Hypnosis Silver Spring

Nude from my waist up I was strapped to a table, the lights were bright and a curtain was put in front of my face so I couldn't see what was going on.  The anesthesia allowed me to be conscious but care little about what was happening.

      It had all happened so fast: the rush referral, the halter, the immediate hospitalization, two days in the cardiac unit, the transfer, the decatherization, and now this defibrillator/pacemaker installation procedure.

      Although I had made the decision to go ahead with it, the doubts were still there.  Was it really needed?  Was my heart that bad?  I probably was in denial because the damage came so suddenly.  A virus had caused my heart to enlarge, to beat irregularly, and to lose half of its ejection power.  Here now, bound and blind, it appeared that there was nothing I could do -- or was there?  

      As the time went by it seemed as though everyone was having a good time.   I heard light joking while about five technicians were watching every move of the doctor on their computer screens.  "I think it should be a three,"  said one.

      "Nah, too wide, do the two and a half said another."

      From what I have gathered, the wires were first hooked to the heart and then fished back through a vein system to the incision area which was under the outside edge of my left collar bone.  I noticed later on the overhead computer screen the vein area that they had been working on.  It reminded me of the root system of a small weed with the branches breaking into smaller branches and so on.

        The sounds of Pink Floyd filled the room as my surgeon did the tedious work of piecing together little wires through the web of veins that led back to the incision site. "That'll be a four." I heard in the distance. 

       "Fine", she said.  But a few minutes later I heard her say in a displeased tone, "It won't go around the corner!" 

       Right then it came to me -- a non-directed short dream that came from somewhere deep in my subconscious.  I saw myself on all fours, crawling through a clean, well lit tunnel, dragging a large rope which was tied to a big wire.  I quickly came to an elbow in the tunnel and made my way to the right. The rope strained and I looked back to see the wire resisting the turn.  Pulling harder the wire popped into the tunnel and I awoke from the dream with the doctor saying, "How did that happen?" The tension in the room evaporated as everyone started talking lightly again. 

      "Thank you Lord," I prayed.

      Then an idea popped into my head -- if by some chance my mind had helped the vein to accept that wire, then maybe I could help in other ways.  I listened to the chatter for an opportunity and quickly put myself into self-hypnosis.  I most likely was already in a trance state between the anesthesia and all the emotions, but I didn't realize it.  It didn't seem much time had passed when the doctor was telling them it was time to wrap it up.  "All that's left is to make the pocket between the muscle and fat, insert the unit, and close it up," she said.

     That was my cue.  I immediately started visualizing an opening under the incision.  Many years ago I worked in a butcher shop and could imagine the semi-transparent covering on the muscles and the layer of light colored fat on top of it.  I saw in my mind's eye a slight gap between the fat and the muscle and imagined the defibrillator/pacemaker unit slipping in and out, further and further each time.  The size of the unit is almost as wide as a pack of cigarettes but shorter and about half the depth.   I continually visualized it going in and out until all of a sudden I heard, "All finished."

       "You just have to put it in and close it up?" questioned a technician from the other side of the room.

      "No, we're all done -- we are finished," she said confidently.

      "What?" 

      "Yes, it slipped right in, it was amazing."

      The mood in the room lightened into what felt like pre-holiday bliss.  As they did the final things the technicians discussed how my procedure was close to breaking the shortest time record.  They joked about how long some of the other well respected doctors took to do the same procedure.  One said, "I was here for eight hours one time with doctor so and so." 

      "What's the time?" 

      "Two hours and ten minutes" was the reply. 

      The doctor couldn't hold in her exuberance as she rushed to the waiting room to tell my wife the good news.  "All went perfectly", she said.  "It was the easiest procedure like this I ever did."

      Did I help?  I don't know, but after being wheeled into the staging room, my family came to the gurney and I told them what happened.  Tears rolled down my cheeks as I related the power of the visualizations that came to me and how it appeared that somehow, maybe in the tiniest way, I had assisted in the procedure.

      It's certainly a fact that pre-surgery hypnosis can help a patient to have successful surgery.  Also, post-surgery hypnosis has been shown to significantly reduce healing time.  Now I believe that it may be possible to produce positive results by using guided imagery during surgery.  

     If research supports this, I can envision our medical system re-assessing all surgical procedures to find situations where mind over body can be used for better success and to save lives.