She could have lost her legs, but God intervened!

​It has been a week of miracles, and I am so afraid I will miss a little detail in the telling, as it was really something to experience.  One of my dear friends, a new Christian, has been having terrible pain in her stomach for about two months.  They diagnosed it as gallbladder and scheduled her for surgery.  The surgeon cuts into her abdomen with the little cut, and a gallon and a half of fluid pours out.  I know I’m not a medical person (like totally ignorant) but the common sense person inside me thinks if I were the surgeon, I might say, “Hmmm, maybe I better see what that was all about, or perhaps this isn’t gallbladder at all, maybe I should totally open her up or close her up and do some more tests.”  Well, he doesn’t do that, goes ahead and removes the gallbladder and stitches her back up, sends her home.
 
She does not do well at home at all, pain even worse, swelling getting terrible – gains 25 pounds of fluid in two days!  Goes back to the hospital, they woller around with her a bit, end up sending her to CAMC, where she lays around some more.  They send her home, and she ends up putting 42 POUNDS of fluid on in a matter of days again.  Can you imagine how your body would look and hurt if you added that much weight in a matter of two to three days?  She was beyond miserable, literally drowning in her own fluid, and once again, just languishing in a bed at CAMC while not a whole lot was happening. 
 
We were all very worried, and she was suffering so horribly, it made you want to just bawl your eyes out.  Finally, she got sent to CAMC General, and a doctor began to run some tests on her abdomen.  She was going back for a CT scan with contrast, and I popped in there to pray with her before she went back.  Now, she is in so much pain, she can hardly breathe, and she’s thanking me and carrying on about me and my needs and not a word about her as they’re taking her back.  She is truly one of the sweetest women I have ever had the privilege of knowing.
 
That surgeon’s call saved her life, literally!  They found that she had a hole or holes in her colon and poison had been leaking out for weeks now.  Septic, you say?  Nope, not septic – weeks of lying with this eating you away, seeking to devour, and she is still alive and fighting!  I asked the surgeon when he came out how it was possible that she had been this way for so long and it hadn’t killed her, and he said it was interesting:  The poison and infection in her stomach had built a WALL and it had not spread throughout her body, but stayed contained!  Well, I don’t know what you would call it, but I would call it a “HEDGE OF PROTECTION” that only our God can build from inside your body.  I was ready to shout and run that hallway, crying and praising God that even though death was at her door, He built a wall that kept it from crossing that threshold!  Hallelujah! 
 
That isn’t the end of the story, though, as with medical nightmares, they seem to go on and on.  They removed six quarts of poison and infection from her abdominal cavity, had to leave her open so she could possible heal a bit more.  They went in for another surgery the next day and cleaned out more.  Same with the next day.  Surgery after surgery, sometimes the surgeons working through the night.  She was hanging on by a thread, on a ventilator, surrounded by tubes and her abdomen staying open all this time. 
 
About four surgeries in and five nights into this nightmare, we get a call in the morning that the surgeon had stayed all night and operated on her, slitting her legs open and trying to find blood clots that were blocking all the blood flow to her legs.  Her legs had begun to turn purple, and the doctor said he had done all he could do, and at this point, it was in God’s hands as to whether she would lose both legs or not.  After all our celebrating over God snatching her from the jaws of death, there was NO WAY we were going to settle for that!
 
We got on the phone, on the e-mail, on the texts, and our entire church began to pray and fast for that day, Monday of this week, and by the time I visited her Monday evening, her feet were warm and pink!  I am so blessed to be part of a congregation of believers who KNOW what prayer does, who STOP what they are doing and who BOW to the One who can make all the difference.  When God’s people humble themselves and pray, without ceasing, God shows His face and His glory.  All day as I prayed, I imagined what it was like when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead – how the blood that had pooled in the bottom of the veins and had begun to rot all the sudden got warm, got busy and got moving, pulsing and throbbing as it raised this man to life again – I could just shout right now thinking about it, how God began to take this woman who only had 26% of her heart function working, and he began to supercharge that 26% to where it could push that blood further than it had been, to reach past the clots that were left, to find those narrow channels in which it could move.
 
Yesterday, the ventilator was removed and she was able to call her daughter and actually speak for the first time in a week.  Her hands had been tied down, throat full of this ventilator, abdomen wide open and then legs slit open and staying open as well.  The devil may have had a plan for this new Christian, but he got a rude awakening this week – God’s people rose up and entered the battle, crying out for their sister in Christ, and they were heard.  I cannot praise Him enough for His mercy and His grace, for the love of His people who sacrifice themselves on behalf of people they hardly know, all because they realize the power they have in prayer.