Waves of Angels...scuba diving accident

Title:     WAVES OF ANGELS

Searing pain hits the center of my chest.  I can’t breathe!  Is this my heart? Is this a heart attack 60 feet underwater?

 “Stay calm, breathe calm”, I told myself.  I breathed and the pain struck again. My eyes searched for the dive master.  I must go up. I grabbed for Steve my dive partner because he always stays near me. We saw the dive master 10-20 feet beneath us.   I closed my fist and pounded the center of my chest, right under my breasts and motioned that I was in trouble and had to go up.     I trusted that Steve would know what to do as he had been scuba diving for over 30 years and he would regulate my ascent so that my lungs would not explode by ascending too fast.  I was terrified.  I couldn’t breathe.  I told myself to stay calm, knowing that I must exhale as I ascend or I could burst my lungs.  The pain struck again and I was afraid to breathe through my regulator---- it hurt too much.  Though this was only my fourth dive, it might be my last.  We were 5 miles from land and diving off a small rock formation.

 I can’t breathe…..  I feel the panic and I remembered what I did so very wrong in my diving class ……I commanded  myself to Focus.   Just exhale Sunni…all the way up.

A few months earlier while taking my scuba diving training I had panicked in the pool at 14 feet down. I  knocked the regulator out of my mouth and struggled crazily toward the surface by trying to swim.   I did everything wrong and I learned a very tough lesson but, in this current moment of crisis I remembered to stay calm and exhale to the surface and not panic.  I  had to completely surrender and  trust that Steve would take care of me.

(Steve)   I saw Sunni signal that she was in trouble and I looked into her eyes and recognized that there was something seriously wrong.   She had been diving perfectly for about 15 minutes.  She was relaxed and we had just seen a beautifully colored eel and touched a surprising black rock that turned out to be a sponge.  I took her arm and began the slow ascent when I saw what looked like blood begin to fill her mask and come out of her nose.   I knew we were deeper than she had ever gone and I saw the fear in her eyes.  If this really were blood she would be lucky to last 30 seconds when we reached surface.  Blood usually means a burst lung and that means death.   We were near a rock outcropping that we grasped for when we reached surface.  It was covered with sharp coral and slippery algae that made it difficult to hang on to.  As I saw Sunni’s face in the sunlight her lips were completely dark blue, a sign of no oxygen.   I grabbed her mask and pulled it off.  She gasped “ I can’t breathe.”  I flipped her weight belt open and let it drop to the bottom to take the pressure off her waist  while trying to hang on to her because she kept loosing consciousness.  I opened her BCD jacket.  I could hear her breathing gurgling like a person possessed.  Her lungs were full of salt water. She wasn’t having a heart attack.   The regulator had malfunctioned and she had inhaled salt water. This causes great pain and often causes vomiting.   She coughed and sputtered and threw out more blood through her nose and mouth.  She passed out.  I didn’t know if she died.  I pounded on her back to get her to cough out more fluid but, my BCD (air vest) was not holding air and I was sinking myself.  I was struggling to get some kind of hold on this cutting and slimy rock surface as the water washed over my face because I was sinking.  My air vest  was leaking and I couldn’t stay afloat with my weight belt on.  My constant thought was to keep her face out of the water and now I wasn’t sure if I was going to go down with her.  Exhaustion pulled at me as a big wave hit me from behind and tore both of us off the rock.  She slammed into my chest and luckily I had just released my weight belt so that I could float more easily and I grabbed her to me.  The undertow sucked us down into a washing machine tumbling us under the water twice and swished  us 15-20 feet to the right. When our heads popped out of the water we could see that we were going to be slammed into a rock canyon.  She screamed. at least I knew she was still alive.  We hit the end of the canyon.

