Another ER...

My Exhausted Kev

We were sitting in church, and Kev's back started kind of seizing. That's weird in itself, but it only got worse as time passed. That was 11:30, and by 2:00, he could not find a comfortable position to save his life. The pain was horrible, and when the spasms persisted, I drove him to the ER in Chewelah at around 7 p.m.

I don't know if the pace of everything in a small town is slow or if we were just terribly impatient because of his pain, but it seemed to take a really, really, really long time to get to the next thing. Having retold the story three times, he was seen at about 45 min intervals.

No pill or injection seemed to quell the tsunami of pain that ambushed him rhythmically like labor pains. Finally, they gave him a cocktail duo in his behind of something that would help the pain and stay the nausea the drug would cause.

Ten seconds later he said, "I'm really light-headed. I think I'm going to pass out." He slid off the bed in slow-mo, and the nurse grabbed him. I gripped his hands and tried to pull him onto the bed as she said, "Stay with us. Get back onto the bed."

He lolled onto the bed by no means of his own, and then he just laid there. Just laid there. No response. We rolled him over. He was as pale as hospital linen, he was unresponsive, and his eyes were open and vacant. NOT AGAIN, LORD! Oh, please, not again, not so soon. I just lost Mom in an ER! Oh, please don't take him, please please please don't take him! This cannot be happening! Everything felt unreal, like I was a player in someone else’s nightmare.

The nurse yelled for the attending provider, an ARNP. I ran into the hall and started yelling for her myself. When I saw her coming, I collapsed against the adjacent wall as surely as my world was collapsing. Another nurse told me firmly, but with compassion, "It's all right. It'll be all right." I needed to hear that. That was my Lord reassuring me through her words.

They revived him, and four and a half hours later, we were home. His will to be home played as much into it as the angel nurse who was God's own servant in it all. I am immensely grateful for His very present nearness, His tremendous compassion, and His delight in delivering us not from the trial, but in the midst of it. This is not something anyone would choose, but the deepening of faith and trust because of it is of an eternal value we cannot conceive, and certainly of practical value here.