I am blessed and grateful. I should not be here, but I am.
Last September (2023), I started a journey that I never would have guessed in my wildest dreams that my family and I would be on. What began as tailbone discomfort transformed into persistent pain over six weeks, intensifying despite various therapies, doctor visits, x-rays, and medication, as we all assumed it stemmed from my back. This all reached a breaking point on November 2nd, 2023, with me crashing and burning.
An urgent visit to the ER at our local hospital resulted in a critical transfer to a larger hospital, St. Luke’s, due to septic shock, where I was admitted to the ICU. From there on to exploratory surgery. The surgeon said, “We didn’t know what was going on, so I decided I needed to go in and take a look.”
The “look” found a dead colon, and sepsis. I had three surgeries that week. The medical team could not complete everything that needed to be done in one session as I was too critical…and with each surgery, the surgeon offered my family little hope that I would survive.
After the last surgery, she finally told my family that I may just pull through. The first month was pretty rocky, touch and go at times, as I kept getting more diagnoses added to my health record. I spent three and a half weeks in the ICU, connected to more medical equipment than the nursing staff had ever encountered on a single patient, battling sepsis and multiorgan failure, affecting my heart, lungs, and kidneys. This was followed by three and a half weeks on a specialty floor and ten weeks in inpatient rehabilitation.
In the spring of 2024, during my first appointment with my doctor since this all took place, she said, “You are a mystery! You had a healthy GI tract, no GI symptoms, no kinks, no clots, just tailbone pain….and how you are here after everything is amazing!”
The power of prayer! I had many miracles through these weeks, but I felt my biggest miracle was the unfathomable number of prayers on my behalf. It was overwhelming! That, God’s intervention, was my saving grace. I was truly fed spiritually at this time. The visits of our priest, parish life coordinator, the anointing of the sick (which I received twice as Father informed me, “Deb, you know you get this each time you go to a new place”), the visits, messages, Bible readings, and hymns from another local pastor, daily communion and prayers from volunteer Eucharistic ministers, and Christian music playing in the background in my room at all times. I knew that I was in God’s hands.
Friends prayed over me, for hours at a time. I learned that my friend Christy Blake, through the Blessed Reason Trip, coordinated prayers for me alongside my dear friend Jenny. They organized a one-on-one virtual prayer session with Dr. Nemeh, where Christy and her daughter Emily held their phone up to me while I was in the ICU as Dr. Nemeh prayed. Before the session started, they began to pray the rosary and described how they saw me silently reciting the words in sync with them despite me being in a coma. Having grown up Lutheran and later converting to Catholicism, I find this astonishing. Christy interprets it as my spirit connecting through the Holy Spirit—it’s a true mystery.
I was also informed that shortly after this, Jenny also joined me in the ICU, holding up her phone for one of Dr. Nemeh’s monthly Zoom calls. Dr. Nemeh and his wife Kathy prayed for me, and at the end, Jenny requested everyone to pray for my recovery. Nearly 100 people prayed simultaneously on my behalf.
As my healing slowly began to take place, I later learned about Dr. Nemeh as Christy gave me the book “Miracles Every Day” that is written about his life and work, along with her own book, “The Power of God…Today” that speaks to what happened to her and her daughter through his prayers as well. Dr. Nemeh uses his gift of medicine and faith to heal.
I AM blessed! My brain, heart and lungs are good, and my kidneys are stable. All moving parts are functional. I have graduated from therapy but still have a long road of exercises to go to regain my strength. I am back to playing the organ and piano for church, one of my loves.
I can look at this whole picture and say, “Why me? Why did this happen to me?” And I have done that. And yet, I can also say, “Why me? Why did I survive, when others have not?”
My husband and I have had these conversations and have come up with this conclusion: Everyone has his/her journey and their own cross to bear. This happens to be the journey that we have been placed on. We are here to help each other on our journeys, however that help presents itself.
God is smack dab in the middle of my story, and if this helps others on their journeys, it has been well worth it.
God is good!