Last week I spent nearly every waking minute at Providence
Hospital in Everett, watching a miracle unfold before my eyes.
John, a dear friend of ours, was at our house for my son’s
birthday and that very night started vomiting, thinking he’d come down with the
flu. After two days, his wife, Dee,
insisted he go to the doctor. Unable to
get him up, she called 911. They too said
it was probably “just the flu.”
An MRI was performed in the ER to look for problems with his
stomach, and that’s when they discovered that the pericardium sac around his
heart was full of blood. He’d had a
massive heart attack, which blew a hole right through his left ventricle. This is not the kind of thing people survive.
When they tried to drain the blood, they got nothing, as it
had been there long enough to coagulate.
John’s heart stopped and they put him on life support long enough to
talk with the family. I was with Dee
when the doctor came in to ask if John had a Living Will because the situation
was as dire as it could be. They’d have to open up his chest and take
extraordinary measures to try and save him.
This was not an easy thing to hear, but this is where, when the storms
of life happen, it’s good to have faith. So we prayed.
We found out later, if John had any symptoms of a heart
attack when he arrived at the ER, they would have put him on blood thinners,
which would have killed him instantly because it would have dissolved the clot
that had plugged the hole in his heart. It’s evident the hand of God was upon
him from the get-go.
The doctor gave John a 50/50 chance of surviving the
surgery, but the reality is, it was a zero percent chance because no one had
ever survived John’s condition and most doctors wouldn’t have even tried.
John is an incredible man who mentors countless pre-teen
boys and encourages them in a “mind/body/soul” kind of way – keeping their
bodies strong, their mind’s sharp and their souls in touch with God. He’s had a profound impact on many boys,
including my own, for decades, as this is his gift to the world. Even at my husband’s 70th birthday
party, he gave a $20 tip to each one of my son’s friends who helped as servers,
but it was his words of praise they treasured most. He told each of them what an excellent job
they’d done and how proud he was of their service. Never a negative word comes out of that man.
John is well connected with many folks who have connections to
God Almighty. He is doing well and his
recovery can only be explained as miraculous.
After his head nurse read his medical record and in somewhat of a
quandary asked his doctor how it is that he is still alive, his doctor could
only say, “He has a lot of people praying for him.” And as I well know, and have seen, prayer
changes things. ‘Tis the season of
miracles.
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