers-by, all of them could just walk around easily in the fresh air. Most certainly not realize how lucky they are. I will never take such things for granted and I never thought what a great freedom we have got being able to walk. I sat often for a long time at this window, sometimes with other patients in wheelchairs, and I longed to be out here again. I would have given anything for it.

These simple things would never be normal again for me. I demanded not too much, I just wanted to run around outside again, feel the sun on my face, enjoying the freedom and no longer be dependent on the mundane things of life. But now I had to go the way, completely out of my own strength.

All my doctors, nurses, and especially my physio-therapist were always very worried about my recovering process because I'm vegetarian. All told me that I would never be healthy if I continue refusing to eat meat. How else would I get all the proteins required for building up my muscles. Some were even a little angry with me because they found my attitude counter-productive for all their efforts. I tried to calm them all by telling them that I would eat a lot of nuts, but I guess I was not really convincing them. But I stayed strict, finally I've been a vegetarian for 33 years, and I knew all these arguments just enough.

I remember so well the face of my physio therapist who surprised asked me towards the end, why I recovered so incredibly quickly and got back on my feet so well.

I only told him: Well, I'm just a vegetarian... !

I remember how proud I was when I could slip out of my wheelchair over to the toilet and no longer had to shit into the bed. Or how it was when I could sit under the open sky in the warm sun again for the first time. The fresh air was balm for my lungs that had inhaled only the air out of the hospital-air-condition for 3 months. The clouds and the sky seemed so incredibly huge and far.

In the next few weeks I made many exciting discoveries on my excursions in the hospital. I meet a old couple who came every Thursday in this clinic, just to talk to lonely people and listen to them. Years ago they had their son at the hospital, and since he got out they had started this work as a thanks for his recovery.
The rehab was an catholic institution, and even hosted a small staff of monks called the "Brothers of Charity". I got to know a few of these monks whose work it was to take care of lonely and desperate people who had perhaps to die soon. I admired these monks who were for me so incredibly human. They were like bright bright spots, even at my darkest days.

In the rehab clinic I met many older patients who either had a heart attack, or saw themselves confronted with cancer. I was always so happy about my illness, because I had, in contrast to most here, really good chances of recovery. I recovered, compared, at a enourmos speed. Many were really jealous for me, and it often made my heart bled when they were watching me in how I learned "poco a poco" to walk again. I knew that many of them would probably never walk again, and had to be happy if they would hold out for another few years.

There was even another patient with a Guillain-Barre-Syndrome. He was 6 years younger than me and already for 7 months in hospital. He could not speak properly and did not even walk in the approach. Already in the first few weeks I overtook him with my skills. I'll never forget the day, as he cheered to me when I managed to do my first steps without any help, it was his 42 birthday. I cried the whole day because I was so sorry for him.

Around New Year's Eve I was able to stay at home for 4 days, the first time in three months after life in a big city hospital. It did me and my family very good, even though all the noise from my children affected my nerves badly. It was made up for by the fact that I feel so much love from them and Juliana really didn't want to let me go back into the rehab clinic.

I so admire Claudia, who managed both the house work with our two little children and the constant visits to Granada with amazing strength, good energy, and a calm faith in my healing.

But I still have to look inward rather than outward, to feel what I need and how much I can expect from my body. And of course I need to do my strengthening exercises patiently and repeatedly.

Back home:

I was discharged from hospital on the 18^th of January 2013 after 103 days. I left without a wheelchair and without taking any medication. I walked out only with a stick.

Now Claudia always cooks me my favourite foods and they always taste wonderful. I eat incredible amounts so I'm quickly gaining the 10Kg which I have lost, suffering from the hospital foods.

Now I have a twice weekly outpatient rehabilitation session here at the Centro de Salud in Orgiva. The doctor and the physio-therapist there are also super nice. Once a week a local friend Olli comes and works with me at home. He is a very experienced physiotherapist from Germany, who lives here with his family. So I'm in best of hands.

I have already begun to work, which I really enjoy. But I still have very little feeling in my feet, and walking is very shaky. My legs are still very stiff. When I walk around in our small town , I always look exactly where the nearest park bench is to sit down, often I am suddenly tired and need a break. At night I often have muscle pain in my legs and arms, but I consider it a good sign because it means that they are becoming more alive. Presumably, individual muscle fibers tense up there when they are re- connected to the nervous system. then I must shake my legs quite often in order to alleviate these cramps.

The newest change is that I can ride on my solar-motorbike again, but so far only very slowly and carefully. Great fun I tell you! So now I can already can get up to the village alone to join the rehab.

