Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Miracles

I'm not a real religious person, as I'm sure I posted at some other point on my blog. Nine years ago this August, I was in a firetruck that rolled over 1 1/4 times on a highway. Based on physics of the accident we shouldn't have survived, or shouldn't be able to lead the fairly normal lives we lead.. There were three total on board. Two were found right away and no one could find me. My dad having connections with various people in the fire department, got word "it didn't look good" and they were pretty sure I died. It took personnel nearly an hour to find me under all the equipment in the cab, but they did. We all had significant injuries, but for whatever reason we were allowed to survive and achieve events such as graduation, marriage, kids, and home ownership. This is where my psuedo religion enters the picture. I don't know what or who protected us that day, but if you ask any of our friends and family, they'll agree it was nothing short of a miracle.

Around 645 am yesterday, we got a 911 call for "one not breathing" at a local residence. The text of our call said, "father not breathing, no pulse." This seemed as though it was going to be like every other cardiac arrest. Old guy is died in his sleep and the wife finds him when she gets up to start the day. The outcome is the same, for the most part. They remain dead.

We got on the scene and started treatment, gave some medicines, and by the time we were ready to put him into ambulance, he had a pulse and shortly after was breathing on his own. During the 15-20 minute ride to the hospital he started moving his feet. By the time we got to the ER, he was asking us to put on a fifth blanket because he was cold and wanted to know why his chest hurt (CPR). Some people (at work) act like a "save" is no big deal. Like we shouldn't have an emotion from it, but I'm not going to lie, I thought it was amazing. It's not amazing like, oh, the medics saved him because they're so smart. Really, we didn't do anything that took a whole lot of thinking. I do think its a miracle that someone checked on him at that particular moment in the morning and called 911 at just the right time and everyone did all the right things so this guy, who was dead, was revived and capable of yelling at me 45 minutes later because I didn't put enough blankets on him. Not only did he did he seriously come back from the dead, he didn't seem to have any brain damage from the lack of oxygen to his brain. This wasn't going to be one of those saves that spend the rest of their lives in a coma at a nursing home. He's going to go home in a few days.

The ultimate and truest miracle of all.....
In my past time of Facebooking I read a lot of one sided stories. I read a girl from my HS was pregnant w/ baby #2. It struck me as odd because I saw all kinds of "memorial" type poems, etc. before the baby was even born. I sent her cousin a message to see what was wrong.
This was his reply (names removed) :

"You are right about the complications with the pregnancy. The diagnosis throughout the whole pregnancy was baby B would have spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita. We saw evidence of this ourselves in the numerous ultrasounds where the bones were very gray in color, smaller sized limbs, and a cleft pallet. The doctors gave zero chance of survival short of a day or two, let a alone a normal life. We were all getting prepared for a funeral service the following week.When B was born all the doctors kept saying they don't understand how he is doing so well. B doesn't have the cleft pallet that was seen on a ultrasound just 2 weeks earlier. His physical proportions are within normal limits, only a slightly enlarged head which the doctors are not concerned about. His skull and other bones are partial cartilage right now, but they expect them to be normal within 3 years.So there are some hurdles mom and her family will need to overcome, but B is expected to recover fully within 3 years and lead a normal life."

Can you even imagine being the parents of that child? To have planned the funeral for your unborn son and deliver a baby that should live a normal life. The doctors did nothing to fix the baby.....someone or something else did. An absolute miracle.....

2 comments:

Shelley said...

This whole post brings tears to my eyes. What wonderful outcomes! I think every one of you had a guardian angel watching over you. I truly believe that.

jo said...

Powerful post.

Amazing what you personally survived!

This was hard for me to read. Mom was one of those saves that went into a coma, but thankfully she lingered only 3 days.

Dad was another save, and the quick paramedics showed up as I was starting CPR. He was okay for awhile, but passed two months later.

From both these experiences and others, I have the HIGHEST respect for you, people in your profession. I don't know how you do it. Even if I weren't related, the emotions would do me in.

Thank you.

Amazing story about the baby. You just never know. I'm kinda religious, but I don't talk about it a whole lot, but stories like this tell me there just has to be something.