On May 22, 2023, I died of respiratory and heart failure from stage 3 sepsis due to an undiagnosed gall stone. I had been struggling with a mystery illness that had seen me collapse in a grocery store on May 9th 2023, and almost again on May 16th. Both episodes resulted in emergency room visits, but I had been misdiagnosed and my case slipped through the cracks due to a DNA mutation related to the numbing of pain. 

During my emergency room visit on May 9th, I had been told that I collapsed from a severe allergic reaction for which there was no known trigger. I had ingested nothing but a cup of coffee that morning and thought the diagnosis was odd. I was treated for an “allergic reaction” and sent home that day. The emergency room doctor told me I would be a “hard case to diagnose” because there was no known trigger for the collapse. Obviously, this made me paranoid because I didn’t know what was causing the “allergic reaction.” Sure enough, I was back in the emergency room a week later. This time, I didn’t collapse, but I felt the symptoms coming on. I was having trouble breathing, my body was tingling, and I felt nausea and vertigo. Again, I was given the same diagnosis of a “severe allergic reaction.” And again, no trigger for the reaction. I was given fluids, drugs, watched for a few hours and sent home.

For the next week, I proceeded to get increasingly sicker. A couple of days after the second emergency room visit, I thought I came down with the flu, covid, or something on top of the medical mystery I was already dealing with. It turns out my second emergency room visit was the point of no return. I was now severely sick. I had a hard time eating with little appetite. I was achy, sore, dehydrated, nauseous, weak, cold, and just plain miserable. It was 75F degrees outside and I was on the couch in a sweatshirt, sweatpants, with the heat on, and still shivering. I thought I had picked up some illness from my last emergency room visit. I used my normal route of treatment, which was lots of soup and rest. At the time of this event, I was 46 years old, extremely fit, an athlete, on the keto diet, and fasting for a day a week. I didn’t have any health issues and by all accounts I was extremely fit and healthy.

It’s now the end of the second week. I had lost a few pounds, could barely eat, and was sleeping 16 hours a day. My legs were so weak that I couldn't walk much or leave the house. My only exercise was letting my dog out the back door. I was still freezing, in a sweatshirt and sweatpants, and with the heat on in the house in May. I noticed my vision was getting fuzzy and my skin was turning from pale to yellow, and then gray.

At 4:30am on May 22, 2023, I woke up in bed. I wasn’t sure why I got up so early, but something was off. My body felt strange, but my mind was placidly calm. I tried to get out of bed and head to the bathroom. I stumbled, but set myself against the walls and used my arms to get down the hallway. When I managed to get to the bathroom, the room started to wobble. I reached for the sink and propped myself up. My legs felt like toothpicks and I noticed I was dragging my right leg. I looked into the mirror and saw what resembled a corpse. My skin had turned gray and it seemed to sag a bit on my face. I was barely breathing, extremely dizzy, and incredibly weak. I looked away from the mirror and down at my hands to see if the gray skin-color from the mirror was just a hallucination. It wasn’t. It was then that I consciously came to the realization that I was dying.

I now understood why my mind was so placidly calm. I didn’t feel any regrets, fear, or any emotion that was clinging to life. I wasn’t sad, or mad, or feeling anything really. I didn’t think of my dog, or my family or friends. All of that was somehow behind me. It was just me and whatever process I was going to go through. I felt pure acceptance of death. I took one last look in the mirror and the next thing I know, I’m gone. I was immersed in pure darkness, a moving darkness.

There wasn’t a tunnel of light, bright lights and shapes, or angels and demons. There was darkness, a moving darkness, and then I was standing somewhere else. I didn’t have a recollection of anything other than where I was at that moment. I still felt like myself, and it didn’t feel like I had died. In fact, I hadn’t realized that I had passed. 

I noticed that I could see/feel 360 degrees. I felt like I was standing, though I did not see any arms or legs or bodily features. But I felt like I had them. I was outdoors, it was dusk, and I was in a foggy environment. I was standing on short wild grass that was in between two green hills. I could see the smooth gray rocks sticking out from the grass. It looked like a place where sheep could graze. I didn’t feel any temperature or wind and I didn’t hear anything at that moment. The fog formed what seemed like a 10-to-20-yard barrier around me. I couldn’t make anything out beyond the fog barrier, but I could feel something just beyond it. I started moving and I wasn’t walking as much as I felt like I was floating. Hard to explain because I felt weightless and not weightless at the same time. The grass felt very much alive. It emitted a light, and I could see into it.

