I would like to describe what happened to me on March 19th,1998. I was working as a manager with a computer company in NJ. I commuted every day from NY. By car. I was fine until I sat down in a meeting with my manager and two other people. One of those people was complaining about my boss, who I truly liked and thought he was doing a good job. I was getting more and more upset with the direction of the meeting. I guess the stress was getting to me. I started to raise my voice when all of a sudden, I got very nervous and fear started to spread all over me. I wanted to scream and ask for help. The back of my neck started to hurt and then a horrific pain started from the front of my head towards the rear. It felt like someone was pulling my hair, only much worse. I could not stand up and could not keep my eyes open. I also had such a bad stiff neck. I went to my car to lay down for a while and believe it or not, had a smoke or two. I was crying my eyes out because of the pain.
The fear went away, when the pain came. I could not go home cause I could not drive and my wife could not come to pick me up because there was a fire on the GW bridge and no traffic was going thru. My boss drove me to a hotel for the night. I took a hot shower and went to bed. When I awoke, I was hungry like I never was hungry before. I had a big breakfast. My head still hurt, but not as much as the first day. I went home and visited my family doctor who mind you now, had been treating me for ten years. My blood pressure was never over 130, yet he saw nothing wrong that my pressure was at 180. The only vice I have is smoking less than a pack a day. He said that I had tension headaches and muscle spasms. Gave me some pain killers to no avail. Went back to him the next day and he gave me stronger pain killers, still no good. On the fourth day I asked my son to drive me to the hospital, since my wife was now away on a business trip since she thought I was ok.
Went to one hospital, where the line was real long, flu season. Left there for another one where the nurse saw me at once and had a cat scan done which showed that I was bleeding. Next thing I know, I awoke when they were wheeling me in to my room in the intensive care. My wife was there and so was a doctor. I said to him, "am I going to die" and he said, "I will do the best I can". Talking about scary.
To make it short, I spent two weeks in critical condition. No surgery was performed the first days I was there due to swelling of the brain. When the swelling went down, they could not find any trace of where the bleeding came from. It seemed that the bleeding mixed with my spinal fluid and I guess that is more scary then what people were telling me. They wanted to go in, but to repair what? No sign of where the aneurysm happened. I went home after 15 days. No side affects. Short memory losses in the beginning. After I was home for a few weeks, I started to remember what I thought was a dream.!
To this day, I don't know if it was a dream or something else. I saw myself in a tunnel. Not a bright one, yet not a dark one. On one side of the tunnel, was my Uncle, than my Father and than my Aunt. Directly across from them was my Mother-inlaw. All these four people had passed away. My Father from a stroke. My Father was waving to me to come to him. As I was walking to him, my Aunt was waving me to go back. To stay away. Also, I must add that during the first day of pain, I was praying to the Virgin Mary. I asked her to help me. To not let me die. I think that is why, I am here today. Because of her.
The only problems that I have since that day is that, after having a steady employment record, never been let go etc., it seems that I have not been able to hold on to a job for more than a year and also have been going thru periods of depression. I would like to know if this is normal for people who survive.