I play sometimes the piano and the guitar. I started working again with Milan my apprentice. So it is still a steep climb.

Recently, I can take the car again. I have visited my doctors and nurses in the ICU, the neurology and the Reha clinic. It was so touching, all enjoyed me so much as if I were an old friend. In the ICU I was the favorite patience of the station they told me, and they all agree, I'm really, really lucky, because they already had other cases with the same disease that had not healed as quickly as I did.

In mid-April, I was there again. I was invited for a short time into the intensive care unit and even I stood next to my old bed (Nr.8) and the great lung machine, which had saved my life there. By the way, a German product from Draeger made in Stuttgart where I grew up!

After that, I just went out there on my own feet, sat in my car and drove all alone for a 3 days holiday to the Cabo de Gata, that place from which I had once dreamed so beautifuly there. Yes, sometimes dreams do come true.

It seems to me as if time for me has turned around. At first I was almost dead, long time confined to bed, then in a wheelchair, and then I left the hospital like a 90 year old on his cane. To this day I still feel, unlike many of the people around me, every day a little younger, stronger and more flexible. I'm curious when this rejuvenating effect reverses again and then I will feel that I'm getting older again.

The Long Term Consequences:

Already seven months have passed since the outbreak of my illness. The official rehabilitation at the Centro de Salut finished two weeks ago. I'm on my own now and I have chosen my own combination of therapies: Foot-Reflexology-Massage, Cognitive-Occupational-Therapy and walking barefoot a lot.

Meanwhile I have reached a quality of life where I can sometimes forget my disease for a few hours. For example if I concentrate on my work or sit in front of the computer I no longer really notice my physical afflictions, but because I am so much better sometimes, I do get very tired of still having to deal with my weak body at other times. I have been focusing on my body for all these months and have trained and exercised almost every hour, and now I'm so tired of it. I'm just ready for a holiday from all this body work.

The numbness in my feet improved in small, barely perceptible steps, and has now reached the 50% mark. The muscle which lifts my foot is still very tired and my legs are still a little stiff and swollen. I still cant squat, because my knees hurt badly when I try. I cant make a fist without pain and the ability to move my shoulders is very limited especially moving them backwards. I also suffer from getting tired quickly and have a lower stress tolerance.

Today, after 250 days, slightly more than 8 months, I really see myself for the first time confronted with the idea that my late consequences could stay forever now. The recovery process now is really stagnant for the first time. I get scared that it simply might not go on. But now this fear drives me finally moving forward. With it, I can now overcome my therapy-fatigue and continue with my own exercise program. I'm going to continue fighting about return to full salvation. I will believe again in something unimaginable.

One more week, and it's been a year that I have come into the hospital. Still, my feet are quite numb. Some muscles are still paralyzed, the legs get quickly tired and are generally still a bit immobile. The position sense is not yet fully restored, and sometimes I stumble, or get stuck somewhere when I have to climb over obstacles.

I can not run and I have pain when I walk uphill. But my general strength is still growing slowly but steadily. My nerves have become a little more stable and resisent.

I had a little Dejavu on Christmas Eve, when I brought my daughter Juliana to the hospital with a brain skin inflammation and they also took her on an intensive care unit. I looked at her, lying in a hospital bed, with exactly the same cables and hoses as I did . But she came out already after 12 days and is now regaining as fit as before.
Now it's January 2014, exactly one year when I came out of the hospital again. Unfortunately, I am already back in medical treatment. This time because of a late effect of having a catheter (over 2 months). It has been located a 3cm large bladder stone in the shape of a large coin. It was formed by lying motionless for so long and the permanent residual urine when having a catheter. For half a year I have now complaints while peeing and what is worse, it even hurts me when I walk. Riding my electric bicycle or my solar-moped does not work anymore. Any disturbance hurts.

First I thought that I only have a bladder infection. Sometimes, after strong efforts, I had blood in the urine. Only an x-ray exposed then after months of trying many antibiotics this calcification.

Unfortunately I have to wait very long for an appointment, the hospitals here in Spain are overcrowded and grossly understaffed. I cant afford a privately paid fragmentation of the stone (up to 5000 €) and it would even only work with smaller stones.
The painkillers I have got prescribed (Metaminzol and Buscapin)for the long waiting time do not help, and so I have stopped to take them. When I walk not much and dont move the pain is bearable.

