Be Not Afraid of, Paula Shene/cover by Patricia Schaefer [books to get back into reading txt] 📗

In my thirties, I had a stressful job and compensated by drinking and smoking heavily.

I was director of two divisions at our local college when thirty-seven administrators were laid off, their positions eliminated, absorbed by sister branches of the university umbrella. Myself and another administrator were not given the six month notice but rather the decision to release us was last minute, given only two weeks with severance. My husband, one of the laid off professors, left me as sole budget worrier.

I had a major stroke the night of my final day at work. I had suffered with uticaria for twenty-one years. After the second stroke it was determined that the amalgam in my teeth caused mercury poisoning, the allergic reaction exacerbated by my drinking and smoking. A large water sac strangled the main stem into my brain.

I did see myself on the table twice, going and coming back. I rushed toward a blinding light, being turned around, after arguing to stay and told, "You cannot stay, it is not your time! Now, go back!”

I was then again above my body and within a nanosecond, into my inert form with the doctors saying, "She's back."

Publication Date: 10-23-2011

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