|
OH
LORD! She's Dying!
ROBBIE L. ROGERS
We ran from our daughter's hospital room overcome with fear, compassion
and grief, clinging to the wall for support as reality crushed our
hearts in a throbbing pain. Brenda, always full of happiness and zest
for life, lay pale as though she were already gone. "Oh Lord she's
dying, our baby is dying!"
It seemed like only yesterday.
I was in
the hospital waiting room for her baby to be born and now I wondered, 21
years later, "Why did it happen?"
Brenda's husband checked her in the hospital in Panama City, Fl. with
breathing difficulty the day before Thanksgiving. The diagnosis was
acute bronchitis and pneumonia with complications brought on by asthma.
She had never been seriously ill in her life, especially not asthma, now
with her three months pregnancy she suddenly struggled with numerous
problems.
We arrived to see her looking like a little girl propped up in her
hospital bed, assuring us she was all right, with just a bad cold.
" I knew you would come and make it all better, just like you
did when I was a kid," she said. However, the next day her ever present smile was gone, and a terribly
lethargic condition replaced her joy; instead of getting better she was
much worse.
"I seem a thousand times worse asleep because I can't see life, but
when I'm awake I feel like I'm dying," she said.
We began to worry saying, "Is the hospital staff really competent?
Are the doctors treating her properly? Should we take her somewhere
else?"
We prayed with her, phoned the prayer chain at Immanuel, then called
our friends to ask for their personal prayers.
The night shift came on duty and I said, "They won't even know how
sick she is, what are we going to do?"
A respiratory therapist, examined Brenda saying "She's a very sick
young lady." She seemed very upset.
Immediately a pulmonary
specialist came in and the staff began working on her.
After
drawing arterial blood gasses they realized how sick she was.
Brenda cried, "Someone, just let me die."
The specialist said "She is on the short side of a 50-50 chance of
surviving with the next few hours telling."
Sandy Greene and Carol Green came down the hall as we were going back
into Brenda's room.
We were afraid, it seemed impossible to get worse at the hospital, but
she was.
Labored coughing totally exhausted her and we knew she was
struggling to survive.
Later everything fell apart, Brenda turned ghostly white, the specialist
reappeared and people really started working on her. We knew she had
taken a turn for the worse and fled from the room afraid the horror on
our faces would affect Brenda when she needed to see strength.
Only
Sandy was able to remain at the foot of her bed in God's reassuring
strength.
God's peaceful strength flooded over us as we leaned against the cold
walls for support - the crushing reality of losing Brenda was too much
to bear.
We prayed apart from one another;
God reassured our faltering
hearts and answered our needs in the hallway.
Brenda lapsed into
unconsciousness.
Later she described a sensation of floating on the ceiling
and seeing three angels leaning against the wall saying, "Relax, we
will handle everything."
Feeling crept into my body as I glanced down the hall past Margaret and
Carol. Brenda's husband seemed defeated by Brenda's fragility and the
baby's slim hold on life, both trying to receive oxygen from her failing
lungs.
We bolstered each other and returned to her room as they were
entubating her, giving her much needed oxygen.
Awakening later from unconsciousness she saw the nurse squeezing the
"black bag" forcing oxygen into her lungs. "
Relax,"
the nurse said.
Things had gotten quieter as if God had it under control; her color was
coming back and she smiled faintly.
She gradually improved as the oxygen
was forced into her failing lungs.
Brenda's blood gases revealed a complete reversal of the normal oxygen and carbon dioxide
levels and she had been only seconds away from falling into a coma.
They were fearful of how
to treat her with her pregnancy and informed us, "Brenda will
die unless we treat her and forget about the baby." What a terrible
thing for Brenda to deal with after six months of marriage, and only 21
years old.
The swift action was dazzling to us as they worked over Brenda and moved
her to the Intensive Care Unit.
Much later as we waited patiently for
word the doctor assured us, "The worst is over" and he would
not leave until he knew she was out of danger.
She was afraid she had been attached to a machine that was keeping her
alive, so the doctor asked us to see her. We reassured her that she was
in intensive care in order for them to properly watch her and her baby
and for her not to let the surroundings scare her, as we tried to do the
same.
Time went by so
slowly.
We
could only visit every four hours in pairs for fifteen minutes.
After a
few visits we found her propped up in bed writing notes, (she couldn't
talk with the tubes in her), to tell us not to worry, she was all right.
