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Daniel Kirk is a children’s book author and illustrator and he lives with his wife in New Jersey, about twelve miles outside of Manhattan. They were both infected with COVID last March, before it had spread in the United States. They still don’t know where they got it. By now we know a lot more about COVID. We know the symptoms. We can recite the symptoms. But what does it actually feel like to struggle to breathe? And for those who become deathly ill–who slip into some state between waking and dreaming–where do they go?
As Daniel’s wife recovered, Daniel’s temperature climbed to 104, and eventually he ended up in the hospital. Here is his story.
Credits
Information about Daniel Kirk
Music for this show is by Mike Donofrio and Brian Clark, two excellent people.
As always, my thanks to Tobin Anderson who helps me with all things.
What an incredible episode. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you, Erica.
Thanks, Erica, for taking many hours of exploration, and pulling together all the threads that actually make a cohesive and coherent story. While we were speaking I often felt like we’d entered some kind of transcendent place together, where the conversation delivered us to the same profound space I’d sometimes visited in the hospital bed. It was challenging to pin down thoughts and concepts that mere words have a hard time expressing, but the experience was more real than real. Are there gifts in being really, really sick? It’s strange, but it seems to me that there are gifts to be discovered in everything. Thank you for this one!
Hi Daniel，
Your story is so touching and inspiring especially your description of the near death delusions in the hospital bed. I can’t help but listened again and again and even skipped my lunch today. So happy for you and your loved ones about your recovery.
Warmest Regards,
from Shanghai,
Simon
Erica.
Was he on a ventilator or oxygen
How long in hospital
What does he still suffer with
Thank you
He was on O2, not a vent. He was in the hospital for seven days, and he feels essentially normal now, though he still coughs. It took five months for him to get his wind back and he also had brain fog for about 5 months.
Many years ago, when I was 3,4,5 and on, I was in various hospitals trying to survive pneumonia again, trying to get through another night. Night was the end, it was darkness creeping up from the end of the bed. It was quiet and peaceful, better in many way than the struggle of continuing. Faces came and went, did things, a man in black came and gave me the Last Rights and a voice murmured this was the end and to get through the night would be a miracle. But then, the night would fade, the day filter in a chalky white and the ceiling tiles would appear once again, stretching out in endless white plane.Mostly, after years of struggle, I wanted it to be over so I could go to where it was easier and friends awaited. I still recall waking to find I was alive and feeling disappointed, that this misery would continue. For a while I was in Boston’s Children s Hospital in a special ward with other kids but it was very quiet. Little bundles died and were taken out on a cart. They would draw the land curtains around the bed and the cart wheeled out and then the empty bed loomed up but nothing was said. When you were sick, very sick, people came less and less, as they couldn’t stand to see their the end.
Thank you to Daniel for sharing his visions. They were so moving. Thank you to both of you.
This episode is astonishing.
Daniel Kirk describes visions that are profound and ultimate.
When I turn friends on to Rumble Strip, this is the episode I’ll share with them.
With amazement and gratitude,
Thomas
My heart breaks wide open every time I listen to your episodes. This one, too. Tears streaming down my face. Thank you so much for doing what you do and sharing connection and humanness with us.
Thank you for your vulnerability in sharing this incredible experience. This link was forwarded to me by one of my reiki students, who likened it to experiences we have while working with healing energy. I have devoted my life to helping people understand that we are energetic beings and just a phase shift away from the spiritual realm. I love hearing these stories (Jill Bolte Taylor, David Hawkins, you, etc.), and hope that going forward people can come into this understanding without a harrowing near-death experience. You have contributed significantly to this outcome.
What an interesting perspective Heather. Thanks so MUCH for taking the time to write in.
Amazing story. Thank you for sharing Erica. My beloved husband died this July of cancer at home with me as his nurse with hospice support. He experienced some similar things. Since then I’ve felt very aware of a liminal space that exists. Your story gives me great comfort.
I am sorry for your loss Ann and HUGELY glad this story gave you some comfort.
Thanks for this personal account Daniel and Erica. I recorded and edited my father’s account and he describes a very similar experience. He’s a Holocaust child survivor and caught the virus in Cuba and that took him to a very dark place. He’s made it out ok but there’s scars. Merci!
Thank you Erica and David, we need to hear more stories like these. It is so easy to feel disconnected from the experience of this illness unless you hear a personal account. So honest and moving.
My ears perked up when you mentioned David was a children’s book author. His book,”Little Bunny, Biddle Bunny,” was my all-time favorite when my kids were little and I often recite it to them now that they are 19 and 21. Thank you both for sharing your gifts with us.
I just love Rumble Strip! Every episode is so riveting and this one was especially moving. Thank you Erica and Daniel. Your artistry is greatly appreciated and admired!!!
WOW!
Just Wow
I just listened to this pod cast again , my Christian brother Jeff who is a very smart & educated pastor with a Dr. degree and i can not wrap my head around WHY He Did not get any Covid 19 shots . It looks like he is Going to Die of Covid 19
Hi Ralph! He lived! But he got sick in the very beginning of Covid, long before the vaccine was available.