Only God knows for Sure
That fragile Space Between Life and Death
Bill’s dad had finished his coffee and headed out to check the oil in the old motor home before they took off which left Bill and I sitting at the kitchen table with Bill’s Mom. It was the beginning of camping season. Bill’s parents had stopped for a brief visit in their motorhome on way to tour the U.P. Their favorite destination spot was an RV campground on the shores of Lake superior. The year is 2005.
Bills mom sat silent for a few minutes, her fingers wrapped gingerly around her coffee cup. She took on a far away look for a few seconds. “You know, life is like a slow walk up a hill,” she lamented, “it’s like you struggle to pull the toboggan to the top of the hill, when you get there and finally climb on the thing, in an instant it slams you to the ground and the ride is over. Take care of your health, kids, be sure you take care of your health.” She got up from the table, put her coffee cup in the sink and went outdoors to find Dad. Her cryptic message to us was that she was letting us know that she was sick. It was a short 6 years later she was gone. This dear woman had been fighting colon cancer for years which she strictly forbade Dad from telling any of us.
She was right, you know, lots of people are getting slammed. Over the course of the next dozen years or so we lost on average 3 people a year. Two sisters,(one of his and one of mine), his Dad and my Dad, various uncles and aunts, cousins, friends, acquaintances and neighbors. It seemed like people were dropping like flies. These poor souls were stricken with cancer, heart conditions, falls, accidents and other conditions and damages detrimental to the human body. Then one day out of the blue it was our turn.
Bill had been in bed feeling like he had the flu since Friday. Suddenly I heard him hollering for me from the back deck. I had been enjoying being out in the yard on this warm August Sunday afternoon playing in the garden. “You gotta take me to the hospital.” He demanded, as he bent over clutching his stomach. “Something is not right, we gotta go now!” He was weak, short of breath, and his skin was an odd sort of gray color. He was in so much pain he could barely get himself into the car. I was scared!
When we arrived at the hospital the first thing they did was triage him. The nurse asked a bunch of questions then hooked him up to a blood pressure machine. “That can’t be right, it must be broken,” She claimed. On a recheck of his blood pressure from different machine, she was shocked and immediately put him into a wheelchair and rushed him back to emergency. His blood pressure was 80 over 48, it’s was why she thought her machine was malfunctioning. Doctor came into the room, doctor left the room, another doctor came in and then he left. Labs were taken and an x-ray was taken. Less than 2 hours later they were rushing him in to emergency surgery. It all happened so fast.
Once the surgeon had the scopes in place in his chest, he could see the gallbladder. It was so full of stones and gunk that the gallstones had closed off most all of the blood flow to it creating the perfect condition for gangrene to thrive. Now to save his life the he needed to remove the gallbladder which turned out to be a very difficult proposition due to the fact that half the organ had turned to jelly. The gangrenous toxins escaped despite the surgeons best efforts and began billowing throughout Bill’s body. It was so toxic the doctors couldn’t believe that Bill had had no symptoms until he became sick on Friday. The surgeon said “This is the worse case I’ve ever seen! He was a miracle, a miracle he survived.”
Bill’s whole body was now septic. Toxic nasties cursing his veins, hell bent on destroying his organs and body. He lay in that narrow space between life and death.
For 11 days in ICU his body fought to stay alive, a ventilator doing the breathing for him. The doctor placed Bill in a chemical induced coma so the surge of antibiotics and various other medicines could do their work undisturbed. There he lay, 15 IV’s full of life saving medicine running into his arms and groin area. A few days later two more ports were created in his upper shoulder area for even more medicine. At one point the nurses and doctors were buzzing around his room trying to bring down a fever of 106.5. More medicine, more panic. Their efforts were successful, however, and by day number 6 he was still holding his own. His condition hadn’t gotten any worse despite the fever. That was good news, although it had now been 12 days since Bill had eaten or taken any nourishment of any kind.
It emotionally rips your heart out to watch your once vibrant loved one lying there motionless, wasting away, relying absolutely on nurses, doctors and modern science for his very life. One nurse told me that at age 63, Bill is not considered old yet. She told me too, that they had already put at least 20 pounds of saline and antibiotics through his system to help flush out the sepsis bacteria. That’s a lot of flushing and they weren’t done yet.
