Back from the Hospital with a little NDE in my pocket

I haven't talked about this yet.

Back in late January, I fell terribly ill. I didn’t know what was happening. I thought I had a gal stone or appendicitis. I was sick for about five days. The pain was incredible. I had 103ºF fevers twice a day. My wife was taking care of my every need, and I feel in love with her again as a result.

You might have seen my GiveSendGo campaign, which you can see here: https://www.givesendgo.com/deschampshelpfund.

I had to go to the hospital today and I just posted an update about what happened. I won’t spoil the story but I will tell you that I haven’t shared publicly something that happened to me on the 1st of February of this year.

It’s something that changed my life forever. I wasn’t sure if I should share it with anyone. I wasn’t sure if it was for me and me alone. But after much contemplation and prayer, I decided it wasn’t just for me. I think it’s for more than just me—even though I’m arguably the greatest beneficiary thereof.

Below, you’ll learn more about it and you’ll learn about what happened today at he hospital.

If this is all new to you, take a look at the GiveSendGo link, which I have the whole story laid out. Don’t feel pressured to donate. I’m sharing it for the story not the donation link.

I’d love to know your thoughts about it all. And I hope you share that with me in the comments or in an email if something more private is better for you (justin@vigilant.news).

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Hello everyone,

I'm happy to report the hospital visit was a great success.

Here is the video update I made while I was at the hospital: 

https://twitter.com/JustnStillness/status/1776359436321190359

I woke up feeling fine only to have more scorching nerve pain pulse through me later that morning. As I was changing the bandage after a morning work session, I noticed that the tube had slipped down quite a lot in my back. I could see the vent holes in it and I thought to myself: "Maybe I can just push it back in." I tried a bit, but it was barely budging and the lash of electric fire as I hit a nerve gave me pause. I prepared to go to the hospital, reluctantly, but also hopeful that maybe I'd get some good news. I drove over and got admitted to the ER. As doctor was removing bandage to examine the drain aperture, the drain tube fell completely out right into his hand. 

I was hoping that the abscess was fully drained but I didn't know for sure. I still have some pain and lack of mobility in my right leg, along with numbness in my thigh and hip. I was worried that the abscess had moved deeper into my pelvis and that while it was draining it was also pressing into an area that would require additional, very invasive sugary. 

The Doctor ordered a CT scan to take a look around in there. The nurse came to collect me and we headed toward the scanning room. Upon arrival she informed me that she had to inject me with a contrast agent, something that would make me feel a strange warming feeling all throughout my body, especially in my groin. The last time, the nurse said it would feel like I had wet my pants. At the time, I didn't quite feel anything. But this time was quite different. As I lay there, paints pulled down to my knees to avoid messing up the scanners, inverse prostrate on the CT scanning bed, I felt the chemical warmth pulse through me. The sensation was strange, but totally tolerable. 

I went back to the ER room and waited for the results. I decided to work on a new project, Mind Mapping a new content and influencer marketing strategy for Ascent Nutrition, the new job I got at the beginning of the year. The company is small and a pleasure to work with. Lance, who owns and founded it, is a dear friend who has been helping people get some of the best herbs and natural treatments for nutrition, brain, lung, and hormonal health. He lost his father to anti-depressants, and he dedicated himself to finding natural ways to help people—and, remarkably, he did. He's got some of the best products on the market in his category. Having tried the products myself, and having evaluated their quality, I know with great certainty he's helping a lot of people. But that's not enough. His dream, now my dream, is to help the millions of people who don't know about the great life quality improvements he has to offer. 

I sat there ready to plot out the deep psychology and spiritual connections to the messaging we're going to be delivering in our new and improved marketing. It's not even marketing as we normally think of it, like obnoxious ads that have as much appeal as the tube that had ben shoved into my back for my own good. No, we were going to inspire, enrich, and educate our fellows while we also told them about the benefits of Lance's passionate supplements and healing concoctions.