But I lack the movement that I would need to still continue to stimulate my calves and feet. The numbness in the feet has become not much better in the last 3 months.
The permanent pain is very exhausting and need a lot of rest, in the daytime I usually can only find some peace while writing in front of the computer. So I wrote several articles on environmental issues. They can be found here:

www.michelartikel.blogspot.com

Meanwhile, February is gone, and my hopes for an early date for surgery for my bladder stone switch between : Now it will come for sure quite soon ...

to : ....Maybe it will take even until the fall, who knows ?

It is an interesting state in which one is made from the strict organization of a hospital. The hospital suitcase is already packed for weeks, because it could be that they fill a gap with me and I can come.

No one can tell me anything there, and the one lady who could say something, has rebuffed me really hard on my first try. Every day dozens of people come to ask her so that she cant do her work properly....

The whole put me now in a new basic mood to simply accept my suffering. Anyway I cant do nothing but wait. So inside I have decided to endure, no matter how, no matter how long, and no matter how painful it will be. What else can I do now?

That has now changed many things, especially my attitude to pain. I always felt pain as something life threatening. I had this natural reflex that made me stand still in front of strong pain. I fell into a kind of rigid and waited until the pain was over. I always gave my body the time he needed to heal. And I trusted him always full that he could fix it, too.

But what I am experiencing now changed everything. For a long time I havent accepted the pain in my bladder. I got stuck in this reflex because I thought that quite soon help would come. First, at the beginning when we all believed in a bladder infection, I hoped that the antibiotics would help me within days. Then later, I hoped the stone could be just smashed, and I would have to pee a few harmless crumbs for a while .

I always hoped that salvation from the constant pain would come quite soon. I took it slow, I didnt wanted to damage me and my bladder more. And the pain told me when I should slow down more. Only that it was so painfull all the time and it made me so very desperate and helpless. Because I just could not do anything more than this to remain, which of course was practically not really possible. So I looked for jobs where I could sit and could forget my body, which always works very well with the computer. But it was clear I wanted to get rid of this pain as quickly as possible. It was unacceptable, much too painful and I found it compleately unbearable. And if any of these painkillers would have helped me, I would have swallowed everything. I just wanted to get rid of it, I would simply poisoned it away from my life as a pest or some nasty bugs ...

What happens now is really exciting. Finally I accepted the pain, I 'll take it now, I try somehow to live with it as best I can. And suddenly the pain went to the side, giving me the space I need to live. It is still there, but it has no longer the power to imprison me in my pain. I live my life again, and take it as it comes up. I now swim with the pain, not wanting to stop this river with a wall.

Sure I would love nothing more than to come today to the hospital for bladder stone surgery. But I now do not wait any longer to it, its for nothing anyway, it is no longer in my power when that will be, I really have now given in, let it be as it is.
And life comes back, I get back to work and little jobs, find myself once again involved in my own solar projects, as I know myself from before.

Still I have to pee every 15min, still it burns like crazy while peeing, still it hurts in the bladder at each change of position and even when driving in a car on steep curves, still I can not drive my bike or my motorbike on the bumpy slopes here, still I sneak around like a ghost in order to avoid movement when walking.
By the things I like to do I forget the pain sometimes over many hours. The body seem to produce its own morphines, which none of these painkillers could do.
Yes, that is indeed really exciting, isnt it?

Damned to make sense:

Many of my friends have asked me what I think about why I got this disease - Whether it has a deeper meaning or a message for me - Well, we all tend to give a meaning to our illnesses.

Why me?

What did I do wrong?

What needs to be changed in my life?

Often it seems to me as if we will be damned in finding just any meaning, as without our suffering doesn't make any sense.

But sometimes we suffer even more from the meanings we give to an illness than from the disease itself!

The more I think about it, the more ideas come into my mind. In fact, so much so that I started to look at it on different levels, in order not to sink into chaos. My interpretations are probably always a mixture of many belief systems and consciousness levels.

Here are just a few possible examples of belief systems:

1. Magical - Disease as a retribution. If I receive too many good things, something bad is bound to happen. Or, I better not be too sure of myself, otherwise something bad might happen to me.

2. Catholic - Disease is ultimately God's punishment for some sin. The worse the disease, the worse the sin.

3. Karma - Any bad action in the past (including past lives) ripens into the present illness. The disease is therefore "bad" as it stands for earlier misdeeds, "good" in the sense that the disease process itself stands for the burning and releasing of previous misdeeds. It is a purging and a cleansing.

