On Saturday, the 19th of February 2011, I fell down in the kitchen. At that time, I could not have known what lay ahead of me. At first, it didn’t seem too bad, but at night I woke up from intense pains in my side and had to vomit. The pain stayed until the following day and I was feeling sick, so I went to see a doctor.
They told me that I had a urinary tract infection. They gave me painkillers and said I would be better by Wednesday. I did not get better; in fact I was feeling worse all the time till I was vomiting blood. I ended up in the hospital, where I was given an IV because I was dehydrated. I was not allowed to drink, though I was very thirsty and the pain in my side was so bad until I could hardly bear it any longer.
The doctors were unable to find out what was wrong with me. On Friday, they wanted to carry out a gastric examination, but I went to a larger hospital by ambulance on Wednesday evening at the insistence of my husband and daughter. It’s a good thing... The nurse later told me that it would have been fatal if we had waited until Friday.
Right away they took pictures and scans. It turned out that my lung had collapsed, and the picture showed that my stomach had come up through the diaphragm. The doctors decided to operate on the collapsed lung first, and to set the stomach back in its correct position the following day. The lung operation was finished at 3:00 AM. I don’t remember this happening, but my children told me. I do remember the nurse telling me that I had to be operated on, and that I thought, “At least now they're doing something about the pain, and otherwise I’ll wake up and I’ll be with the Lord Jesus.” The nurse was surprised how calm I was. And I indeed did feel calm, safely in the arms of the Lord.
My husband and daughter got home at around four in the morning, but after just a few hours they received a phone call from the surgeon, who told them that my situation was worsening by the minute, and that I was on my way to the operating room. All this happened without my knowing it, because I didn’t wake up until five days later. I was artificially kept asleep and kept on a respirator in the intensive care unit. They told me that they had taken 80% of my stomach away, the rest had died off.
The stomach contents had come up in my chest cavity, and caused my lung to collapse, and also caused the infections. I felt a tight compression around me, which was the diaphragm they had operated on. I had a gavage, ventilator, infusion pump, a large lung drain, catheter, and seven other drains, that were protruding from my body. I seemed to have hallucinations from the narcosis, which caused me to see and hear things that were not actually present. Sometimes I saw beautiful colors and pretty deer or mountain goats, but also scary sights. I was very weak, yet with all those inconvenient tubes, I had to sit down on a chair for a while, just sweating it out and eager to lie down again. I was even too weak to hold up a book or a magazine.
Unfortunately, I had to have yet another lung operation, because I appeared to have six abscesses on my lung membranes that they had to rinse out (by putting their hands through the ribs). So I had to stay an additional four days in the intensive care unit, and was once again artificially kept asleep on a ventilator. I was eventually able to go to the Medium Care by the time I woke up. I was given antibiotics and (good thing) painkillers through the infusion pump.
They took a lung-photo and tested my blood every morning at 6:30. Finally one day, the infection disappeared. At first I was not able to talk or swallow, nor able to see well. My stay at the ICU lasted three and a half weeks in total.
There is much more to tell, but to keep it short, besides the many bad things, many good things have happened too. The Lord has wondrously carried me through. I didn’t know who was going to comb my long hair, since the nurses didn’t have time for that, but my daughter in-law came every morning and did that for me. A few nurses actually washed my hair once. The nightshift nurse was like an angel sent from the Lord. I told her that too. She came at night with her little light and I could see her coming with her blond curls. She helped me to learn how to cough again, since I didn’t have the strength to. The other nursing staff was also very kind to me. That is so important to a patient. I myself am also a nurse, but I have not realized enough how important it is to be so kind to a patient.
There were two more instances that I could tell that the Lord was present in this case: My daughter was driving home after visiting me while I was at the ICU. As she was driving, she was listening to a tape of Brother Branham, “The Handwriting On The Wall”. There was a prayer line at the end of the tape, and Brother Branham said, “That girl setting next to you there, she's praying too. And she's praying for somebody else, and that's your mother, and she has something wrong in her lungs. And you're some connection with this woman here, you are her daughter-in-law. And your name is Margaret. That's right.”
And my daughter’s name is Margaret! That was so special to me. I held on to this, and the Lord healed my lung.
We received a picture from a brother, where the Lord Jesus was supporting the hand of the operating surgeon. We hung the picture over my bed, and the staff would ask what it meant. Even the surgeon looked at the picture, and said he was Catholic and that he felt it was just that way too. At one point, the nurse asked if he could copy the picture. He had a colleague who was going to be operated on, but he feared it. The colleague was calmed when he looked at the picture. I have been able to testify of the Lord a lot.
I was finally released to my own room in the hospital, and a week later I required even less care, and shared a room with four people. They started to talk about my going home. Back home they were preparing everything for my homecoming. They put a bed in the living room, got me a walker, and much more. Gradually, all the drains were removed. And on the last day, they finally removed the gavage and the ventilator, I was so relieved. I could hardly wait to get home, though I felt very weak and could hardly walk. I also had to follow a particular diet: every hour I had to eat protein-rich food, because my stomach had become so small after the operation.
My greatest testimony is when I was in the wheelchair to leave. The nurse said, “I’ve read your file over again three times, but which medicines do you need to take home?”
I said, “Nothing. Just some aspirins, and I’ll get them myself.”
Nurse said, “Now that’s strange, I’ve never experienced anything like that yet. People leave here loaded with boxes of medicines.”
I’m still doing well, though I do get tired quickly and have lost about twenty pounds. It is still not too easy for me to eat, but regardless, I consider myself a walking miracle, by the grace of the Lord.
Sister Hester
The Netherlands