A friend nudged me, “Are you going back to your blog? Maybe give the folks there an update?”
I needed that nudge, as so much has happened since last year at this time. Some of it was incredibly difficult, while a good deal of it was good. Some of it was so far beyond amazing, it’s almost indescribable. Join me as I reflect on our remarkable journey.
September 2024
When I paused my writing last September, John was on a heavy-duty medication (Milrinone) being pumped directly into his heart 24-7 through his PICC line. It definitely perked him up, for a while. Nevertheless, his new classification of heart failure was not promising. He was Stage D, Class 4. The Stage letter, A-D, with A being minimal, indicates structural damage. The Class number, 1-4, with 4 being minimal, refers to overall body function. As one nurse said, things were looking dire.
Before his end-stage heart failure, I thought life was busy with every 3-week cardiac appointments and 3x/week cardiac rehab visits. Following his August 5-day hospitalization and new diagnosis classification, the dance card intensified significantly.
The hours of our days spun around all things medical:
- We had every-other-day Milrinone medication bag changes and weekly visits with an infusion RN for PICC line dressing changes.
- Showers were complicated, and John did his best to keep the tubing and dressing dry.
- The 2 cardiac teams in Seattle and Bellingham wanted John in the office weekly. So, every other week, we saw Dr. Pete and had blood draws up here in Bellingham. And the alternating weeks, we would make the 4-hour round-trip drive to Seattle’s UW for the blood draws with Vicki, RN, and a check-up with Dr. K.
My tank of compassion now overflows for my patients and friends whose lives center around their medical care. It is exhausting, both mentally, physically, and emotionally, and yet we all manage to do it. And yes, I continued to treat patients in the home clinic and out in the community, in between all of the above. God was extravagantly generous in providing His strength and protection.
At the end of September, John was strong enough for us to escape on an 11-day Princess cruise with dear friends. Crazy, I know. This was a round-trip journey leaving from Seattle, sailing up to Victoria, then down to San Francisco, LA, and San Diego. We had planned this before he fell off the cliff into end-stage heart failure, and it seemed safe enough with no air travel and no excursions. But now, the PICC line was a big risk. Plus, his Milrinone medication had a shelf life of 10 days. This posed a huge logistical challenge. Not to mention, our medical team was split 50-50 on us going. Some were biting their nails to the nub, exclaiming, “What are they thinking?!!!” while the other half were encouraging us to live life, with whatever we had left, doing the things we loved, and making more memories. Thankfully, our infusion company sided with the latter. Remarkably, a team of supervisors and directors across the nation literally moved heaven and earth so that we would have our medications and supplies with us on board.
And what an absolute delight that trip was! We splurged on a suite and visited friends and family in the various ports. We did indeed make wonderful memories and two wonderful new friends. The entire experience was incredibly healing for us and replenished our spirits, as we took a much-needed break from all of the medical appointments and procedures. It was indescribably delicious to feel almost normal. I think it also taught our medical teams a little bit more about what goes into health and healing.
October 2024
5 days back home, and John landed a PICC line infection. Sepsis. Turns out bacteria LOVE plastic. Often, the bacteria can quietly colonize on the plastic, sending seeds off all over the body, gradually weakening the immune system as it tries to fight too many fires. And then when it is finally diagnosed, it is now a raging out-of-control wildfire, aka sepsis. Fortunately, his condition was caught early, and after 3 emergency department visits and 2 weeks of hospitalization in October, he was sent home with 2 weeks of IV antibiotics.
The fallout from this was that the weaning off of Milrinone, which was planned to happen the week after we returned from our cruise, was postponed. It was an entirely difficult and messy affair, with extreme exhaustion involved. For both of us.
Pause here.
Of the entire trial that has been from April 29 through mid-November 2024, this last episode was the worst part for me. Perhaps it was because this was such a contrast to the absolute delight that the vacation had just provided; I was caught off guard. Perhaps also it was that I was so disappointed and angry at how our local healthcare system fails patients when it comes to caring for chronic illness. We witnessed it firsthand.
