User:PapaSpyk

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Tuesday, 15 September 2009 My Near Death Experience

My name is Edouard ‘Spyk’ Gheur, I was born in Belgium on the 28th of June 1963 and grew up in Belgium, South Africa, Canada, Florida, Chile and am now living in Kent. I played Professional Rugby in South Africa for most of my life and after retiring I was offered a lucrative modelling contract to model all over the world, and acted and did stunt work on a few Hollywood films, which I did for the next ten years. I then moved to Santiago Chile where I got a leading role on a TV show, as the bad guy of course and here I met the lead actress, fell in love and got married. Three months later… On July 13th 1997, I was cooking dinner in our house, when all of a sudden; it felt as if someone had just stabbed me through the heart with a huge knife. I had never felt such pain before and had collapsed on the kitchen floor. I called for my wife who came running into the kitchen and I told her to call an ambulance as I thought I was having a heart attack. She thought I was kidding and went back to bed. Three hours later she woke up, panicking because I was not in bed next to her, and ran into the kitchen, to find me unconscious on the floor; apparently I was as cold as ice. At first she thought I was dead. She finally called an ambulance and they rushed me to hospital. At the hospital they saw that I had had a severe heart attack and rushed me into surgery. They opened me up, taking out my ribcage, in which I still have the staples in. They saw that my aorta had burst in half and had split in half from my heart all the way down to my legs. The Doctors told my parents they had to amputate both my legs because they had died due to the loss of blood flow to them. My dad responded by saying ‘if you do that you might as well pull the plug,’ as I had been a pro athlete my entire life and would not cope with losing my legs, which was so very true. So they went to work on them and cut my legs in eight places and put a by pass from my right leg to my left leg and flushed the blood through till my right leg came almost back to life but my left leg remained paralysed from the knee down. I was told I would never walk again. Every organ in my body had apparently died and I went through dialysis every day for two months. About a week later I took a turn for the worse and they had to re-operate on my heart again. Apparently the sutures they had put in my aorta were coming apart, so they ended up taking out my aorta and replacing it with a plastic one. At this point they told my parents I would never be allowed to exercise ever again as I now have a plastic aorta and if I exercise my heart will expand and where the aorta joins my heart, it would burst and I would die on the spot, great to know. I was in a coma for a month and twice the doctors told my wife, parents and sister to say goodbye to me because in less than ten minutes I would be dead. They called in a priest. Can you imagine what they went through? Not to mention me. Somehow by some miracle I survived, why to this day I have no idea and neither do the doctors. They thought I was a miracle, because apparently only 1% of the people that have an aortic dissection survive and that’s with half the severity of mine. I personally think that I survived because I was so fit and strong before having the heart attack. Personally I think, GOD, had other plans for me and for that you will have to wait and find out what they are . . . During my two months in intensive care on total life support systems of all kinds. I was unconscious in a coma, for the first month but coming out of my coma the first thing I remember was seeing my father holding my hand with tears in his eyes, and I asked him where my wife was and he said she's gone, I have never seen her again till this day. I also remember seeing some of my friends coming in and out of my room paying their respect etc. Apparently there were over 100 people waiting to see me every single day. Apparently, me having an extremely rare blood type, especially in South America, type O- negative. They had to appeal on the radio and TV for foreigners to come and give blood or I would die. Amazingly enough plenty did and I thank each and every one of you for saving my life. The taxi drivers in Santiago also got together and to each of their fares they gave out a flier asking for them to give blood and 'Save Spyk'. In all the bars, restaurants and clubs the same. The doctors told my wife, so I have now been told that if I did ever come out of my coma that I would be brain dead, and a paraplegic for the rest of my life, and she obviously could not handle that, and so left me there in hospital on my own. Well not on my own because I had both my parents there and my so special sister who gave up her family to be by my side every second that I was in that hospital. As for my wife, or should I say ex-wife. I to this day have never seen or heard from her again, until I went back to Chile six years later and called her, she could not believe it was me or that I was alive for that matter. I asked if I could see her, just to show her that I was fine, but she replied no I could not handle seeing you again and hung up on me. I just wish she could see me now. I had no money to pay the hospital bill, so they let me go, with me promising to pay it one day. All I can say that with the proceeds from this story will be a start to definitely paying off. My wife having left me high and dry so to speak, my parents had no choice as to fly me back to Europe to spend the next two years in bed recuperating with 24 hour nursing, also not a cheap option but had to be done. For this, I thank you Mon Papa et Ma Maman and I also promise to pay you back for this. I was taken by ambulance to the Airport and transported to the plane. They put my mother and I in first class, so we would have more room, the sad thing about that is that was the only time I have had the opportunity to fly first class, and can’t even remember it at all. My father had flown back, on his own to Belgium where they were living at the time. On our way home we had a stop over in Paris, France and we missed the connecting flight so had to spend about five hours at the airport, they luckily had a small type of hospital there where I was left with my mother. We finally arrived in Brussels and were met at the plane by ambulance once again. They took us to our home in the country, a beautiful farmhouse, in which I spent the next two years in bed. The nursing was probably the worst part of my recuperation, not being able to move a bone in my body, as I was way too weak. I actually went from weighing 17 stone of solid muscle to 9 stone of skin and bones in just eight weeks. I was so weak I was unable to feed myself, or get up and go to the toilet. The worst was that I had to be bathed every day by perfect strangers and having them wipe my bum when I went to the toilet in my bed, talk about humiliating, not to mention messy and stinky. I lay on my back, in this bed that my parents had set up in their TV room, staring at the ceiling for over two years. I use to lie there and count every brick on the walls and tile on the ceiling just to hide the pain. I have also become extremely superstitious with life in general, because when I lay there for two years without moving a bone in my body, in bed having been told I would never walk again or live a normal life. After a couple years of laying in bed on my back, having been told I would never walk again, one morning I woke up and told myself that I would teach myself to walk again. My parents organized a physiotherapist that would help me achieve this goal. It took me two and a half years to learn to walk again, but I did it. It was probably the one most painful thing I have ever done but I did it. I mean just to lift myself up was a task and a half and to take one step at a time was bad too. People have no idea how lucky they are to have full use of their limbs and be able to walk at anytime they chose, they take walking for granted. I kept praying every waking second, that I would walk again one day, meet the girl of my dreams, and get married again and the most important thing that I have always wanted, a child of my own. And for the past eight years I have told myself this, every second of every waking day. That I would achieve this and if I went through even an hour of not telling myself all of this I got so worried my life was over. So to this day, I do just that, tell myself all of this. But eight years on, I met a girl, on an internet dating site , she fell pregnant, we got married and I am now an extremely proud father of the most beautiful baby girl, called ‘Angelyna’, my little Angel. Every night since her birth, I have been up all night changing nappies and wiping dirty bottoms. For me this was a true miracle as I was recently told that I would find it very difficult to father a child, due to the entire trauma I had gone through. All of this because of the abuse I put my body through out my life. I had always thought that I had done everything in life, but until I held my own flesh and blood in my hands, I had never really lived, but now I felt truly alive. An experience in itself. I took a week off work so I could spend every waking moment with Angelyna, bonding with her and holding her tight. So this is what life is all about. Since then I left my wife after she had an affair with the builder doing an extension on our house, and she stopped me from seeing my daughter Angelyna for nine months which absolutely crucified me, we are currently involved in the worst ever divorce and custody battle. I have now won my court case and got my Angelyna back but it was the toughest nine months of my life without her. In May 2009 my Aorta split in half again, had to have open heart surgery again 13hours worth and was told I'd have 1 in 10 chance of surviving the operation, but if I did I would be good as new, and I actually feel 25 again quite amazing, ain't life grand. But then it happened again, as you are all aware now, last year I underwent a major heart operation where they replaced my entire aorta 3ft worth, I thank God I survived, and have been feeling absolutely amazing of late, till Christmas eve while on holiday in Florida I suffered a major seizure, where part of my heart valve where my new aorta connects to my heart broke off and blocked the blood flow to my brain, I was rushed to hospital where I was told Id have to have open heart surgery again which was in February 2010 here in London, and now I have just found out again that I have two more surgeries, the first to fix my ribcage which has totally come apart after being cut in half three times and a hernia ive developed in my stomach from all the trauma. I just cant believe I have to go through all this again but I have no choice but to be strong as Angelyna needs her Papa. Doctors have said though that If I come out of this operation alive I will be stronger than ever and will almost be bionic, well as far as my heart is concerned, and my heart will be indestructible, so that is all good news, but just not looking forward to another year of recovery and immense pain. I live in faith that all will be ok and ill be able to live a normal life again soon.