I noticed a man sitting on a rock on a hill about 8 feet above me, as if he had been waiting for me. Up until this point, I had no idea that I had passed on to the other side. As I made eye contact with the man on the rock, it was as if he had dropped a ball of information or a ball of answers into my head. I now realized that I had passed. I knew everything that I needed to know about what had happened in a second of telepathic communication. He didn’t speak vocally; but it was as if he was speaking everything instantly into my head. I didn’t feel any fear, and I felt him welcoming me. It felt as if I knew the man.

The man moved from the rock and down to me. I began to understand he was not a man at all. He was a being, an entity, not a human. I didn’t know how I knew him, but I did. It was like seeing a long-lost friend, but you can't place how you know him. I certainly didn’t recognize him from the life I had just left, but he was familiar.

It was then that we reviewed my life. We watched a series of life decisions unfold in front of me and I was being made aware of what I could have done differently. I saw it all and felt it all. I felt every scenario, even from the other individual’s involvement in situations with me. I was also shown a number of times where I thought that I was alone and when the entity was there with me. It was an incredible feeling of love. All-encompassing, welcoming, whole, unconditional love.

My life review did not focus on how many f-bombs I dropped, how many women I slept with, how much I drank, my abandonment of religion, porn, money, nonsense, or how I might have acted like a child. It didn’t focus on really much of what we refer to as 'bad behavior' here on earth. What it focused on, in my case, was interactions with people. We looked at whether I used my gifts and talents to help people and how I made them feel during those interactions. I was shown how we are all connected - everywhere, everyone, everything, and how we are meant to be helping each other progress through our human existences. 

During my life review, I was shown two major life paths with many minor branches. One path was the life I had just left. The other path was where I used my gifts and talents to help others. This was something I had never focused on before. The being then offered me a choice to return to my body on earth and help others or stay on the other side. I made the choice to come back and share my experience and what I was shown. The decision was not made lightly. I made the decision in part due to my life review, how it felt, and knowing that I had been on the wrong path.

It was communicated to me that my return would be very difficult. Life would not be the same for me. My physical recovery would be long and painful, and many things would change.

The being then showed me many teachings about reality, perception, and how we are all connected. They were all telepathic and could be felt. The only way I can describe the teachings is 'full circle.' Every teaching revealed a complete circle of knowledge. I was told that many of the teachings would unfold and make themselves visible to me as my time on earth progressed.

It was at that point a light appeared. It started very small but continued to grow larger and larger until I was completely encompassed in it. The light was like a bright, golden white and felt like the most indescribable love.

The next thing I know, I’m waking up in the bathroom. Everything felt incredibly heavy, even the air. I was amazed by how much physical stuff we feel here that we don't feel on the other side. I felt bitterly cold as I reached for the thermometer on the counter. My temperature was 94F degrees. I felt out of it. Everything here felt fake and make-believe compared to everything on the other side. The other side felt incredibly real. The time was 7:30am. It was like I had one leg in this life and one leg on the other side. It was also almost as if I was watching myself in third person. 

The next 3 months after the “event” were horrible - finally getting diagnosed properly, examining all the organ damage, having doctors give you the look of - “how are you still alive?” I ended up losing 30 pounds, my hair fell out, my teeth were loose, my eyesight almost disappeared. I couldn’t digest anything but liquids, I was too weak to drive, and I could barely walk. I had a hard time breathing and would sleep for 18 hours at a time.

I remembered where I had gone after dying, and what I had seen and felt. The only problem was that I didn’t want to believe what had happened, and didn't want to talk about it. I thought to myself - I was hallucinating. It wasn’t until I saw a number of doctors that I started to understand that I survived something that was not survivable, and it couldn't have been a hallucination, it was too real. Sepsis can lead to organ failure and death in as little as 12 hours from the earliest signs of infection. The risk of dying from sepsis increases by as much as 8% for every hour of delayed treatment. EVEN with treatment, which requires heavy doses of antibiotics, 40% of people with septic shock and stage 3 sepsis, still die. I went 2 weeks, was misdiagnosed, didn't receive any treatment for sepsis, and died in my bathroom.

I am still recovering a year and a half later. It took a long time to come to terms with the fact that I had a Near-Death Experience. It is seared into my mind, unforgettable. I started taking note of the many changes within me and my life that had no explanation whatsoever, and there has not been a single piece of my life left untouched. Changes in spirituality, friend groups, career, perceptions, life choices, entertainment choices, food, aversion to negativity, psychic abilities, overwhelming desire to help others, compassion, love for others, and on and on and on. Most importantly, I now have a seemingly endless supply of compassion for others and a desire to help. I am thankful for my experience and I am happy it has placed me on a path to help others.