In commemoration of the 21st anniversary of the enthronement of Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo on September 24, we are presenting testimonials from Jetsunma’s students about her impact on their lives. This story is from Ani Sangye Drolma.

In April, 2007, I found myself back in the hospital for the second round of pneumonia in two months. I was in the middle of being treated for Wegener’s granulomatosis and numerous complications, and was in pretty sorry shape. During the last two days in the hospital, I developed a strange neck tightness. At home it grew worse. My vision started to deteriorate. An opthalmologist diagnosed swollen optic nerves (papilledema) and ordered a brain MRI. He sent me home to see if it resolved itself.

Two days later, I awoke and while still in that half-asleep daze, I felt myself slipping away, dying. Suddenly, a voice inside me shouted something like, “You can’t die! Jetsunma didn’t say it was okay!” Whatever that was, it was enough to startle me to my senses. I forced myself to wake up all the way. I could tell that something was off, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I had an odd sense of apprehension and—completely unlike me when I’m sick—I was afraid to be alone. I called a friend to come over, and she lined up helpers for the day. I felt a little silly asking for people to come sit with me while I figured out what was happening. Meanwhile, I got a message to Jetsunma, asking for her blessing and prayers.

By midday, I grew increasingly nauseous, the headache worsened, and I began vomiting with incredible force. My friends later said it sounded like an exorcism! I took an ambulance to the ER. Because the MRI had not shown a tumor, the diagnosis was elevated intracranial pressure (aka pseudotumor cerebri). As the pressure inside the skull rises, its inability to expand forces the pressure into the eyes and brain. It’s excruciating.

The only way to lower the pressure is to do a spinal puncture immediately. If it’s delayed, blindness and death are inevitable. But there was a catch : Due to blood clots the prior year, I was still on an injectable blood thinner that made spinal punctures impossible (it causes bleeding in the spinal canal, leading to paralysis). My doctor was terrified, but urged me to do the puncture to at least stay alive. My vision was deteriorating by the minute. I called Jetsunma’s attendant.

As I explained the whole thing, I could hear Jetsunma in the background asking for all the details. “What’s the name of the blood thinner? What do they want to do? When?” After a few minutes of exchanging information through her attendant, Jetsunma got on the phone and said, “Ani, you’re in some big trouble here. I want you to follow my instructions exactly. Do everything I say and you’ll be alright.” She continued, “You must accumulate 100 7-Line Prayers right away. Make sure you do 100. Tell your doctors to give you a high dose of vitamin K, in whatever form is most easily assimilated. That’s the important thing, that it be easily assimilated. After you have the vitamin K, wait 12 hours. If you still need the spinal tap at that point, it will be safe to do it. No sooner than 12 hours.”

I couldn’t believe my good fortune, to have my own precious Lama give me personal instructions to save my life. My primary care doctor walked in and asked what I had decided to do. I told her what I wanted—the vitamin K, 12 hours. The interesting thing is, vitamin K has no known effect on that blood thinner. The doctor and I both knew that, both knew it didn’t make sense. But I didn’t care. Jetsunma knows things way beyond what science does.

Ani Megan arrived and helped me count off 100 7-Line Prayers in between vomiting. The ER doctor refused to give me the vitamin K because it didn’t make sense to him. After 6 more hours of going downhill, they saw I wasn’t going to change my mind and they didn’t want a corpse on their hands. They assigned me to a doctor who gave me the vitamin K. I was admitted and waited out the next 12 agonizing hours. Ani Megan stayed with me all night, enduring endless projectile vomiting and a bad drug reaction to boot.

When the guy came to take me for the spinal puncture a very odd calm swept over me. I stopped vomiting for the first time in 2 days. As they inserted the needle into my spine, I heard a loud “Psssst!” like letting the air out of a tire. The doctor said that was not typical. My cerebrospinal pressure was the highest they had ever seen. They couldn’t believe I was still alive. Incredibly, I felt almost no pain during the procedure and was completely calm.

I later learned Jetsunma had rearranged her practice that day around the spinal tap, so she could be with me. I felt Jetsunma’s presence in the room. Ani Megan said she did, too.

Within 6 weeks, my vision returned to its present state—a little bizarre, but good vision. I suffered no paralysis. I’ll never know how that vitamin K worked, or how Jetsunma came up with it. What I do know is that she has the Wisdom Mind, and I had the great fortune to receive her amazing stream of blessings.

Ani Sangye Drolma

Tags: Jetsunma, Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 4th, 2009 at 6:35 pm and is filed under Jetsunma. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.