miracles in the dark..
“God works through the night until the morning light dawns.”
This past Easter will be a Easter that has changed us forever. It started with a phone call, a 7:45am phone call which made my heart skip a beat before even answering. I knew something had happened. “Dad has fallen, he has stitches and has some internal bleeding, he is ok, we are at the hospital now and does not need anyone to come right now but I know you will. They are running some tests.” I completely lost it and shook through my tears. I then looked in the mirror and knew I had to pull it together, for my kids. I then put on my Easter gear and tried my hardest to put a smile on my face and snap pictures of my kids egg hunt at their great grandparents so I could then go to hospital to be where my heart already was. I entered the room to see my dad looking a bit more pale than normal and a good bandage on his forehead. I took a deep breath now being at his side. We chatted until the nurse came to get him for his scope where they believed they would find an ulcer that was causing the bleeding which caused him to pass out and he would be able to go home tomorrow or the next day. My mom and I even talked about leaving and coming back, thank heavens we did not for what happened next. My mom and I walked with him as they rolled him down to the room, those unknown doors of hospitals, things felt a little uneasy after that. Let me just take a minute to say my dad is a striking handsome man, full of strength. I have never seen him hurt, let alone really even sick. Let alone, anyone in my family of 5 in a hospital bed, ever. He is the rock of our family. Our strength. Growing up my parents always protected us from unecessary worry or even letting us see them at their weakest moments. Now at age 30 he had no choice but to let the tables turn and let me care for him, to be there for him, to be the rock and voice he now needed. Back to that hospital room. They told us they would put him to sleep and it would be 30 minutes, even if that. The doctor walked us to the waiting room. We sat and talked about all that was going on in the past few weeks which was more than anyone would want to take on. My father in law at this time was also in the hospital in ICU on life support. An hour went by and we started to wonder why it was taking so long. Maybe they forgot to come get us, maybe he is already back in his room were our thoughts. Positive thinking, something my dad taught us so well, always think the best until proven wrong. We got a nurse to call in to check in him in the procedure room. One of the doctors then came and got us saying we will talk when we get to the room. At that moment, walking down that hall, I knew in the pit of my stomach something was not right. As we entered the room the surgeon laid out two sheets of paper, two sheets of papers with pictures of a tumor in my father’s small intestine. I looked at my mom, I looked at my dad still waking from anathesia. I found an inner strength that can only come from Him. We listened to the words with shock. “We didn’t expect this at all, we went in thinking to see a small ulcer and take care of the problem, instead his stomach was clear and we looked farther to find a bleeding tumor on the small intestine wall. Now we stopped the bleeding for now but it isn’t going to hold, it could hold for an hour or maybe more, we need to get him to San Antonio as quick as we can for surgery. We don’t have the equipment or specialist that he needs at this hospital.” We got back to his room, my mom and I sat at his side. We prayed. This was not what we expected, this is not what we were prepared for but in those moments you have no choice but to push forward with strength and faith you never would feel unless faced with this type of darkness. 7pm came around and still no news on an ambulance that was supposed to be arranged to come get him to move him to SA after being told at 1 that afternoon we needed to get him moved as soon as possible. I ran home to tuck my youngest into bed when I got a text message from my mom saying they are not moving him tonight, something about the insurance. WHAT. I headed right back up to the hospital to demand some answers and clarity on this decision. Let me get this straight..my dad is laying in a hospital bed with internal bleeding and you do not have the doctors or equipment to help him if something went wrong and insurance is the reason why? I am not the person to go head on with conflict or even speak up but when in comes to family, it lights a fire in you that is impossible to put out. Thankfully I just cry when really mad or scared, so no I was not mean, firm, yes. The charge nurse and person in charge that night told me we agree completely with you, we don’t still want him here either and you are doing what any loving daughter would do. Our hands are tied. I heard that phrase down the line in this journey and I wish to never hear it again. I asked for his numbers, He has now been given three bags of blood. Yes, he was that low. They circled the last number of where he was now at 10pm which had dropped from the previous bag of blood. So that means he still has internal bleeding? “Yes, you are correct.” They suggested we call the doctor because they had more power and they would continue to make the phone calls they needed on their ends. That started a very long night and an hourly check in on my part walking down the hall asking the nurse if they had any news and staying on top of his blood numbers. After this talk the nurse was in checking in on my dad every 30 minutes for a few hours. Those night hours were scary to say the least. I slept zero hours this night. I sat in the chair watching my dad try to sleep and my mom asleep on a hospital couch just waiting for someone to walk in that room to tell me their was an ambulance. Well, that did not happen. Doctors and a team of people were on the phone literally all night fighting to get this all sorted out to move my dad. ALL NIGHT. Finally at 4am I asked the nurse who I felt quite close to at this point. I said no ambulance is coming anytime soon is it? I need to run home to get my kids to school when they awake. She told me no, you need to go. At 4am I drove home from the hospital after 17 hours. I slept a few hours, got my kids all sorted and headed