Three weeks ago (or was it four? I’m losing track of time), we nearly lost my mom. A vibrant and healthy woman. Brilliant, fun, unfailingly kind, and as stubborn as they come. She had just celebrated her 59th birthday. I had seen her a few days prior. We talked about Thanksgiving and she offered to bring the wine. Oh the irony of making plans. A Bible verse keeps coming to mind.
“Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”
-James 4:14
In an instant, she was almost gone.
It started around noon on a Monday. Ryne and I were working from home when my aunt (my mom’s older sister who lives just a few streets up from us and a few streets down from my mom) appeared on our doorstep in a panic. My mom had just been taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital with severe abdominal pain. My mom is a strong person with an incredibly high pain tolerance. So hearing that she not only needed an ambulance, but had requested it, was concerning. I put my arm around my aunt and brought her in to the house. She gave us some more details. I reassured her that my mom likely had a small bowel obstruction and that she’d certainly be just fine. I agreed to pick up my 12-year-old sister London from school and keep her with us for the night.
Mom spent the whole day in the ER. She was vomiting, the pain was getting worse, and she was deteriorating. Her initial scan missed the cause of her pain- a perforated bowel. By 8pm she was admitted to the hospital for a “watch & wait” strategy. And by morning she was septic. A second scan revealed what had been missed the day before and it was clear she needed emergency surgery. She died before they even started. They resuscitated her and quickly performed the surgery. She coded 8-10 more times over the course of 10-15 minutes.
My step-dad had been keeping us all abreast on her care. Our family is a blended one. Seven kids in total, not including spouses. We all knew she was going in for surgery, but none of us realized how fragile she was. Around one o’clock in the afternoon on Tuesday, I was just about to put Ivy down for a nap when I got a call from my step-dad. He was incoherent. I asked him what had happened. He said “Everything. You have to come down here.” I hurried out of Ivy’s room and down the stairs, Ivy under one arm, calling Ryne’s name with my own panicky voice. In that moment, I didn’t know if my mom was alive.
I passed off Ivy. Said something equally as incoherent to Ryne. Grabbed my keys. Forgot my shoes. Raced to the hospital. Crying. Begging God to save her. I called my dad and my brother on the way. I arrived at the front doors of the hospital just as my aunt and some dear family friends were walking in. We were all crying. No one said anything. We checked in. Took the elevator to the 2nd floor where my step-dad was sitting by himself sobbing. Before I reached him, I stepped aside to take a phone call from another family friend- a bariatric surgeon who had been briefed on her case along the way at the request of my mom. He was trying to explain to me what had happened, but I couldn’t process his words. A few moments later I noticed a doctor talking to the group. I quickly hung up and walked over to listen to what her doc had to say. The doctor, an ICU internist, explained all that had happened. Too many details to share here. Again, I couldn’t tell by what he was saying if she was alive. She was. Even once I knew that, it still wasn’t clear to me what was happening. So I asked what the prognosis was. He responded-
“She’s unlikely to survive the next few hours.”
Utter heartbreak ensued. It was surreal beyond words. Truly, it’s a struggle to put into words exactly what it felt like. To have seen her healthy and full of life just days beforehand and to now be sitting at her literal deathbed. There are no words to accurately portray the experience.
Again, there are too many details to share all that occurred over the next few hours. Nor do I probably remember it all correctly, I’m sure. What I do remember is that I immediately called on all of my prayer warriors. And all of my BFF’s came to my aide that day. My oldest friend, Megan, (who I’ve known since the day I came home from the hospital) is a teacher at London’s school. She dropped everything, grabbed London from school, and came to the hospital. Another lifelong friend left work at the drop of a hat and drove to my house to stay with Ivy and Conrad so Ryne could be at the hospital with me. Another dear friend picked Quinny up from school, kept her safe, fed, and entertained until Ryne and I got home. Yet another dear friend brought me face lotion to the hospital (I was in the intense shedding phase following a chemical peel) and then stayed to support me. Freaking face lotion! That’s love right there. Angels on earth.
My mom’s life was being supported artificially in almost every way possible. She was on a ventilator (amongst 40 other tubes and wires connected to her). Honestly, no one said it but we all knew, the doctors were keeping her alive so that her family had time to say goodbye. We were allowed to go see her two at a time. London and I went to see her together. She was pale yellow and so, so swollen. She looked dead. I want to cry just thinking about it. I remember stroking my mom’s hair, telling her I loved her and how strong she was and that she wasn’t allowed to go yet. Ugh. It was absolutely heart-wrenching. London did the same. I squeezed London tight as we walked out of the ICU room together. There was nothing to say. We had all the same questions and all the same fears and there wasn’t anything I could say except that God had her in His hands. We knew that. We believed that.
About thirty people were now loitering in the ICU waiting room. All deeply connected to my mom. After several hours of hugging and crying and praying, Ryne and I were packing up to take London home for the night when my mom woke up. By woke up, I mean sleepily opened her now wandering eyes. She nodded gently to prompts and then closed her eyes again. This gave us all a small glimmer of hope, but the odds were still stacked against her. If she survived the next 24 hours, the doctors were giving her a 10% chance of survival. She was in septic shock. All of her organs were failing. Her abdomen was still open. Her room was quiet, but inside there was chaos.
Ryne drove London home in one car and I drove home alone in another. Sobbing. Praying. Listening to worship music. I was so unsure of what lay ahead for our family. But a few things remained true- God loved me. God loved my mom. And in the words of Elevation Worship-
My God is able to save and deliver and heal and restore anything that He wants to.
-Elevation worship
We knew that God was on our side, but that didn’t necessarily mean survival for my mom. We trusted Him, even if that meant it was time for Him to take her home. When I got home, I squeezed London tight and told her we were going to survive the tornado together. Goals for the next few days were just to drink water. Eat food. And breathe.
My mom survived those next 24 hours. And the 24 hours after that. She survived a second surgery that was needed to clean out her abdomen. She came off the ventilator. She lived to tell her loved ones that she loved them. And to FaceTime her grandbabies. As I type this, she’s on the fourth floor of the hospital, still in the fight of her life. There are grief and loss. She will have major physical deficits. But she is in great spirits. She has a wonderful attitude about the challenges that lie ahead. And I am so incredibly grateful for the miracle that God has gifted our family. It is a miracle that she’s alive.
There’s so much more that I want to share, but this is all I have the energy for tonight. These last few weeks have been so hard and also filled with tender mercies and JOY! If you’ve reached out to love on and support our family, if you’ve prayed for my mom, prayed for my family, brought us a meal, checked on my heart, followed our story from afar- THANK YOU!