4. Scientific - Whatever the disease may be, it has a particular cause or set of causes. Some of these causes are identified, others are unpredictable random phenomena. In any case, the disease has no meaning or deeper meaning. It is purely a chance happening.

5. Medical - Disease is essentially a biological disturbance caused by biological factors (from viruses to trauma or genetic susceptibility, or environmental triggering factors.) In the case of most diseases it is better not think about psychological and spiritual forms of healing, because most of them are ineffective and often prevent proper orthodox treatment.

6. Psychological - Repressed emotions can cause illness. In extreme form: Disease is a desire for death.

7. New Age - Disease is a lesson: You open yourself to a disease because you have to learn something important from it, which will contribute towards your spiritual development. The mind alone creates the disease, and the mind alone can heal it.

8. Integral or Holistic - Disease is the product of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual factors that are inseparable and none of these can be ignored. The treatment must take all these dimensions into account.

9. Existential - The disease in itself has no meaning. It can only have a meaning if we give it one and each person is solely responsible for this decision. Humans are mortal and finite, and the only authentic attitude towards the disease is to accept it as an aspect of our finite nature, even if we give it a personal meaning.

10. Gnostic - Illness is an illusion. The entire manifest universe is a dream, a shadow play, and we can only be free of disease when we wake up from this dream and discover the greater Reality behind the manifest universe. Spirit is the only reality, and there is no real disease.

11. Buddhist - Illness is an inevitable part of the phenomenal world. The question of why we have a disease is as meaningless as the question of why there is the air. Birth, aging, sickness and death - these are the typical marks of this world, and like all phenomena they are transient, painful and without self-essence. Not until Enlightenment, the pure Nirvana-Awareness, will disease be finally transcended, because then the world of phenomena is transcended.

(Source: Ken Wilber, Grace and Grit)

So, from the above, you can imagine how strongly our own belief system can influence the significance of a disease, and also how much our self-chosen meaning, or mixture of meanings, will affect our healing process.

My personal favorites here are Nr.8 and Nr.11.

Here some of my own interpretations on five levels of consciousness:

Physical level: I've never really learned to listen well to my body, but my recovery requires a lot of body awareness. If I do not learn it now, some unpleasant remnants of the illness will be left with me. They will always remind me and will inspire me to keep in touch with my body.

Emotional level: I always wanted to please everyone, because I wanted to be loved from everyone around me. Often I gave too much, so I went over my own boundaries, without even realizing it. The disease was like an emergency brake making me rest and come back to myself. And I probably will not be fully back until I have sufficiently stabilized my inner balance.

Rational level: The illness I had destroys the insulation of all nerves in the body. It's like a complete short circuit in the nervous system, so much so that the signals from the brain cannot reach the muscles and feedback from the body can't re-enter the brain. And that happened to me, the Solarmichel who was constantly working with cables and electrical currents! This disease is just so fitting for me, because I always deal with similar things in the external world.

Social level: My illness has reconciled me with society. There were so many years when I did my best to be out of mainstream society. The change happened on the one hand because I met so many nice, deep and honest people in hospital, who do really good and meaningful work, and because it was so good to see how much we can rely on our friends in times of need. On the other hand, it happened because I feel really happy and supported because the health insurance paid for all my hospital and rehabilitation costs which was a huge amount and something I never could have done alone.

Spiritual Level: My whole life had been a preparation for this experience. The desert taught me once to discover the silence in my heart.

And this silence made the world stand still one day, and I discovered that I'm nobody. My personality disappeared without a trace at this time for 3 days, and I could see the light of the world compleately new again. I was suddenly not only a confused guest of reality, I was reality. I disappeared like a drop when it hits the water surface.

I was now ready for this new experience, which has demanded total dedication to the here and now. I was also granted by the near-death experience to get a deep insight into the nature of the ultimate timeless reality. Both of these things were very important steps in my spiritual development. I emerged stronger from my illness and my experiences will certainly be a positive influence on my life, and they may even facilitate my death. And maybe therefore I once might take people's fear of death.

The changes after:

I'm also slowly realizing all the changes which caused by my illness.

First:

The most important thing I learned from this is the assurance that nothing can take us away from God (or the oneness). The false assumption that we could somehow be separated from this unit is probably the root of every form of fear in the universe. I know now that I'll never feel alone again. I am no longer afraid of dying, because I know now that nothing can be ever be lost.

Second:

I enjoy life more than ever and can see it much more relaxed than ever before. Albert Einstein, in his unique genius, has once summed it up in two really deep sentences: "There are only two ways to live your life. Either, as there would be no miracles, or as everything is a miracle"

And: "I must be willing to give up what I am, in order to become what I can be."

