I had fallen into a deep sleep Friday morning to be woken by Chad a little bit after 6 am. He was gasping for breathe and asked me to pray for him. I groggily began to pray and force myself awake. Throughout our marriage Chad has occasionally experienced some sharp pains and difficulty breathing that usually subsides within 5 minutes. Unbeknownst to me he had been in pain for 20 minutes before waking me. He had gotten up and walked to the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee when all off a sudden he couldn't breathe and was in terrible pain.
After praying I suggested he get in the shower - I thought maybe steam would help relieve him and help him to breathe better. When that offered no relief we began to pray about what we should do. We felt we should seek medical attention. I had no idea the severity of his pain so I suggested we go to our PCP (primary care physician) though we've never met her I knew that her office opened at 8am. I called Granny and asked her to come watch the kids.
We made it to the PCP office only to be told that the Dr. did not get in until 9am. The nurse receptionist said we should go to an urgent care or emergency room. We decided to go to a free standing emergency room that was close. Thank Jesus for directing us to an actual emergency room and not an urgent care center.
The ER staff immediately took us back in a room and began to examine Chad. After a couple questions they ruled out heart attack but were slightly puzzled so decided to do a chest x-ray. The chest x-ray revealed Chad's left lung had completely 100% collapsed. With urgency they switched rooms and shoved some papers in my hands saying all sorts of risk please sign, we have to insert a tube in his lung, now. I stayed in the room and held his hand and prayed like crazy. I did not watch. It was so hard to see him like that. He was in a lot of pain. If you don't know when a person's lung collapse it is because there is air in-between the lung and the lining of the lung. So they inserted a tube to let the air out - I could hear it. A lot of air. Like letting air out of a tire.
After some more x-rays the ER staff announced that his lung was already back to 98% and they were super happy. It turns out that he had not just a spontaneous pneumothorax (look at me with my fancy medical term that means collapsed lung) he had a tension pneumothorax which means there was so much pressure being created and by his collapsed lung that it was shoving his heart into his right chest cavity and creating so much tension that they told me had we gotten there 5-10 minutes latter his heart may have given out. Yes. He could have died. I kinda want to cry when I stop and think about it. But I won't because I have to much to celebrate: God was with us! He never left us! He gave us wisdom on where to go. He provided trained medical people who knew what to do and acted swiftly. He saved Chad. I am so grateful.
This was a horrible thing to happen but I know that God will use it for his glory. My faith is increased. In one of the in-between moments when I was home after Chad got settled into the hospital and I ran home to check on the kids I read in My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, "Isaiah was so attuned to God, because of the great crisis he had just endured, that the call of God penetrated his soul...to be brought to the place where we can hear the call of God is to be profoundly changed." Crisis tested my faith. But Jesus gave me all the faith I needed and I have come out loving him all the more.
Chad is now resting in the hospital and we are waiting for his lung to be completely restored. He is still in pain and he may be in the hospital for a few days. All there is to do is wait for his body to heal. It is a good thing we know the Master Healer. Will you join me in praying for his healing?!
I will leave this post with one more lesson I learned. While driving back to the hospital that night as I began to process everything that had happened and realize Chad could have died, before I could start to freak out, God brought this conversation to my mind:
Me: "Jude, what is our only hope in life in death?"
Jude: "That we are not our own but belong to God...and Jesus!"
Thank you Jesus for prompting Chad and I to begin a catechism with Jude and Shiloh. The answer to this question comforts me so much. The unabridged answer is, "that we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death to God and our Savior Jesus Christ." Taken from Romans 14:7-8, "For none of us lives to himself and none of us dies to himself, for if we live we live to the Lord and if we die we die to the Lord, so wether we live or wether we die we are the Lord's."
I am comforted to know that no matter what I am the Lord's. And so is Chad.
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