This is a good time for a good story.  The story that I want to tell you tonight took place sixteen years ago.  I was recently reminiscing about this about this amazing, miraculous time – imagining how different things might be right now if it had ended differently.

I was a young mama with one child.  Our son, Jacob, was six months old.  Our family lived in Iowa, where my husband was a recruiter for a small college.

We were about 7 hours from my parent’s home, and due to Jeff’s travel schedule were not able to go home for the Christmas season.

Some time in between Christmas and New Year, I tried to call my parents.  I could not reach them.  Somewhere, deep inside, I knew that something was wrong.  The thought crossed my mind that I should call their neighbors to have them check on my parents, but I brushed it aside and did not call.  ‘

The next day, my mother reached me in a panic.  My father, aged 67 at that time, had fallen very ill.  It all began as a cold, which turned into a flu.  He was completely “out of his head” and she had dragged him to the car and driven him away from their very remote cabin in the woods to the closest small town hospital.

From there, he was taken to the big city hospital, and was in very critical condition.  His vital signs were in such imbalance, that he went into cardiac arrest.  They brought his heart back to life, but through the course of the flu most of the sodium was washed out of his body.  He was in a coma, and the doctors did not think he would make it.

When mom called, we flew into action and packed our bags.  I packed funeral clothes for the three of us.  Things were not looking good.

We drove the seven hours and arrived at the hospital in the middle of the night.  My brothers and sister were there.  We talked to Dad, prayed over him, sang to him, tried to give little comforts.  After three days of constant bedside vigil, he briefly awoke.  The doctors were cheered – he scored wonderfully on cognitive tests.  He knew that Mogadishu was the capitol of Somalia.  He knew that Bill Clinton was about to become our president.  He spoke just like he always had, with great articulation.

And then, as suddenly as he improved, he took a grim and sudden downturn.  He entered a coma.  My siblings had to leave, my husband had to leave, and it was just my little boy, my mom and me to stay by his bedside.  The doctors had no idea what was wrong with my Dad.  He was quarantined for a time by Infectious Disease specialists, he was examined by neurologists, nephrologists, and every other “ologist” available.  No one could find the cause for the coma, and no one could find out why his sodium levels were unsustainable.

It was a very difficult time.  It was hard to keep my little boy entertained and even harder to sleep with him in the hospital lobbies.  My mother was distraught, and would not leave.  It was hard to see my tough ‘ol Dad lying in that hospital bed for such a long time.  He is small, only five feet tall, but he was always so strong, so vibrant, so smart.  It was humbling, at twenty-four years of age, to stand beside his bed and cover his hospital gown with a warm blanket; to touch where the needles had poked and the tape irritated.  I longed to make things better.

My Dad had not always been the kindest man, our relationship had not always been good, but I still loved him very much.  I wanted him to know my son, his grandson.

“You are my sunshine” had always been our special song when I was a little girl, so I sang it to him as I rubbed his arms.  I always talked to him…and prayed for him as he involuntarily cried out in pain.

He began having seizures, but no signs of waking up from the coma.  One day, the neurologist met with us to tell us that he thought it was time to remove Dad from all of the machines and consider that it was time to let him go.  He told us that a brain scan showed definite signs of decreased brain movement, and that his muscles were beginning to atrophy and turn inward, which was a sure sign of brain damage.  Even if he ever woke up, the doctor said, he might have no quality of life.

We kindly told the doctor “no.”  We did not feel that Dad had been given every chance.  We did not believe that it was his time to go.  The doctor did not press us, he just said that we would talk again in a few days, and would need to make a decision within a short time.

Within a day or so, we did indeed have more to talk to the neurologist about – for Dad began to wake up!  His memory came back slowly, but it fully returned!  His motor skills were not so quick to revive, and he had to learn to walk all over again, just like a toddler.  He had to learn to speak, to type, to drive – but in time every function returned.  He still speaks like a stroke victim, but he did not have a stroke.  Apparently, his sodium was so low that the endings were literally burned off of his nerves.  His brain had to regrow brand new nerve pathways – something that certainly isn’t guaranteed and wasn’t well known about at that point.

Dad came home from the hospital after three long months.  He had another similar incident 10 years later, although it only lasted weeks instead of months.  He had another episode three years after that, whereupon they finally learned what was wrong with him.  He suffers from primary adrenal insufficiency, which means that his adrenals simply don’t function at all.  Without adrenal glands, nothing works.  He is incredibly strong and healthy for an 84 year old man, but only as long as he takes a dose of cortisol several times a day.  All it takes is a tiny cold to take him down – his body can’t fight off illness without it.  It was after the third major illness when we almost lost him again that we knew he and mom couldn’t live without relatives around any longer.

So here we are, living just 40 minutes away.  My Dad has lived to get to know not only Jacob, but has seven more of our children dancing around his house on a regular basis as well!  God has graciously given him 16 more years after we were told to “pull the plug.”  He was given the gift of living to see his legacy grow and flourish.  He’s been given opportunities to invest in his grandchildren.

I’m still amazed after all of these years at the hand of God moving so obviously and directly in our lives, and how what happened then still affects our lives today.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 14th, 2008 at 8:04 pm and is filed under Encouragement, My Hand in His, a culture of life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.