Third:

I realized that I was always very angry at humankind, because we obviously do not really seem to be able to live sustainably on our planet. That idiocy really annoyed me, because we have sustainable alternatives in almost all environmental areas yet, but we do not chose to use these. Why is our awareness not big enough ?

I think love is probably the only chance for us as humanity to survive on this planet. Without love, we are only able to destroy everything, and when we have learned to see with our hearts, we will be able to stop that.

Today, after my near death experience I have a much more relaxed view of it all. I see us more like aging children who dont know any better. We are not perfect beings, but we are, after all, still really lovely. I can not really be angry with my own kids, if they have broke anything. They simply dont know it any better. Perhaps we might also stand there one day and have to say very sadly, "Oh, shit, ...earth broken." We will all have to pay the price for it, and that is ok.

But as long as we live, the only important thing is life itself. The present is all we really have, and that makes even me forgive my own mistakes. I become a lot more compassionate and loving with all beings, including myself.

Fourth:

Collectively I have wondered already so often about our strange interest in all these brutal cinema films about death and violence. Or about all these world-end scenarios that our film industry is producing in our times.

Perhaps it is because we collectively have done so many unforgivable mistakes that we somehow can not forgive us now. Maybe we subconsciously think we deserve that now?

I mean, we all know that we could have done more for the environment, or against all the suffering in this world. We all run around here with a more or less unconscious sense of guilt.

And all media and environmental activists who want to tell us about all the disgraces, only drive us deeper into this collective guilt that, like all guilt feelings, blocks us so badly.
Here, too... nothing will change without love. We have done so many bad things. The history of mankind is littered with corpses, and catatstrophies, wars, lies, hate and violence. How can we all just forgive?

I mean Yes, because when we look at ourselves with unconditional love, although we have done really bad mistakes, but they are only unforgivable if we do not soon start to really be honest with ourselves and begin to learn from our mistakes before it's too late.

We are nothing more than aging children who have been up to something really bad. Are we not loved anyway, just as all the true holy people of this world have always told us?
Now we have the choice, and maybe this was ment by our Creator, as a necessary consequence of the free will He has given us. Maybe he just wants to see how much we can respect and value his wonderful creation!

Fith:

My experience helped me in many ways with my spiritual development. It reinforced me in an effect Ken Wilber has described beautifully as "aperspective confusion". It's as if I can take simultaneously a lot of different perspectives in the same time, which of course is often very confusing.

Also in the book "Healing the Light" by Anita Moorjani I found a very good description of this seemingly pathologic effects, but for me they are more a clear expression of spiritual development:

I realize that I often get very close to tears by trifles. There is a certain sadness inside me because I can now imagine the amazing beauty and freedom in the unity of all things, or sometimes because I just left from a moment of freedom and unity.

And at the same time I'm so happy and grateful and I am crying tears of regret and joy at the same time.

In addition, I feel a deep connection towards everyone, as I have never felt before. Love flows from me to each person. A form of affection that I didnt even know. I have the feeling of being connected to all on a deep level and to anticipate everything that they think and feel, almost as if we were made of one mind.

And paradoxically, I have the feeling not to be able to establish a relationship to anyone in my environment or more specifically, that others can not connect to me anymore.

It is difficult for me to get involved in discussions about our daily things.

My attention span seems to have shortened, and I often find that my thoughts wander in very different directions, even in conversations with good friends. I realize that I'm restless and impatient in social situations. I can not sit still very long or get involved in conversations about mundane routine matters.

I'm no longer interested in the news or what is going on in the world of politics, and even what my friends do and think often leaves me more or less cold.

Nothing feels real and important anymore. I feel as if I no longer fit with people on this planet and their values. My priorities have changed, and I note that I am no longer interested in what I was interested before.

I have the feeling that most people are not able to see the magic of life. They often do not share my amazement and my enthusiasm about our environment and the fact that we are just alive. They seem to be involved in their daily things, and their thoughts are directed to what they have to do next.

Often it seems to me as if the media has made people crazy and numb over decades of painstaking work and often I find the topics of conversation about it just mundane and boring.

All these problems dont seem so big to me. I have a feeling that people take life and its problems too seriously. I do not want to get entangled in all these mundane concerns.

Sixth:

Whenever I have conversations with my friends, I often notice that, because of these changes, my views are so radically different that I often do not want to get engaged in certain subjects. I now begin to realize that my ability to judge and my power of discernment is impaired. I cant draw clear dividing lines between good and bad, right or wrong anymore.