(Sunni)  I opened my eyes just in time to see the boulders of the rock canyon coming toward my face.   I screamed. Terror hit me again….. I can’t breathe!!! I knew that I couldn’t live through a wave pounding like this, especially if I hit my head or broke a leg.    Slam!!!!! And then I felt myself tumbling under the water again and being sucked back  out to the sea.  I knew I could die.  I was paralyzed.   At least the wet suit was doing a very good job of keeping me buoyant.   I couldn’t think and I had not been able to move my arms or legs to help myself in any way since I had surfaced.  .   I was terrified!  As scared as I had ever been in my life.  Now I could feel Steve at my back as we were tumbling under the water and suddenly the wave reared up and spit us up onto a rock ledge 10 feet above the waters surface.  Completely out of the water.  .  Me sitting on my butt and Steve right behind me and as the wave washed back over us it split and went around us so that we were not pulled back into the Agean Sea.. As it receded he realized that he had perfect grasp handles for both of his hands and a good place for his feet.   I choked on the water and spit it out and said “Honey, if I don’t make it let me slide into the water and leave me here” I felt totally sure that if another wave hit us I would die here and I was at peace with the thought of death. I was scared but, ready to let go.

He shouted,  “I love you and we are not leaving this rock”.  And he continued to pound on my back and lean me to the side to cough out the liquids in my lungs.   He told me “ We are safe now, I have a good hold on these rocks”.  I braced myself for fear that  another wave would wash over us and take my life. I grabbed for him and told him that I loved him.  The wave had not hit yet, I felt I only had a moment to tell him.  Another moment passed and still no wave.   We both looked behind us and the sea had returned to perfect calm.   There had been only two waves on an otherwise perfectly calm day.  Those waves saved my life. Like the sea said,” It is not your time just now,” and spit me high up onto the rocks where I could rest until the dive team came to pick me up.   Steve said,” Your angels are really looking out for you’.  That was your angel who threw us up on this rock and gave me this perfect handhold” I felt myself sigh and my eyes welled up with tears. I could feel his love and the love and protection of the angels, and I passed out.

(Steve)    Sunni always talks about her angels and how they protect her.  Well, now I believe her.  That wave had to be angels.   The sea has now returned to perfectly calm and I know she is still alive and I am just going to keep pounding on her back to get her to release the fluid in her lungs until the dive master comes with the boat to take us to shore. Sunni always talks about Miracles  and now I believe in Miracles. Thank you, God!

The doctors at the small emergency facility  were very alarmed at the severity of this accident especially at my age, 57.   4 hours had passed since the accident and now they had to take me to another facility to get x-rays before they could even give me the oxygen, so necessary to get my brain to work my muscles, and then the power went out.  There is no hospital on Mykonos so it would be another 4 hours of fear and paralysis before I could  take the ferry to  the hospital in Syros .   They were astonished that I had survived this long because the x-rays still showed a lot of salt water in my lungs.  I laid in the hospital bed and prayed for angels to heal me.  I called in every connection to Divine Healing Power.  I talked to myself in positive ways. “ I am having a miraculous healing”

 “I’m getting better every minute”

“ The doctors will be amazed at my miraculous healing.” .  I thanked God and my angels for saving me.  Now that I finally had oxygen my mind was beginning to clear and I knew I had to focus on a positive and desired result. I decided that I was on holiday with 7 days left and I wanted to see Athens and the other islands that were scheduled on my trip.  The doctor. had advised me that I should stay a week.  By the next day the doctors were amazed that I was remarkably better.  I continued to pull in the healing energy and the second day they let me go. I had a full recovery! We left the hospital on a motorcycle and I asked Steve to take me to the church I had seen from my hospital window because I wanted to light candles and thank God and all my angels for the miracle of my life.

the longer version of this event will be published in an upcoming book   "Hope in Action"

Sunni Boehme

Phone 414-482-8971

e-mail:  sunniboehme@hotmail.com

Nancy Freier http://theinnervoicemagazine.com/ ... then, click on August 2013 issue and your article is on page 8! Spread the word!! 

Refinement

Refinement

The magic word for my intention this year is Refinement.  Everyday I wake up and think “refinement” 

and what that means to me is ….how can I make my life better today ?.

Most people give their power away by wishing to win the lottery and then they can buy all new.  But that’s not what I really want.  I love the challenge of making something look “first class” by transforming something old, unused, abused, and neglected.  It is a thrill for me to figure out how to make my life better each day by just “refining” belongings and details that are already in my life.

The first 6 years in this house I spent all my money remodeling all 3 floors….major remodeling as this is a 1923 house, Windows, flooring, walls, plumbing,furnaces. . The next 6 years were redoing all of the landscaping that was huge overgrown, sad old bushes all around the back yard and that awful stockade fence that was now rotted at the posts that held it up.  This year my back yard finally looks magnificent and I feel totally blessed and thrilled when I walk into my back yard and know that I did it….sometimes angels sent the help of my friends but I had the vision and when they offered , I had a plan and we had fun together creating beauty …that is relationship….that is love….creating something new is an opportunity to share love.

