Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Miracles Happen

I can't imagine living in a world where miracles don't happen...I should think it would be hard to find hope there...But I am here to attest to the fact that "in this world of ours Miracles DO Happen". I have seen with my own eyes!

As I have shared previously, My friend, who was diagnosed with colo-rectal cancer just before Christmas of this past year, has been having some serious problems. For over a month she has been trying to tell her doctors here (and there are 3 of them) that there was something wrong, to no avail. Not a one of them even looked... and she also tried to tell them she had pneumonia, which she has had before, and they said her chest x-ray showed no sign of disease...

Last Thursday, the pain got the best of her and I took her to the ER where all the doctor did was give her a pain shot. By Monday she was in desperate shape and due to the advice of a friend, we took her to a new doctor, one that is an oncologist and a personal friend.

He examined her, and immediately admitted her to the hospital where he is on staff. Within 10 minutes after she reached her room, a surgeon walked in and the following day she went to surgery where it was discovered that she had a HUGE cyst next to her rectum. After it was drained, they discovered that the entire inside of it was one huge infected ulcer! It must heal from the inside out so it is packed with medicated 4x4 gauze that must be changed twice a day.

Pain management was a critical issue, so a consult for a Pain Management Specialist was issued where it was discovered that the morphine they had her on did nothing but depress her respiratory system, with no pain relief. Next thing we know, she went into respiratory failure and ended up in the CCU with Pneumonia in both lungs, and not just your average, run of the mill pneumonia. Whatever she had did not respond to the massive doses of antibiotics and steroids they gave her and at one point they put her on a C-PAP, which is a pressurized oxygen mask...one step up from a ventilator.

As long as she didnt exert any energy or speak,her oxygen saturation in her blood maintained around 90%, but when she turned to her side or talked much it plummetted to around 72% and once it even dropped to zero. She even scared the doctors, and had them all stumped.

I am here to tell you that Monday morning when her daughter and I went to see her, she was on death's doorstep. This was at about 11:20 am. The lung specialist had already performed a procedure called a broncho-wash, to which she didnot respond, and they were seriously considering an open lung biopsy and putting her on the ventilator. No one really knows what happened (doctor wise, that is) but by 2:00 she had turned the corner and her downward spiral began to reverse itself...she sat up and ate some soup that her daughter fed her and began maintaining a decent oxygen saturation level with a regular oxygen mask...

Today is Wednsday, and she is out of CCU and in her own room on 4 liters of oxygen, has begun physical therapy, and may be able to be discharged next week sometime.

There are many many people praying for this woman, and truly that is the only thing her doctors can attribute her recovery to. As for me, I know what happened...God heard the prayers and gave us all a miracle. God is awesome, truly.

In the gift shop there was a table of Easter stuff on sale for 50% off and i found the cutest stuffed lambs there, so I bought her a medium size one and a baby one and we named them "Miracles" and "Happen" (Happy for short)...oh yeah, Miracles Happen!

I am grateful today...and God is Good!
Sincerely ,
a twisted sister

1 Comments:

Blogger Jennifer said...

That's wonderful news!

April 6, 2005 at 5:00 PM  

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