back at 9am. My dad had more color and a smile on his face. His numbers had evened out. Let me go back to that. In the night he was still bleeding. They were giving him blood but then he was still loosing it. I have a piece of a paper they gave me with the three recordings of numbers, the proof of a miracle is what I have. My dad’s sister lives in England so due to the time difference I knew she would want to talk to someone voice to voice after waking up to hear this news about her brother. We had a conversation about 2am that night, standing at the end of that hallway listening to her pray, pray hard, pray powerfully, I felt it, that darkness had no place here, satan had no hand here she said. That prayer was answered in the dark of the night. I didn’t see it at the time or even figure it out till a few days later, then weeks later until it sunk it. Something changed in the dark of that night. The bleeding had stopped. He was now stable and it was fine to have to wait for that ambulance because our wait continued into the next day. At this point I had given up hope that ambulance would ever arrive. We continued to hit the same problems the next day, no movement in getting him to where he needed to be. My sister had now joined us from Kentucky. Finding a doctor and the hospital that the doctor had rights to and the hospital with the right equipment that would all be covered by his insurance seemed near impossible. We had a number of different people come in who were working on his case that all gave us different answers and we kept feeling like we were back to square one of the process. Even the doctors came in with eyes of anger and sadness of how frustrated they were that he was still sitting here and how hard they were having to fight. “We have two surgeons who had arms open to take you in last night but we can’t get you there because of the insurance. This is what is wrong with medicine today, this makes doctors not be able to do their job.” Another lady entered to tell us her status of what she was working on and said the CEO of the hospital had been called, she said his name and that changed the story. I know him! I grew up with his daughter. Yet, again nothing was easy about this. I called her phone to find that the number had changed. I looked her up on facebook to see she recently had deleted her account. I then remembered the Elementary school she worked at and called right away to be transferred to her room where when I heard her voice, that strength I was holding on to finally had a breaking point, so through tears tried to make sense to her of what was going on and if she could call her dad to help. 30 minutes later her dad, the CEO of the hospital was in my dads hospital room. An hour later I was sitting in an ambulance with my dad headed to the best surgeon in the state for the surgery he needed. When we entered out of small town hospital to the medical field of a city hospital, things got real, really real. Yet, at every turn when we were being overtaken by darkness, light overshadowed it every single time. Every. Single. Time. It did not come when we asked, we did a lot of waiting, there was nothing easy about this process, nothing. All those verses, devotions, nuggets of encouragement I have heard were all making sense now, I was living them out. “Let me invade your natural flesh reaction, instead of letting your mind run wild with this, sit with Me for awhile. Be still and know that I am God.” We met the team of doctors and they gave us a sense of peace we were all holding our breath for. It was Monday now and Wednesday would be surgery day. They would remove the tumor which was in a deep, delicate spot which would involve having to take out his gallbladder to even get to the tumor. I knew my dad would knock it out of the park, his strength, his body already in excellent health, his incredible faith would fight through this. It still did not take the what if fears away but in these situations you have to take one minute at a time and not go down the path of “what ifs” unless told to or you would be on a downward slope of no return and no help to those around you. The C word was used before surgery which all took us back to our roots again to dig deep. That word, it is just one word, but it’s a powerful word, a word full of fear. We all rallied around him on surgery day, my older brother and sister and my dear mom. The first time just the 5 of us had been together in quite some time. We kissed him, we gave him a few chews of gum and we had to leave his side. The surgery went quicker than expected and were told everything went great, another sigh of relief and light in the dark. We were told we had to wait two hours before seeing him and due to the amount of surgeries that day we could only go back one at a time and could not stay long. It felt like an eternity waiting for his name to be called. Having hospital doors between you and a loved one not allowed to see them was gut wrenching. I did not want him to spend any more time alone without his family at his side than he already had with the actual surgery part. It was not two hours that we waited before we saw him which was only for a short minute, try more like four long hours. Then another five hours or so before we were the last ones in that basement surgical waiting room and my sister and I finally just walked ourselves back there to sit with him. It was almost 10pm at this point and let me remind you his surgery was at noon and lasted two hours. We sent my mom home to get some much needed rest. My sister and I could not stomach leaving our dad down in a basement at a hospital by himself waiting for his room so we sat at his side. He was the LAST one in that surgical recovery holding room which was one of the scariest rooms I have every experienced with the steel doors and light and I experienced seeing my dad at his weakest. At the same time I got to care for him, I got to sit by his side for an hour as he dozed in and out and feed him ice chips. Nurses can be great but no nurse can sit at a patients side for over an hour feeding ice chips. Reason why I wanted to be with him after surgery and not continued to be told I couldn’t go back there. This is why we were not budging once we got there at his side, finally and they were then staying on top of calling to check on his room