This year I have been longing for my porch to look even better than ever before. So, today I went to Home Depot and bought 6 cans of gloss white spray paint to freshen up all of my white wicker furniture.  Then I will power wash the porch and wash the windows inside and out. Then repaint just the front porch wall and on some coolish and wind still day the crowing glory will be to paint all the black wrought iron railings

This will make it make it look fabulous….even better than it’s ever been.  I love entertaining on my front porch.  I love relaxing and reading on my front porch and I will love it even more when I lay on my couch and look around and everything looks perfectly loved and cared for and I am proud that I took action and fixed it just the way I want it.

This is visioning, this is dreaming of the end result ,of the way I want it to look and the way I want to be feeling about it when the work is all done.  When I start with the vision of what I want it inspires me to “get at it” and I can’t wait to see the results.

In the past when I tell myself “I should”   paint the porch, paint the chairs, it all sounds like work and I procrastinate.   Now that I have clearly seen the vision I can’t wait to get at it because I know it won’t take me very long.  I am inspired to “refine” and make better and Take action and I am motivated.  

Each day I find new things to add to my “refinement” list….

I made it better….is so very empowering.   I made it better in just a few minutes.

Just before I sat down to write this I took a long piece of wood molding from the garage

To solve a problem with a wandering slip cover on a couch.  I straightened it and stuck the wood at the back so that the slip cover wouldn’t get messed up.  Whew !  that only took 5 min. and it will stay the way I fixed it .    I took another rod (unused for 5 years from the garage) and fixed a valance that I’d been thinking about for months. 

Everyday I tell myself that……

 “I always have extra time to do the little things that refine my life.”

And more and more I am finding that all those little things that have been messing up my mind because I’ve been procrastinating on them really only took 5 or 10 minutes to do the task and put away the supplies.

Just last week I accomplished at least 20 “little things”  gluing a loose Formica piece,  gluing the wing on an angel,  throwing out a box of  business cards that I’ve kept adding to in my office for 3 years.  FREEDOM  is fixing , throwing out and refining.

Today is a very hot, sticky day outside and I am deliciously cool inside my house and “refining” my office by catching up on organizing papers….until I felt inspired to type this in hopes to inspire you to enjoy “refinement”.

Refining is empowering  and it hardly costs anything.  The glue cost me $1.23.  The paint cost $25.00.  NOW the peace of mind and the visual enjoyment they will give me and pride of my belongings and presentation will reward me for years.

Ahhhh Refinement….it’s  a very good word  because it inspires me to take ACTION

What are you inspired to refine in your life today.   Write down 3 things each day and do it. !

Review from a Turkish/Egyptian man

This totally made my day because it was written by a very accomplished man who is half Turkish and half Egyptian and  he bought my book on Amazon.  I have known him for years.  He gives great insight into the mix of cultures and expands on some of the experiences from my book.


Dear Sunni

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the book. It took me a long time to read it because I am in the habit of reading more than one book at the same time. I liked it so much that when I progressed near the end, I wished that it had been longer.

The trip to the Turkish village is astounding. However, I realize that it is not the main theme in the story. The story is about the unusual, suspenseful, sad, but enlightening love and marriage experience between you and Afiz. The descriptions of life in the Turkish village, the unbelievable poverty, the customs, the ignorance, and your continuous struggle to maintain self-control and sanity and to withstand the horrible successive dilemmas are outstanding.

When I visit Egypt and stay with my cousin, I experience only a fraction of what you experienced, but it is sufficient to make me rush back home. She lives in a nice suburb of Egypt and she is a retired famous movie star. Her house has all the comforts of our houses in the US, but the streets of Cairo, the sanitary standards, the noise levels, the beggars, the greedy merchants, and a few other annoyances make me want to escape. I would've certainly gone mad if I were in your place. By the way my cousin's screen name is Nadia Lutfi just in case you have time to look her up in Wikipedia or Youtube.