My new found joy is mind mapping, taking my love of learning to a whole new level. It's like it was meant for me. I already have a mind capable of visualizing a lot of moving parts in a complete and comprehensive way, an omniological way. What's that? Omniology is a field of study I coined myself, but it's as old as time. It's the idea of studying everything, within reason, and then using the patterns you gain from that macro view to study the micro, as above so below, as it is in heaven so shall it be on earth. It works amazingly well. When I discovered it years ago, I assumed the brightest minds on earth had to be doing this all the time. And to be sure, some are, but it's actually a very rare way of learning and thinking. That said, it's as easy as breathing once you know how to do it. It's something toddlers do as a matter of every day life and it's slowly put to bed as we get older and lose connection with the insatiable curiosity that beats at the heart of all life. (I'll share more about it in a project I'm working on which you can learn about on my substack https://justinstillness.substack.com/p/im-writing-a-book-about-elections)

As I sat there, having one of the more potent moments of creative realization about how to organize the strategy for Ascent, the doctor strolls in. He casually says that the scan came back clean; I hadn't a blip of abscess puss left in my body. 

Here's the update I made before I started writing this: 

https://twitter.com/JustnStillness/status/1776359900970418398

The sense of relief was palpable. I was already feeling the buzz of creative energy, an addiction that far transcends anything I've experienced before, but this was like throwing gas on a barnyard fire. Poof, what a show! I felt so good. I felt like I could do back flips. 

For nearly 2 months I've had the displeasure of wincing with pain every time I sat down, went to the bathroom, turned my body to the right or left to reach for something. I got used to sleeping with the feeling of a knife being driven into my back. And the smell of rotting flesh was my constant campaign. (God bless my wife and close friends who so graciously endured it all to spend time with me). At times, it was nothing more than an annoyance. At other times, some of the most intense pain I've ever felt. Recently, the nerve pain got a lot worse. I spent the better part of several days feeling the electric fire of nerve pain coursing through my right side and leg. I'd wake up as if I was being tortured in a black site somewhere in the middle east. But now that was all over. And I felt like I had my life back. 

So here I am, sitting in a cafe, enjoying a cup of oat milk latte, not worrying one bit if I'm going to accidentally catch the tube on my way out.

Thank you all so much for the support, I can't say enough how much it meant to me knowing so many of you cared. And I can't help but be reminded that this is how it should be. God gave us so many challenges to overcome so that we can do it together. I feel so grateful for knowing this simple truth and I want to share it with all of you (If you've made it this far in the update).

As someone who studies the deep law, philosophy, and psychology of spiritual realities, the way they affect us physically, intellectually, and emotionally, and all the rest, I can tell you that intellectual intimacy, and intimacy in general, is the mana from heaven that keeps us going despite all the trials in the world. We need to get back to that place in our civilization where it becomes central again. Modern life has become so filled with business and hurry, taking a moment to open our hearts and minds to our fellow man is a luxury few know, and even fewer enjoy. It take every pain you can imagine and turns it into a bonding moment that will last forever, one that keeps giving and giving as time goes on. Good God it's such magic and so few us wield it, and so many deride and make fun of open heartedness to the detriment of billions. But it's the difference between life and death, that is, living like the dead or making every moment filled with life. I've known about this technically for nearly five years now but I want to know it in all ways from hereon out. 

I love my wife, I love my fellows in the work I do, and I love all children of God, my fellow man, so much. I really do. When I had my NDE-type experience on the first of February, right in the middle of this ordeal, just before it was about to get a lot worse, I woke up feeling so connected to everything. I'd watch my wife, Madi, the love of my life, make me something to eat, feeling totally helpless, and crying tears of joy knowing how much I loved her and how much God loves us for creating such a universe that I could have gone through the most painful experience in my life and still see so much wonder and beauty in the world. 

I hope to write a book about it all one day and do my best to put in words what has changed me forever. I was already very much in love with life and God's incredible masterpiece, His creation, but this bout with near-death has make a crescendo of it all. I didn't even have to get into a horrible car accident to do it!

You have my love, my gratitude, and my hope that you can find a way to open your heart and your mind to the things I discovered over these past few weeks. 

Gratitude, 

Justin

PS: There's still a lot of healing to do and I will be posting updates here for those who want to know what's going on. I'm going to see an Ayurvedic doctor to see if he can answer the question of why this happened and what can be done to ensure it doesn't happen again. I feel a lot of gratitude for the mainstream medical system but I also feel like they've let me down and let so many doctors, nurses, and patients down. How can we know so little about health and yet have so much money thrown at the problem?... a mystery I'll try to solve one day.