Also my whole emotionality is not as strong as I had known it from before. Sometimes I think that emotionally I 'm getting more and more cold and aloof. For others, I must look certainly often very disinterested, everything goes just through me, like in an empty room where there is nothing left. My personality, or rather, that what I had always thought of it, seems to slowly dissolve into nothingness. Something my mind is deeply frightened, but in many spiritual traditions it is classed as a normal developmental process for the inner observer.

In my social contacts a real touch hardly takes place anymore. In conversations no associations, images and judgments crop up in me. This way I often cant bring out any reactions, what must be often very strange for others.

All this is slowly making me more unsociable. I have no desire to be anywhere else than where I am now. When I look outside myself to fulfill my desires, I realize I only reinforce separation. But when I allow things just to be as they are I realize that we are all one, that everything is connected and at all my desires are already fulfilled.

Seventh: My sense of time has been extended to include a new reference : Eternity . So much is irrelevant and meaningless in front of eternity. I am no longer afraid of the finite, it gave me a new comfortable confidence in the infinity of life and all creation.
My impressions from the other side of life and death is amazingly quite similar with those from the modern particle physics, which had always fascinated me. Especially those of the latest discoveries about the quantum vacuum.

Since the uncertainty principle (Heisenberg) nothing seems to have of a constant nature. An elementary particle can suddenly appear out of nowhere and disappear there again. It appears spontaneously from a dense information field. It is now believed that the information can expand in this hyper dense quantum information field with millions Multiple speed of light, and thus any information in the universe is readily available.

Everything comes and goes from this quantum vacuum. Materia seems to be more a kind of a manifestation of the spiritual than reverse, as suspected for so long.
For me, this only proves that the basic reality is actually timeless and eternal, and only once it has manifested itself in the form of materia, time and space arises with it.
My book recommendation for this: At home in the universe - Ervin Laszlo

I should have had this book when I was 15!

All this is certainly very abstract for most people, but to me it was because of my experience as the clearest new picture of our world.

The Bladderstone:

From this time in the ICU and having a bad combination of a kateter and no ability for any kind of movements.... I have got a big bladderstone

After a useless treatment with antibiotics, trying to get a rid of a bladder infection, I had to wait half a year for my operation. Horible days with lots of pain, and no painkillers have worked, not even Valium! I ended up using Marihuana again, I didnt touch it for 25 years!

Here are some thoughts I wrote beeing again in the same hospital:

Today is the 20th day since I arrived in hospital and I have found some new energy and I have overcome yesterday's depression. I can see all the positive again now, because I realize that I am comparatively very well. I havent got a really nasty disease, and like last time, I hope to recover 100 %, and even the pain is in reality quite low.

But again and again my mostly open heart closes and loves bathing in self-pity. But often the next day my consciousness rises up and opens my heart again. I can feel love for everyone again. I see the bravery of all people and admire them, because they all withstand these diverse and often really heavy challenges which life brings:

From the old cleaning lady who has cleaned the same rooms every day for more than 30 years, fighting more with terrible boredom than against bacteria. Nurses who are always surrounded by illness and suffering, who try so hard to treat their patients as human beings rather than things.

Doctors who carry such great responsibility both to their superiors and their patients – sometimes an impossible situation. All the patients who are suffering pain and often look death in the eyes, or sit helplessly in crowded waiting rooms, hoping desperately to recieve a remedy for their suffering.

Finally, the visitors, who despite their own fears, sorrows, pain and boredom always try to give their most positive energy.

For all these reasons, a hospital is a very strange and cruel place. And yet in this place you can also find so much hope, love and compassion, which you will hardly find anywhere else.

I'm reading the memoirs of my friend Cathy, who has struggled with chronic tuberculosis much of her life. She describes a meeting with a Buddhist Lama. She had asked him for advice about all her physical problems.

He asked her if she wanted anyone else to carry this suffering for her instead. She said no, of course not, because she really wouldn't wish that on anybody else. The Lama said that we all have to carry a piece of the suffering in the world and it will always only be as much as we can bear.

I think of that every time I stroll through the hospital. Everywhere there is so much suffering and pain, and everyone has their little hopes of improvement, even if they may be small or unreal. I have already met some of these true heroes.

Here I really feel great admiration for all the hope us humans have. It is such a powerful force within us and our will to live will stay with us until the very last breath, or who knows, maybe even longer!