We slept on the floor of the tiny waiting room anyway.
The next day in a "regular room," virtually over her trauma,
Brenda was smiling as her old self.
The small hospital seemed in a buzz
over the miracle for the young mother-to-be.
We were not aware of the encompassing love poured out on Brenda's behalf
until later. Both doctors briefly left the hospital for a nearby church
to pray together for her healing. Her regular doctor had called
in a specialist when he knew he
needed help, both called upon God. People in four churches of different
denominations prayed diligently for her.
It seems most of the nurses working around Brenda were devout Christians
who prayed for her healing and the well-being of her baby.
The lady
across the hall said, "We are all praying for her, the nurse came
by and asked everyone in the hospital to pray".
"Oh how powerful", I thought," the sick praying for the
dying young mother."
Even as she slept in the
Intensive Care Unit she said, "I would wake up to find people I
didn't know holding my feet praying for me, then walk out the door,
without a word."
Brenda was released from the hospital six days after she entered; it was
joyous occasion indeed after such a harrowing experience. The doctors
prescribed medication and assured us it should never happen again.
Christmas, was a happy day although we were again concerned with her
frequent coughing. The next day Brenda was treated as an out-patient for
a bronchial asthma attack. She went home with an oxygen bottle to help
her breathe, however she was rushed back to the emergency room three hours later
with a diagnosis of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome.
Frantically we again drove to the Panama City hospital, but couldn't see
her for 2 hours. She had received four hours of emergency treatment and
they couldn't risk moving her.
As we went in to see her the doctor was at her side looked almost as bad
as she did. "She is not responding to the same medication,"
the doctor said. "Pray, that's the only thing left to do, nothing else is working.
She is terribly sick even worse than the first time. This time she is in
complete respiratory failure, and is being kept alive only by forcing
oxygen into her lungs."
Brenda was so lifeless, the IV's, the oxygen, her skin turning purple, the
doctor leaning against the wall praying, was almost too much to bear.
Suddenly she began banging on the side of her rails as though she were
fighting for her life. It would have been much easier to give up, but
she fought, as she described it, with a "sudden ball of energy from
God" that made her want life and her baby.
Soon they were able to move her to the Intensive Care Unit, again her blood gases had virtually reversed, and her acid levels were below
that of a body in the morgue. However, she was soon out of the woods and worried about everyone else, writing notes to convey a new joy
that we recognized as euphoria from the trauma she had endured.
The next day they moved her to a
private room, continuing her on IV's and oxygen vowing to keep her
there until all problems were solved.
The doctor said, "I don't think any of us can survive another
episode like this, especially me."
They tried reducing the level of medication for the baby's sake,
although fear of damage already done from the frequent x-rays, lack of
oxygen, and previous medication at this point didn't seem to matter.
She had a mild attack New Years Eve night, the next morning we
celebrated with noise makers and balloons; the long bout and worry for
her baby was taking a toll on her.
Three days later, she was released from the hospital with the
understanding that she come to Destin while adjusting to the stringent
schedule of her medication and see three specialists in Fort Walton
Beach.
The doctors said she had a controllable situation if she took her
medication properly. They told us, "There is less than a 1% chance
of anyone in the pregnant population developing asthma during pregnancy,
and almost no record of anyone with as severe a case such as she has
developed."
"I watched as the doctors ran a sonogram of my baby, it had it's
thumb in its mouth and seemed so content and healthy," Brenda said,
" I cried tears of joy."
May 7th, we tried not to be afraid as the phone rang, but after all that
had transpired we were. It was Brenda's calling as they were going to the
hospital to have the baby.
We worried when she remained in the labor room over 10 hours; however
after 15 minutes in the delivery room Baby Carolyn Danielle Jones was
born at 5 lbs 4 ozs and 19 1/4 inches long, with not even so much as a
birth mark to mar her perfection.
Incredible joy flooded my heart as I watched that tiny little miracle
display all of the normal movements and much more as if God were showing
us how great the miracle really was.
God
had assured us that He would knit her anew; and He did!
"We cried more than the baby did," Brenda and her husband
agreed. They were so happy and relieved.
Carolyn and Brenda left the hospital three days later to begin a normal
life. Brenda, only takes occasional medication for an asthmatic
condition, and Carolyn Danielle is truly a gift from God, perfect in
every way, looking like an identical twin to her mother when she was,
"our baby."
How wonderful it is to be in God's family, especially in a crises!
|