since we were sitting there. We were starting to of course get frustrated approaching midnight, we talked to one nurse and said so your telling me out of 80 surgeries today our dad is the only one left down here without a room. The kindest nurse who was Muslim with a head wrap, why it’s important, well it just is, came up to us who was in charge that night and told us they were embarrassed this had happened but his doctor only wants his patients on the surgery recovery floor he is in charge of and not just wherever they can fit him and wanted my dad in a private room seeing all the family and loved ones he had. We once again heard our hands are tied down here, they schedule more surgeries than rooms and we are doing all we can to get people moved and the room cleaned for him. We saw a really ugly and scary part of the medical field. Money comes before patients. Something must change. That's a whole other topic. Through all this waiting and fighting he had the best of care, no doubt. The nurses calmed our hearts some, he was in great hands. She came back over an hour later and said I know you are still here because you are concerned for your dad because you love him but I promise you he is going to be ok. That opened the gates to let me break down. You girls need to get home because it is very late, I will take the best care of him. She then hugged me, like really hugged me for a good minute and then did the same to my sister. We then had the peace we needed to drive the 45 minutes back home at 1am through the thickest fog I have ever driven thru but once again a reminder that dark can never overtake the light. We got home and immediately curled up in my bed emotionally and physically worn and were able to sleep knowing my dad was in the best of hands. Light once again pushed through the darkness. He continued to be in the best of hands from doctors to every nurse he had. He loved learning the nurses stories and they all became his friends. He was up walking around he next day, determined to build strength back. The week that followed was hard to have him so far away, 45 minutes might not sound long but from a small town girl it felt too far. And the fact that he was not at home where he belonged just had a feeling of emptiness or even at the hospital here in town. I had to get to him every day or I would start to unravel into a sob of tears. I knew he was going to be ok but at the same time I just wanted to be at his side. If I did not have three littles at home who needed me and a traveling husband I don’t think you would of been able to remove me from his hospital room for those 8 days he was there, It was the longest, darkest, scariest hours of my life. Yet at the same time, I felt a strength and a closeness with our creator that I had never felt before. I felt a bond with my family I had never felt before. That first day being the only one there with my mom. Spending those next days and long hours with my sister alongside us too. Not to mention the time spent with the dear patient. We had not had that much time together in years, before marriage and children. We had to continue to wait for the final biopsy reports. We didn’t get the exact answer we wanted but we got the best option we could get given the tumor it was, we are thankful for that every day. We will continue to cheer him on to his fullest health and pray that we never have to walk this path again. It was a time full of unknowns and fears but we pushed through. Our faith and souls were knocked to the core but our love only grew stronger and we had to lean on our faith harder than ever before. My strength, my rock, it comes from my dad. I was humbled to be able to be his rock, to fight for him, to help bring him out of the darkness we all faced.
One more miracle, if I have to say so myself, is that the medicine my dad was taking for some hip pain they believed to have found this tumor. The believe the aleve is what caused the tumor to bleed. Which then led to him passing out and ending up at a hospital for stitches to then a scope finding this tumor. It found this growth at the right time and did not allow it to grow any larger in my fathers body. That alone is another small miracle of this story. If this had continued to grow we might not of had our dad 10 years down the road. Sometimes answers to our prayers might not be that simple or how we planned them in our minds but however they happen all that we must cling to is the outcome and what you can learn along the way. The strength these situations bring you only bring you closer to Him and those around you when you trust and know He is in control no matter what it might look like.
There is one more lesson I learned watching my dad go through this, I came face to face with the fact that I am a daughter. I may be a wife, a mother, a sister, a friend, someone people rely on but none of this changes the fact that I am also a daughter. Daughter, it is a part of my being. I read this and it related to this journey and the love I have for my father and the life and heart he has given me “At the core of my being, I carry the blessings and wounds of being my father’s daughter. It is true for most of us. Whatever it has meant to you to be a daughter is recorded at the roots of your soul. Somewhere in your head you still think of yourself in these terms: cherished, loved, encouraged, acknowledged, accepted, protected, worthy, wanted, or for some the opposite of all those. Whatever your father thought of you is how a part of you still thinks of yourself.” I can say I feel all those characteristics listed above, he has loved me at my worst. The times I have been at my worst the thing that hurt the most was knowing I hurt my father, I disappointed him. To see a man who is a part of your core being in a health scare like this, it shakes you literally to your core. It tests you in every way possible. It teaches you we are nothing without our Heavenly Father who also has to be the core of your being. Life can change in an instant. It is fragile. It can not be done alone. You must first hold on to your heavenly dad and then those around you. I would walk this journey again to learn all I did and to feel the unshakeable love I have for my family. There is nothing in this world that means more to me than family and I will fight for them always and forever.