 My most recent opportunity to observe life in the Egyptian countryside was when I stayed at my cousin's country home. A man from the nearby village and his daughters serve her when she is staying at the house and maintain the house the grounds when she is in her city home. Although villages in that part of the country near the capital are much more advanced than in the southern part of Egypt, they share some undesirable aspects of the life in the Turkish village:  the famers' buildings, two outfits for each person, arranged marriages, girls getting married at a very young age. Farag is the man whose family takes care of the house. He does not send his daughters to school, his eldest daughter is getting married at 14, and he is replacing her at my cousin's service with her younger daughter, a child of 12. She was very cute, tried her best to fill the shoes of her older sister and to anticipate our wishes. I gave her some money every time I saw her and she used to take special care in how to arrange my bed and place the clean clothes in order. However, I did not want her to prepare any food for me because I didn't think she has good sanitary habits.

Regarding the fight, Egyptian women have somewhat of a different attitude towards men fighting. They are more tolerant of it because culturally it is men's duty to fight to defend the dignity of their women. They are the protectors and women would look down on men who would back down.

Talking about fighting, you know that the Turks ruled Egypt for decades. There are stereotypes of the Turkish people and they include portraying them as hot tempered people and fanatical in their religious and moral beliefs in addition to feelings of superiority.

I am glad that at some point you used the qualifying word "fundamental" to describe a particular brand of Islam. Mainstream Islam respects both Christians and Jews. The Quraan praises both Jesus and Moses. Muslims refer to them as Our Mater Jesus or Our Master Moses. They also call the Virgin Mary Our Lady Mariam and visit her shrines.

Any deviations from that are purely political/cultural. Some examples are:

The prophet Mohammad was married to a Coptic woman, Maria.

In southern Egypt both Muslims and Copts have similar life styles, especially regarding women's clothing and roles in spite of the difference in religion.

My father was Turkish from Istanbul. He was rigid mentally, but did not tell my mother what to wear or if she should stay home to raise children. She and her sister dressed like their counterparts in the US and Western Europe.

Farmer women in Egypt and most women in Cairo did not cover their faces till about 20 years ago with the rise of the Islamist movement.

Although I know you and Afiz, and I knew how the story ended, I was stunned when I read the part about him bringing his second wife home to you "to be your servant" and to bear his children. I think that during the two years he spent in the US with you did not do anything to change him; he was only away from his habitat so to speak. When he went back, he simply reverted to what he had always been.

The ending was sad of course, but you had the courage to state that what happened is what you originally feared would happen. I am sure that there is more to the story for you to explore and more corners of yourself to cast the light on.

A long time ago, I ran into Afiz, predictably,  at Menards after you two separated and another time at MATC where he was trying to enroll a friend from Turkey obviously to help him gain entry/remain in the US. He told me briefly that he originally did not think he would care for children, but when he saw his brother's( ?) children, he changed his mind. He also mentioned that he "hoped" that you'd decide to become a Muslim in time. I countered by telling him that he was aware that those two conditions were not part of the mutual understanding between the two of you.

In closing, I congratulate you on producing such a gem of a book.

 Kairy

Turkish challenges 2013

I received this message from a Turkish friend on my facebook and I felt it was important to share.......

"Just so everyone knows: Once again, our faith in justice in Turkey is torn apart. This country is the hardest place to live for a person who thinks and therefore exists. You need to be a non-existing, obedient creature to keep breathing in the fresh air. You could make it out of the prison if you killed someone or raped a child, but you cannot if you somehow showed your dissatisfaction in the government. Hopes and prayers go our to those who will have to spend the rest of their lives in prison while their beloved ones wait and weep for years."  Ipek Altan's

My heart goes out to my Turkish friends as they battle cultural oppression that they had been freed from many years ago when Ataturk ruled from 1923-1938.  His rule leaped Turkey forward into westernization of Turkey and forbid religious oppression.  Women were free to have equal schooling.  the old religious uniform of covering was released and if women chose to do it by choice that was clearly their CHOICE.   I have spent time living in very provincial and fundamentalist villages in Turkey and if you would like an up close an in depth emotionally honest experience of what it's like to be an empowered American woman to have to shrink to fit a fundamentalist village life then take an arm chair (and much safer) journey in my book  "Diary of a Turkish Wedding" 

 buy the book http://www.sunniboehme.com/books.html