- "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
--- Mark Twain
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- The Road to Hell is Paved with Bailout Money
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- My name is Edgar J. Steele.
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- Life is funny. Death isn't. Trust me on this one.
I died on November 21, 2009.
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- Ironically, just two weeks prior to my death I sent a
message out to this list that said, in discussing my sabbatical from any
sort of public speaking or appearance during the latter part of the year:
"It actually has grown kind of fun to watch the speculation over whether
or not I died this summer." It seemed amusing at the time.
Little did I know.
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- On November 21 I was sitting in my study, reading, when
I felt a little "pop" in my chest. I sat there for 15 minutes,
fearing that I would pass out if I dared try to stand. Finally, I staggered
to my feet, got help and rushed to the local hospital emergency room, where
I was quickly diagnosed with a condition serious enough to justify being
"choppered" to the nearest cardiac specialty hospital unit.
In fact, they told me that I very likely would not live long enough to
get there. Fortunately, there just happened to be a helicopter parked
on the roof at that very time.
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- The surgeon's team met me in the elevator at the receiving
facility and began work then and there, so far gone was I. My blood pressure
had gone to zero - technically, I was dead. Nip and tuck, as they say,
but somehow they managed to snatch me back. "Seconds," the surgeon
later told me, was all that then separated me from eternity. I spent several
hours on a heart-lung machine that day, then 9 days unconscious and on
a respirator, then another two weeks in the ICU, barely able to move.
It has been a long, slow, painful journey back.
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- Turns out that the 15 minutes I spent sitting at my desk
when this first occurred likely saved my life. My surgeon remarked upon
the extensive clotting at the point of rupture that served to direct the
blood for a time, clotting that would not have occurred had I been moving
around immediately.
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- I didn't have a heart attack, but what is called an "ascending
aortic aneurism." The main artery, the aorta, blew out just where
it exited my heart, kind of like a garden hose suddenly failing right at
the faucet. The surgeon replaced a large section, together with the main
heart valve, and has pronounced me "good as new." The odds of
my survival were very, very slim - on the order of 3 or 4 per cent. No
explanation as to why this happened. Some things just happen.
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- It wasn't my time, apparently. All my life, I have known
that something important is coming - something I just have to live to see.
It hasn't happened yet. I had a very significant dream about this when
I was 4 years old. Big things are coming. I've told you this repeatedly.
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- So I have a good excuse for having been silent all this
time, folks. Thank you for the inquiries and the kind words expressing
support. Will I be back? Yes, eventually. Will I be just as acerbic?
Probably worse. Familiarity breeds contempt. After I beat prostate cancer
12 years ago, I became very unimpressed with the disease when others contracted
it.
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- Now that I have visited the land of the dead (sorry -
no touchy-feely "near-death" experiences for me, not a one),
I find that I am unimpressed with a good deal of the suffering that takes
place in the world. Let me illustrate my lack of sensitivity for you:
Have you noticed the similarity between the aftermaths of the Katrina
hurricane and the Haiti earthquake? TV films show hordes of Blacks just
standing around or looting and hurting each other, doing nothing except
complaining about the lack of aid forthcoming from the rest of us. They
could be cleaning up, digging out bodies, burying their dead, helping each
other, just as seen in similar disasters at other times and in other places.
But, no. Ask yourself why. Read my book for a detailed explanation.
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- Yes, I will be back eventually.
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- New America - an idea whose time has come.
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- My name is Edgar J. Steele. Thanks for listening. Please
visit my web site, www.NickelRant.com, for other messages just like this
one. -ed
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- Copyright ©2010, Edgar J. Steele
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- Forward as you wish. Permission is granted to circulate
this article
- and its related audio file among private individuals
and groups,
- post on all Internet sites and publish in full in all
not-for-profit
- publications. Contact author for all other rights,
which are reserved.
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- http://www.nickelrant.com/rants/100115rant.htm
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