The moral of the story is:

I never, ever did anything in my past out of malice to anyone or anything, but I have been extremely irresponsible and reckless, only to myself. I loved, living on the edge, it made me feel alive. My heart and intentions had always been good, As my closest friend says, if you have a good heart, it all works out for the best, though it may take a while. Having been so damn close to death has made me so aware of everything around me. I appreciate all around me and I will never as long as I live, take anything or anyone for granted. It’s amazing how people take such things as walking for granted, and me almost having both my legs amputated, made me realise this. There obviously is a God, looking out for us. When you come from a good family, like I do. You can be the baddest guy in town, do the craziest, stupidest, most dangerous things and still come out smiling. I sure am Edouard 'Spyk' Gheur

My modeling portfolio can be viewed here -

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/angelynaqq/SpykSPortfolio02#

P.S. I am writing my life story and want to make it into a book and possibly a movie and if anyone reading this who either is a writer or publisher or who knows one or just wants to talk to me email me or add me to your msn, then please contact me on spykza@hotmail.com or add me to your msn with the same address if you want to chat with me. I feel this will make a very inspiring story and hopefully help someone who has given up....

Posted by Edouard Spyk Gheur at 10:34 7 comments Reactions: Home Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) Followers About Me My Photo

Edouard Gheur

   I'm an ex professional Rugby Player/Model/Actor/Stuntman from South Africa that survived a near death experience.

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