Our Ever-Present Help

Back at the hospital, I still felt a little nervous to be near Elizabeth in such a critical state, but I knew I had no choice. “Because I love her, I must be with her just the way she is,” I thought. While Matt and I suited up, her nurse gave us various instructions. “Remain quiet—no talking allowed. Don’t do anything to disturb her. It’s unwise to stare at her monitor numbers—it can make you crazy,” she warned. The “things we could do” list had only one item on it: We were allowed to hold her hands. So when we entered her room, we went to opposite sides of her bed. We each gently picked up a very warm, feverish hand. Because we vowed to remain silent and we wore the masks, we could only communicate with our eyes, a point with a finger, or by a head-jerk toward something we wanted the other to notice. The ventilator had helped save Elizabeth’s life that day. But two dangerous extremes surrounded her even while on the ventilator. The first extreme occurs when a patient receives 100 percent pure oxygen longer than the acceptable, limited time period—24 hours. After that, it becomes toxic in a human body. If the patient receives it after the 24-hour deadline, oxygen poisoning, permanent scarring, and limited future lung capacity would result. The second extreme could occur if a patient continually fails to get enough oxygen. The result is a high risk of heart attack and stroke. The doctor told us the goal for the next two days or so. “Elizabeth’s lungs must improve and begin to saturate her blood on her own. Only then can we lower the ventilator oxygen support to 50 percent where these dangers become minimal.” If Elizabeth was awake, she’d be shocked over the abundance of help she was receiving. She’d rarely been in the position of needing a lot of help. She was always willing to give help to others. Even as a young child, she was often on the lookout for ways she could help me. When Elizabeth was two years old and I was eight months pregnant with Maggie, I was getting dressed for church. When I dressed up, I wore flat-heeled shoes. Each shoe had a little decorative tassel on the top of it. Elizabeth had heard me complain before if a tassel got stuck inside my shoe instead of lying outside on top of it. She knew it bugged me a lot. So when I’d get dressed and put my shoes on, Elizabeth began posting herself at my feet checking on my shoe tassels. As I slipped each foot into a shoe, she would carefully pull the tassel on the outside and hold it in the proper place for me. The dreaded tassel problem was avoided. Elizabeth’s helpful heart grew through childhood. I remembered another shoe story her Grandma Mac had told us. Elizabeth was 7 or 8 years old. The story began with a walk on a gravel path along a dry river bank near our home after a Thanksgiving dinner. Elizabeth walked next to her grandma. Not long after we started our walk, a small gravel piece got into Grandma Mac’s shoe. It quickly began to bother her. She knew she had to get it out right away. Out in the open, Grandma Mac couldn’t find anything to lean against while she stood on one leg to clear the gravel out. She noticed Elizabeth nearby, so she asked her if she could lean on her shoulder for a few minutes. Elizabeth eagerly offered her assistance. Her grandma got the gravel out. Soon she was good to go again. She thanked Elizabeth for her help. After we returned home, Elizabeth told her, “Grandma, you can lean on my shoulders any time you need to.” Her grandma loved that! As a child, Elizabeth showed the deep love toward her family she still showed as a young woman. The story remains a grandmother’s fond memory. ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ My mind snapped back to the present where it was all too clear that our precious daughter needed all the help she could get. Earlier, we’d rejoiced at the news that Elizabeth’s saturation level had gone up during the elders’ prayer time over her bed. But it had gone back below 90 a while after they left her room. As Matt and I began our nighttime vigil with Elizabeth, her saturation numbers were a low 87/88, even on 100 percent oxygen support. We began praying silently at Elizabeth’s bedside. Between prayers, I had plenty of time to think. “It’s so important for Elizabeth to get off the 100 percent oxygen support within 24 hours or so,” I thought. “And over 12 of the 24 hours have already passed with no lasting improvement. It seems impossible for her to make progress, but if the number went up when the elders were praying, maybe…” Just then the Holy Spirit whispered: Pray for her saturation number to increase. I thought about God’s prayer request and decided to obey Him. “Dear God, please enable Elizabeth’s lungs to function well. I pray you’ll move her saturation number up to an 89.” I started to watch the monitor, unafraid to risk the craziness-danger the nurse mentioned earlier. Nothing happened right away. I continued to ask God for the number to increase. “Help her move to 89. Please make her lungs stronger.” I quietly prayed and prayed. Soon, I saw an 89, then an 88, an 89, 88, 87, 88. Then it moved back to 89 and stayed there! I saw progress! I felt so excited! I joyfully thanked God for His answer to my prayers. Then the Holy Spirit prompted me again. Now pray for a 90. “That sounds like a huge jump for Elizabeth!” I thought. Even so, I began to pray again. “Lord, please strengthen her lungs so she can saturate well at 90. Please move her number to a 90. You have the power to do what Elizabeth’s body can’t do on its own.” After a while, I checked the monitor. The Lord did it! It was at 90! I stared at the monitor in amazement and the number fluctuated the way it had before: 90, 89, 90, 88, 90, 89. Then it moved back to 90 and remained there. Matt saw it too. That’s when our eyes really began to communicate. We were both wide-eyed with delight. I felt a little like Abraham when he prayed to God about His plans to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham asked if God would still destroy the wicked cities if there were 50 righteous people in them. When God said no, Abraham lowered the number and asked God if He would destroy the cities if there were 45 righteous people in them. At each no, Abraham continued to test the depth of God’s mercy (within His justice) all the way down to, “What if only ten can be found there?” Now, like Abraham, I continued to ask God for a gracious, favorable number progression. “Ninety-one, Lord—please strengthen Elizabeth’s lungs to breathe and saturate well at ninety-one.” Again, nothing happened immediately. But I persevered with my prayers, and some time later a 91 appeared on the monitor. Matt had smiling eyes, and I’m sure I did too, as we continued to watch and pray. Next, I felt bold enough to ask for a 92. It seemed like such a high number, but I asked anyway. Pretty soon the 91 changed to a 92! Tears flooded my eyes. I couldn’t believe that 92! I was thrilled! The number 92 suddenly became the most beautiful number in the whole world to me. I glanced over at Matt, and he looked overjoyed, too. In fact, for the first time in 24+ years of marriage, I saw him do an eyeball twirl! A special skill Matt developed while in junior high, an “eyeball twirl” begins when a person looks straight up briefly with both eyes, and then turns both eyeballs together in a quick clockwise motion. We followed the nurse’s orders and celebrated that wonderful moment quietly. The fact that Matt looked truly goofy provided an extra bonus. At about 3:30 in the morning, before my prayer for a 93 could begin, the respiratory therapist came in and moved Elizabeth’s oxygen support through the ventilator from 100 percent down to 95. We’d seen evidence of God at work.