Nevertheless, the night before John was hospitalized, God gave me an encouraging vision that would serve to carry us through the difficult days ahead. I saw what can only be described as a movie in my head of our future life together. John was wearing clothes and doing things he was unable to wear and do at present, like putting on a sweater (he couldn’t because of the PICC line), driving a car(he couldn’t because of his near constant dizziness and fatigue), carrying heavy things (too weak), walking at a normal pace(again too weak and poor endurance), and traveling in distant places (well that one is obvious). It was so vivid that I quickly grabbed a pen and notebook and wrote it down as it unfolded. Someone was showing this to me; I wasn’t conjuring it. And then I heard a message that contained these words, and I’ll summarize:
“Go in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teaching what I have commanded. I am with you always, until the very end and beyond. Go in peace and love and serve the Lord. A miracle is not for you alone. It will change your life and all around you. Therefore, be ready. Be prepared. Hang on to your hats. 😊”
I thought about my work as a physical therapist and questioned ‘What about that?’ and I heard, “Oh, your work is still there. But I am giving you something new. Be ready. I move gifts and giftings around.
You both are My Beloveds. Rest in Me. Take delight in Me. Learn from Me. Lean into Me. I will cover you beneath My wings, and I will give you wings. No heart attack will keep you down, for I am the Lord your God who sustains you and holds you and carries you. You are mine, and I am the One Who cares for your cells and organs and systems. They are all Mine in the first place. So Be at peace. Trust me. Believe. Rise and believe. Your faith has made you well. Because you believed. It has been done.”
Crazy? Perhaps. There’s more that made it feel less crazy.
August 2024
Go back with me to the early morning hours of August 22. I felt nudged to get up and pray. My prayers were for wisdom, strength, and discernment, along with a good measure of peace, and somehow joy. In the quiet, as I paused and rested, I clearly heard the unanticipated thought, “Why don’t you ask Me to heal John?”
My eyes grew wide. That question surprised me. This is NOT what I had been praying for. I heard it again, more as a nudge. “Ask me to heal John.” Like God was saying, “Come on, Karen. I know your faith. You know that I can do this. Why not ask Me?”
My reflex response was “Wait? What? That is still an option?! It’s still on the table?!”
This is one way you know it’s God’s voice and not your subconscious. My subconscious will slide in things that make sense and appeal to me. Asking for healing was not the direction I was walking. I had been wrapped up in my grief, receiving and accepting “the reality” of the prognosis and trying to work with it. John didn’t feel well, and I had accepted the prognosis. The possibility of healing not only seemed distant, I was pretty certain we wouldn’t be together in the new year.
Plus, I knew this Voice. I’d heard it before in my life. It felt familiar. It was also like what David says in the Psalms: “deep calls to deep.” But what I was being asked was completely different from me. Felt God inviting me to ask Him for the crazy and big. The Big Ask. And all that would follow.
I accepted the invitation.
I crept out of bed and then down to the floor. Folding myself down onto my knees, I stretched out my arms in petition. I felt His Spirit leading me to ask for healing, and I obeyed. There wasn’t desperation or pleading, but rather a deep and inner conviction to ask for the seemingly impossible: the healing of John’s heart. I visualized the dead wasteland that was a good portion of his heart and then saw rivers of blood flowing over it and through it. I saw the dead gray tissue transformed into a pink and healthy pumping cardiac organ again. I saw his lungs, which were struggling against the increased pressures, open up and embrace air and normal blood flow.
And then I saw his mind. I understood this would require a shift in John’s mindset. He was, after all, feeling very sick and very tired. Every cell of him. Plus, he was the one tethered to an IV bag. This layered into him an embracing of illness as part of who he is now. That had to change. I prayed for that transformation, for the releasing of “I am permanently sick and weak” to “Okay, Lord. Please make me new again. Whatever You wish to give me, I receive, even as I let go of what I think I know.”
