Here You Go Again, God!

The day had started like any other. I was making breakfast and Dave was getting out of bed and going into the den where we would eat breakfast while watching the morning news. Then, in a second, everything changed… I'll never forget that morning, not now, not ever! I'll never forget!

It began as usual, as momentous days often do, with Dave watching the news and me making breakfast in the kitchen. It was the beginning of a normal day…an uneventful day. How wrong I was!

I brought our trays into the den, intending to eat while we watched our local newscaster give the weather report and tell what had happened in L. A. overnight.

Handing Dave his tray and sitting down beside him, as I did on any ordinary day, I asked, "Anything interesting on the news this morning?" He looked at me, was quiet for a moment, then answered in garbled, unintelligible words. I, of course, thought he was kidding around, but he tried again to answer me and his words were still completely nonsensical and garbled! This, or anything like it, had never happened to either of us before!

I was slightly panicked, but not in full panic yet because Dave is a Type 2 diabetic and I thought this might be some strange low blood sugar reaction. I grabbed my cell phone and texted my dear cousin, Joni, with the words, "Call me!" (I need to explain here that Joni's husband, my cousin Rick, is a paramedic with the Los Angeles Fire Department, and family members often call Rick when we have a medical question, because he always know what to do.)

Rick was usually at the fire station, but I knew Joni would get my text, call me, and then call Rick. This is when the first miracle of that tumultuous day occurred! Rick was, providentially, at home! He and Joni were working in the yard, but he had come into get a glass of water and heard the incoming "beep" on Joni's cell, which was lying on the kitchen counter. He looked down and saw my message, "Call me!" Knowing that imperative, short message was not like me, Rick called immediately and said, "Lee, what's wrong?"

When I told him Dave was talking incoherently and couldn't say one intelligible word, Rick stated firmly:

"Hang up and call 911, now!"

I did, immediately, and then God brought another miracle… In minutes I could hear the paramedics' siren coming closer! (We have one fire station in South Pasadena and if they'd been out at another emergency, help would have had to come from an adjacent town, taking longer.)

I'll never forget the care, concern, and competence of those wonderful paramedics and firemen. They examined Dave, talked to him, and knew right away that he was in serious trouble. As they tried to calm and comfort me, they helped Dave onto a stretcher and into the ambulance. (He could still walk at that time, but could not speak.) The rescuers took off up our hill with sirens blaring and I was told to follow in my car, which I did.

Before I followed, however, I first made one call in our driveway, to our daughter. Here's the next miracle. Beth cannot ususally be reached by phone during the day at work, but on that day, right at that moment, she'd left her office to walk across the campus on an errand.

She answered her cell on the first ring and I told her, "Dad is on his way to the hospital! Please call your brothers, and Tom and Dolley (my brother and sister-in-law), and the Covenant Group (my prayer group). Ask them to PRAY, and then meet me at the hospital. I love you!" By now I was crying and pulling out of the driveway.

Beth called her brothers---David in San Diego; Christopher in Scottsdale; Thomas in Big Bear; and, also Tom and Dolley and the Covenant Group. She then ran to her car for the short drive to the hoppital to which Dave had been taken.

Meanwhile, Joni and Rick, bless their hearts, had jumped into their car and had arrived at the emergency room entrance just before the ambulance carrying Dave arrived. Having Cousin Rick there was absolutely invaluable because he knew exactly how things worked and how to help. (He confided later that Dave's right side was paralyzed by the time he was wheeled into the hospital and he was unconscious. Dave remembers nothing after the first part of the ambulance ride.)

When I pulled up to the hospital, Rick was out in front, said he would park my car, and that I should go right in the main door where doctors were already waiting for me. He wasn't exaggerating that doctors were waiting! I was inundated with people in white coats holding clip boards… Some were doctors and some were other hospital personnel.

I was told that my husband had a blood clot in his brain and they needed my permission to give him a drug that might dissolve the clot. I quickly signed the papers and the doctors sped off!

Shortly after I'd finished filling out other forms, Rick came into the room, followed by the doctors I'd seen several minutes before. One stepped forward and said urgently, "Mrs. Hanson, the medicine did not dissolve the clot in your husband's brain and I have to do surgey immediately. Otherwise there's no chance to save him! I need you to sign these papers and we'll take him to the operating room right now. I also need to tell you that we may lose him, and even if he lives, he may be severely impaired. But, if we don't do the surgery, he'll surely die or remain in a vegetative state the rest of his life."