We are eternal souls, equiped with this seemingly supernatural power of life even though we still do so many stupid things here on earth. Even if we destroy everything on this unique planet- because we are still so incredibly childish and ignorant - Even if we haven't managed to break these eternal chains of violence and suffering up to now, we all are still the dignified bearers of a never ending hope that always tends towards life and love. - A force that is definitely stronger than anything else in the world.

Even if we tried harder, we would never be able to destroy life itself on this planet. This hope can never be destroyed as life is so much stronger than death - Even if at first sight it looks as if death will always win.

The truth is that we overlook the fact that death is not really the end. It is only a change into another dimension, and this power of hope in us is immortal. Life is immortal!

Who knows? Quite probably we may hope just as merrily after death as before! Perhaps we will hope for a new life, or that our loved ones may forgive us our faults, or that we might finally be released from the eternal cycle of death and rebirth ....

To this day no one knows with certainty, even if many us who have had near-death experiences, such as myself, put together some pieces of the puzzle. Death still remains a secret mystery, but we can tell from all reports with great certainty that death is not the end, because our consciousness is not the product of our body, but in fact it is the reverse. Our bodies are the product of consciousness.

Epilog:

The Guillain-Barre-Syndrome (GBS) is not a time-sign of our civilisation and not a symbol of the evolution of mankind such as cancer. Cancer shows us the egoism of the individual against the whole and leads to the end of both. A GBS does not show like cancer, the inability to recognize the meaning of life and also to be able not to live it. A GBS changes a life very much, and I find it is a way to more consciousness and positive thinking. It can be such a powerful awakener ...from a very long sleep.

A fellow sufferer, by the way a famous marathon runner, once wrote about this disease, it is as rare as a winning in the lottery. In fact, only every hundred thousand get it. But I think it is also as valuable as a winning the lottery, because first it takes away everything, only to give it back to you piece by piece. Through this process both myself and everyone around me becomes more aware of what a precious gift life is. If you look away from all the suffering with GBS, it can be actually a wonderful disease. But its also very clear: The best illness is nothing.

In any case Iam very happy about my desease. I could also have got an incurable disease, such as Multiple sclerosis, in which the chances of recovery are not as good as with GBS.

In Genral each patient will sooner or later come to a point where you will be very depressed, because all loved ones are of course very stressed and debited around you.
Many of us have big trouble to ask for help, we will always prefer to manage everything ourselfes, no one like to be a burden. For many it is also a challenge because they do not like to be in the spotlight.

Mostly I also prefer to be inconspicuous. But with a GBS you suddenly get assigned the principal actor, and that can really overwhelm sometimes. But man grows through challenges if he can accept it. In this sense, to all patients : Just try to enjoy all this attention you get!

I realized that my illness was like a stone thrown into a smooth lake, and the waves generated big rings around me. All who knew me were very affected by my story.

For many, I was always the epitome of a natural healthy life. I live in a beautiful countryside as dropouts in Spain, am a vegetarian, non smoker, never drink alcohol, no coffee, and eat only good stuff. And still have lots of fun. So why just me ....

All thought about the inevitable transience of life, and about diseases and death..... And for many, this was like a rousing off the treadmill of life.

Especially, of course, for my wife, my children, my parents and my best friends whose lives I had put completely upside down. My wife came every day all the way to Granada to visit me, my parents have dropped everything in Germany, went to a hotel in Granada, to be with me in the hospital for many weeks. Every day I got visits from one of my friends, it was so touching and beautiful. I dont know how many miles were driven for me... all this attention has been a little uncomfortable for me.

But as for me, it was for all a springboard to sort outlook on life. To re- recognize what it really is important, to be more conscious of life and to enjoy it in every moment. Not least because despite my suffering I felt how much I love to be alife and how precios it is. Yes, and that's the real point in here, the love of life!

A serious illness makes one beeing a symbol for others. A symbol of vitality, of healing power, of beeing a heroic survivor of such a deadly disease. Your will to live and your extraordinary power of regeneration is now available as a example for others, it gets a light in the darkness. It gives hope and strength to others. Everyone who knew you will also have to think of you when something happens to himself, and that for all time!

So you create something timeless, something very beautiful for eternity.

And of that alone, you have already given very much! Please never forget!

It is very valuable, because it really is something very special, something not just anyone can give.

And I think the other now can take a little bit care about you now. Most do enjoy that even very much! Indeed, it is nice to be able to do something for others. And you give them now the chance to do so.

I was filled up with so much gratitude that I was almost bursting. The tears were rolling down very often, just like for every little thing. But it was always nice for me and for others.