I was sitting next to my husband in his mechanical hospital bed one evening mesmerized by the rhythmic beeps, and humming of the computerized machines keeping his body alive when I suddenly remembered an article I had read a few months earlier of an experimental treatment for sepsis. I left the hospital a little earlier than normal this night, went straight home to fire up my computer determined to find the information on this unproven treatment.
Sure enough, I found it. Vitamin C, B1 and corticosteroids, the combination was new and experimental but it turned out there was plenty of information and doctors were already using it in some hospitals to treat sepsis patients.
I took this information and several case studies into the hospital and presented it to my husband’s ICU doctor. I was sure he would simply brush me off as a desperate old lady just doing anything to save her dying husband. Imagine my shock and excitement when the doctor actually said he would look into it.
A few hours later he came back into the room to tell me that it took awhile to find some of that vitamin C cocktail because our pharmacy didn’t have it, but that he had in fact found a source, then reminded me that this combination wasn’t FDA approved. Did I still want to do this? Yes, I assured him, I knew. Ok, Dr. B said as he turned on his heel and left the room. The next day he came into the room to let me know that he had some vitamin C cocktail delivered overnight and nurses were going to hook hubby up with an IV of this experimental cocktail shortly. Oh, thank you, thank you Dr. B!! But wait! What if this was a mistake? I should not have interfered with standard hospital protocol for sepsis patient treatment. All kinds of stuff ran through my brain. Again, I was scared. But that little nagging, that cosmic knowing touched my soul. This will work it assured me.
The first day of the experimental cocktail showed nothing new at least to my untrained eye. Bill’s 4 sisters drove up together from lower Michigan and were now weeping over their brother’s bedside. One of his daughters and her husband came into the room too. The room grew quiet of nurses activity as we gathered around Bills mechanical bed, only a dozen humming, beeping computerized machines intruded on our moment of silence. The 8 of us and two nurses held good loving thoughts and energy in our hearts as we said prayers over Bill as lay there unaware that so many people were cheering him on. Beth (his daughter) anointed his forehead with holy water as we said another prayer and all of us put a hand on this very sick man at the same time in an exchange of loving energy.
Dear husband slept well that night his overnight nurse reported and by day number 3 of the experimental cocktail his lab tests indicated much improvement. When the doctor came in to check on him in the morning, he stood there, seriously contemplating the humming, beeping machines. “We are going to start the waking up process today.” he said. “Give us about an hour or so to get things ready.” I was so emotional I could barely contain myself. He was going to live! Even now writing this gets me all emotional and goose bumpy.
I knew in my heart there would be a long road ahead even as the doctor was explaining this to me. Bill had severe muscle wasting from lack of movement, he had lost at this point, about 85 pounds. (Did you know that ICU mechanical beds periodically take the patient’s weight? Amazing, I didn’t know that.) Bill had already been diagnosed with beginning stages of heart disease before this ordeal, the sepsis weakened his heart tremendously and at faster rate than he normally would have experienced had he not had sepsis. So he did end up in a nursing home for a few weeks. There was no way I could take care of him on my own, this guy is 6 ft. tall and totally helpless. He was only had the ability to sit up in bed with help and couldn’t hold his own weight to stand at all. It took two people to move him even in bed. At the nursing home they gave him therapy and showed him how to strengthen his muscles. But, damn! He did it! The guy is a miracle! By the time he left the nursing home he could stand for a few minutes and climb about 4 steps which was all that was needed to get him into the house.
It is now 4 years later, many surgeries and hospital stays later, he is on a good recovery although, he will never be 100%. But that’s ok, we can live with that.
I ask you, was it the wonderful, gentle care he received from the ICU nurses who know their patients better than they know themselves. Was it the Doctors and the familiar rural hospital. The people who work in them are like family because as it turns out in small communities, they are your family and neighbors. Was it the vitamin C, B1 and corticosteroids combination or was it all the spiritual loving energy and prayer that did it? Or could it have been a combination of all of the above?
God knows for sure, but I think I know too.