No More

Walking didn’t seem the best option any longer as my husband stumbled out of the truck, white knuckling his way along the edge of the box rim attempting to remain upright on the parking lot of the ER.

I frantically ran for help.

As the ER nurses all but dumped his increasingly helpless body into a wheelchair, my bewildered mind couldn’t help but imagine how his/our life was about to change.

The decline of my husband’s health had taken a nose dive days before and was all but deteriorating in front of our eyes.

As I followed the medical team wheeling my husband into the ER, I realized this was going to be a very different day…I felt it…and different it was to say the least.

By the time he finished triage, he could barely walk. Whatever was happening to him was happening fast.

After a mirage of scans and tests, the diagnosis came in …a massive heart attack.

Heart attack…wow….trying to let that sink in, we settled in on the cardiac ward intent on following this journey that this diagnosis would take us through, and hoped this potentially life changing news would lead us on a journey of recovery sooner than later…

But it was to be a journey we will never forget.

The next couple of days brought us to a shocking turn of events as my husband’s mobility started to deteriorate, his body paralyzing from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head…the prognosis took an alarming turn…1 in 100,000..

Gillian Barre Syndrome…

No heart attack.

Our lives seemed to be spinning out of control as if in a bad movie…but there was no changing the channel…we were in for the ride of our lives.

Watching my husband lay in the metal hospital bed, rails holding in his helpless body, machines beeping all around us, only being able to move his eyes…

Our world as we knew it seemed to be crashing down around us at an alarming rate.

Where was life taking him??…us…our children…our grandchildren??…the youngest just 3 months old.

Heading home one night from the hospital after an exausting week with no change, my mind and my heart wanted to fear the unknown. As I fell into my unmade bed that night, my head hit the pillow, exausted.

My mind was still racing as I remembered what I had started listening to the last couple of months…

“Speak to your mountain.”

“God has given you the authority over your problems in His name.”

“God wants you well.”

The doctor had just given us a description of what was happening in my husband’s body at this point, especially painting a picture of his spine and it’s short comings at this point.

Until his body would heal itself and the nerve endings to a degree…there was no point in starting rehab or any hope of recovery…. statistics were the only answers they had for us at this point….

At best.. lifelong pain in the hands and feet and long term instability.

At the worst…confined to a wheelchair… respirator…or even death.

As I lay there that night, I spoke to the seemingly enormous mountain in ours lives and I spoke life into Bruce’s body as I had heard to do. It was all very new to me but I knew I needed comfort…answers…but most of all hope. Hope of a healed husband that would walk confidently with strength back into our home..and back into.our growing families lives.

What did I have to lose?

Falling into a deep exausted sleep after my short prayer, I experienced a dream so vivid, depicting my husband’s spine with what looked like giant fluffy white pillows wrapped around it from top to bottom all around the nerve endings…protecting the damage. In my dream I saw this as protection against any further damage…and healing.

Oh how I longed for healing.

I awoke with new found peace and rest the next morning. I felt like I had slept for days.

I arrived at the hospital that morning to the news that his spine and the nerve endings were responding and healing had begun…

How utterly incredible! Against all odds and statistics…but I knew my God was not a God of mere statistics…He was showing us all that in these moments.

Days later I experienced another very vivid dream. I saw my husband walking in a field with tall waving yellow grass towards a woman in the distance.who was bending down holding the hands of 2 small children.

We had lost our second baby 25 years before, and I knew beyond a shadow, this was our child.

As he got closer, it became clear the woman was my husband’s mother who had passed on 5 years earlier.

She waved at him to turn back and said…

“It’s not your time yet.”

I awoke with a jolt and knew with such certainty my fears of death being the end result had been quieted by a dream I called a “heaven” dream sent by God to my anxious heart in those moments of those long hours, days, and weeks.

Three weeks went by and paralysis was still a big part of his life..yet I held on to His promises…speaking to my mountain and speaking life…

A five day $25, 000 blood treatment hung from an IV pole having been declared the liquid gold that would save his life as declared by the doctor.

Week four was rounding the corner and small improvements turned into big improvements in a short time.

His legs and arms began to moved as rehab had begun. By week six he was making strides with a walker down the hospital halls. The nurses on every rotation became his cheering section along with many a senior in the rehab, giving them something to look forward to everyday too.

The days were looking brighter.

As the first day trip was signed off by the doctor, we made our first trip in the truck with the walker tucked away in the box…headed straight for home as per hubby’s wishes. Pulling up the driveway, me not quite having put the truck in park, he jumped out of the truck and left his walker behind as he grabbed the wall on the side of the house pulling himself heavily onto every step. I frantically tried to grab the walker from the truck but got waved away as he made it in the front door.

Heading straight for the dining room table in his unsteady legs, he pulled out his chair…and sat down…

I saw the look in his eyes and knew in that moment he was seeing himself whole and healed back in his home.

The day then finally arrived…

He was going home.

As he walked tall past the nurse’s station to say goodbye and thank-you, he was met with huge smiles and cheering and was giving the title he still wears with incredible gratefulness….

The Miracle Man.

What was to have taken possibly years to recover or at worst death…turned into a life changing 6 weeks in an incredibly different way.

He was the walking miracle…and still is to this day 6 years later.

I have often looked back to that time in our lives and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was there in our every moment wanting to show us His most powerful character…Love…and His heart towards His children.

He never wanted this for us but in this fallen imperfect world these are the realities. People do die and don’t see healing at times. But that doesn’t change God’s heart.

But on that day in the biggest crisis of our lives…

We said mountain move..

and healing came.

We said… no more.

No more laying in that bed…

.

Thanking Him still so much for His protection and healing….

But above all..
His incredible love.♥️♥️