Except for Isa, the most experienced nurse in the whole hospital, which was never able to deal with my tears, because I almost brought her hard wall to melt....

Everybody just as much as he can give . That's all right.

So, in short.... you as a patient should not worry about the others, because they have already enough to worry about you. And its unfair when they have to see you in these extra troubles.... Worries really benefit no one. Concerns are here nothing more than down pulling forces. It is very similar with guilt feelings, even that benefit neither anyone. Try to be grateful for all that is given to you, and this joy and love is doubled then in everyone. So everything is penetrated with a much more beautiful and positive energy. And that is what all living beings want.

You can find this story also here: http://michelgeschichten.blogspot.com.es/2013/03/english.html

Feel free to write me if you would like:

solarmichel@hotmail.com

Solar-Michel

Reactions to this report:

I got this email from the chief doctor of the UVI. And I am very pleased that he gave me the kind permission to translate and use them here.

Dear Solarmichel,

or as it seems they’re calling you in Orgiva Miguel el Solar:

I’m Dr. José Pomares, one of the doctors who looked after you in the ICU. I’ve just read the story you wrote about how you experienced your illness in the ICU and I’m really impressed because the patients who survive from a critical condition very rarely have the capacity or the will to express their experience in any way. It seems that not wanting to remember what has happened to them helps them to forget the whole thing and they think this will help them to recover. You, on the contrary, have taken the decision to communicate your experiences and talk about how wonderful the gift of life itself is. So often we live, complaining about things we don’t like, about what is making us feel bad and this prevents us enjoying the wonderful gift of life. Every day it is a gift in which we can love and do good. We’re always expecting to be loved, and we forget that LIFE is in loving.

May God bless you, your marvellous family and your friends who love you!

This email I received recently from an old friend in Berlin, who wishes to remain anonymous,. I have shortened it for here a bit:

Hy Michel

Your report is so close and so human, but you have experienced a real superhuman things.

You really do not describe scaremongering scenes, but for me a huge feeling great fear remains. I'm still trying to figure out what it is ...
You decided for life! Where I often would so happily like to be dead, and I take that very special. I feel your report can be used almost like a psychedelic trip. It seems to me, you can take out what you want. Probably I will discover something new reading it every time again, and it has already changed my thoughts and what I experience.

Wow, you are really a incredible family! Sooo positive, by nothing at all discouraged or in doubt!

You are the absolute example for me, as being facing life through and through. Through all the deep valleys, as they may still show up as often.

I am glad that all of you loves life so much. It's incredibly nice to see that and I wish for you that it will always remains.

My mother, who often visited me in the realy bad time in the UVI, wrote these lines for me:

It was a shock! Never in my long life I had seen something like this. Who layed there was my flesh and blood, my son, who was almost never sick, always full of energy, funny and loving eyes, and always a smile on his lips.

In these lips, now dried up, had no smile anymore and stood wide open. They had put a thick tube or rod in them, and this was lashed by a white cloth from ear to ear, as if to suffocate him. His dimples on the cheeks were squeezed. His eyes looked at me, but they were wide open and quite rigid, expressionless !

I wanted to hug him, but that was not possible anywhere on the arms and legs, he was wired up and it beeped, whirred, buzzed, ticking from all corners of the room. So I could only stroke him delicately over the head, but only on the forehead, everything else was covered with this tightly bound cloth. The hands and fingers, as well with cables everywhere, were powerless and without movement.
I felt so helpless and lost and infinitely sad. I wanted to cry uncontrollably. But I had to pull myself together, I didnt wanted to worry my beloved son or upset him even more. Sometimes his eyes were not quite as rigid, and I thought his eyes told me, "Help me !".

And I was just standing around there and couldnt do nothing, what a cruelty. I wanted to lie down instead of him and put it all on me. Just swop with him, because I've already lived my life and I am old, but Michel still has his whole life ahead with two small children who still need the whole, healthy and happy, caring dad so much. Oh how this is so unfair.

It also was so bad that we could stay with him for only some minutes. There was a long corridor , where I finally could cry silently. The chief doctor who treated him saw me standing there and he took me into his arms, and said, It will be all good again. That felt so good.

Outside the door the grandchildren were waiting for us, so I had to be very brave and not cry again. Once I was crying but because I thought the kids did not see me. They immediately ask me if dad was angry at me. Then I told it all to them and we all three cried together.

But there was always one comfort, one day he will be healthy again. Almost all survived this disease.

Lindi Daniek