In the morning, I arose and immersed myself in God’s Word, and then floated the message I had received to a trusted few. All confirmed God’s voice to me.
I didn’t immediately run to John and exclaim, “Guess what?!” Instead, I set out to pray for his mindset and the softening of his heart. I also prayed for the ability to present this in grace and humility.
In the evening, I sat down on the coffee table in front of him. He was propped in the big overstuffed chair, ground zero of this new, harsh illness.
I began something like, “I have something to tell you. God spoke to me last night.” And I paused. And then shared the whole experience.
And there it was: the surprise, and something like hesitation. And a fumbling around in his brain to comprehend this new scenario. He wasn’t fighting it. He was trying to find his way to it.
I continued. “I see it kind of like this. You know that my favorite healing story in the Gospels is of Jesus healing the paralytic. I really love that it was the friends who brought him to Jesus. It was the friends who had deep and persistent faith. Jesus recognized their faith first as he looked up through the hole in the roof they made to let down their friend right in front of him. Jesus looks up, past the paralytic man, to his friends who did this insanely gutsy stunt and sees their sweaty faces, and in those faces, faith that could move a mountain.”
I took a breath. “So John, you have a bunch of loved ones who are carrying you to Jesus and asking Him to heal you. Like the paralytic, all you have to do is come along for the ride and not fight it; just be open. ”
I watched his face reveal that the truth of my words was finding its way into his mind and heart. He was willing to work with this. “Okay. I can do that,” he nodded.
I smiled. That was enough. More than enough. It was the beginning.
Over the next weeks and months, we invited more and more people to pray for what we called The Big Crazy Ask. Complete healing and restoration to John. And we found that many had been asking that all along. Many of you never stopped.
November 2024-February 2025
And then, on Monday, November 18th, about 25 of us assembled at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bellingham and asked God for healing for John and 3 others. 2 days later, John was admitted to the UW ICU to commence the weaning process, and by Friday, November 22 was successfully weaned off the Milrinone. Miraculously, he began to improve. The Cardiac Team did not expect this whatsoever. By December, he returned to supervised weight training. In January, all dizziness left him, and he resumed driving.
February 2, at around 6 AM, he felt a pair of invisible “hands” gently and slowly massage his heart from the top, working their way down to the bottom. And then they were gone. He took a breath, and another, and then another, finding that he could breathe far more deeply than before he had his heart attack.
March-Present
From that moment onward, every month, John’s heart has continued to grow stronger, and he has been living a life of healing in body, mind, and soul. In March, our family visited us for a week from Texas. In April, he completed the Fun with the Fuzz 5K, jogging the last 50 feet in under an hour. He also resumed golfing. In May, we went on our first plane trip since the MI and visited friends in Kansas City. And then a week later celebrated on a cruise to Alaska. In June, he resumed his exercise classes. In July, he bicycled a strong 22 miles in our local Tour de Whatcom. We golf 9 holes weekly if not twice a week. He has been writing his life story for his family. In September, we flew out to Denver and attended my niece’s wedding in Estes Park, high in the Rockies. At the end of October, we are celebrating my 60th birthday with friends on a cruise to Baja, and then celebrating with old friends and family in Southern California. We’re ringing in the New Year with family in the mountains, and then it’s time to start traveling again, visiting loved ones while exploring this amazing world.
And sharing the incredible message that there is a God who cares and loves us, and is waiting to do for us far more than we could ever ask or imagine. Frequently, we don’t experience this because we don’t ask. Other times, if we ask, we don’t expect anything. Or we ask with really wrong motives. Like the “name it and claim it” approach to God.
Ultimately, we have come to understand that in The Asking, the point of John’s healing, and any healing for that matter, is to open our eyes to God, His existence, His incomprehensible love, and to encourage us to live out His Kingdom way of life. Healing is for the building up of His family, the revelation of His power and glory, and the uniting of us together with Him.
😊 😊 😊
