Eben Alexander's NDE - 6

After seven days in a coma, Dr. Wade met with Alexander’s wife, Holley, and her close friend, Sylvia, and said to them: If Eben doesn’t show some real improvement within the next twelve hours, we will probably recommend discussing termination of antibiotics. A week in coma with severe bacterial meningitis is already beyond the limits of any reasonable expectation of recovery. Given those prospects, it might be better to let nature take its course.

Alexander’s young son, Bond, who had been listening at the door, ran back into his father’s hospital room and climbed up onto his bed.

“Then he pulled up my eyelids and said, directly into my empty, unfocused eyes, You’re going to be okay, Daddy. You’re going to be okay. He kept on repeating it, believing, in his child’s way, that if he said it enough times, surely he would make it true.

“Sylvia went into the ICU room and stood by the bed next to Bond, as he sat silently rubbing my hand . . . as Sylvia and Bond stared into my slack face, resolutely refusing to accept what they had just heard from the doctor, something happened. My eyes opened.

“Sylvia quickly brought Holley and Dr. Wade into the room, and Dr. Wade carefully extracted the breathing tube from Alexander’s throat.

All is well, I said, radiating that blissful message as much as speaking the words. I looked at each of them, deeply, acknowledging the divine miracle of our very existence. Don’t worry . . . all is well, I repeated, to assuage any doubt.

Eben Alexander, Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife (Simon & Schuster, 2012).