Three Days to Live
Thirty-seven years. That’s how long my husband served as a pastor. But only a month after he left the pulpit, David had become deathly ill as a result of an autoimmune condition.
In the following months, he deteriorated to the point of barely being able to function. He couldn’t remember how to spell the simplest words. His hand-eye coordination resulted in his writing becoming the tiniest scrawl. He shuffled from bed to the couch, bumping into walls, and dozed most of his days away in his favorite chair while we waited for the liver transplant team to let us know that a donor liver was available. The wait seemed endless!
Finally, we got the call from Vancouver General Hospital, letting us know it was time to fly there for the transplant. We were ecstatic!
In the intensive-care unit (ICU) after surgery, our family was overjoyed to see David pink-skinned instead of yellow. Hundreds of people had prayed for this day, and we received emails expressing joy and relief as we all thanked God for this precious gift of life.
Three weeks after the transplant, David was well enough to go “home” to our rented apartment in Vancouver, where we were to live for three months post-op, since our real home was too far away. David was on top of the world, but an even bigger test of our faith was right around the corner. Within twenty-four hours, David was rushed back to the hospital with bleeding, and ended up in the same room he had just vacated. How demoralizing! He was released within a few days.
A week later, David was again taken to the hospital by ambulance, this time with massive internal bleeding. Health-care professionals performed multiple tests to determine what was wrong, but they could not find the cause and could not stop the bleeding.
David went into shock and was eventually put on life support. During the final twenty-four hours before yet another surgery, he received twenty-seven units of blood—one and a half times the normal amount of blood in the body! The situation was critical. The social worker told me David was in danger of dying and to notify our family.
Once again, our three children flew in from out of town, arriving just in time to say their final, anguished good-byes to their unconscious father as he was wheeled away to the operating room. As we sat yet again in the ICU waiting room, we were very conscious of being held up by hundreds of prayers, and we were intensely aware of God’s presence in the room with us.
When the doctor came out after the six-hour surgery to talk to us, he told us the main problem was that an aneurysm in the hepatic artery had burst, causing the massive bleeding. He informed us that the situation was tenuous at best.
David hovered between life and death in the ICU, so swollen from all the fluid pumped into him that he could not move any part of his body. And he couldn’t talk because of the ventilator in his mouth.
“We are amazed he survived. It is quite incredible!” one doctor said with tears in her eyes. The hospital staff began to refer to him as the Miracle Man. Of course, we knew David had survived only due to the grace and power of God. He was the Great Physician who alone could heal David if that was His plan.
Five days later, David was transferred to the solid organ transplant ward, but developed pneumonia and was taken back to the ICU, much to our discouragement.
Fifteen days after the second surgery, David awoke with excruciating pain, his blood pressure dropping—and the fight was on again to save his life!
Two months after the initial surgery, our youngest daughter and I were summoned to attend a conference with five doctors where we were told that 60 percent of David’s new liver had died overnight from a lack of blood supply, likely due to a clot in the artery. The only way he would survive was to get a new donor liver, and they estimated he had three days to live! David was immediately put on a Canada-wide urgent transplant list.
A couple of days later, David lay sleeping in the ICU while our oldest daughter sat by his bed. At 3 a.m. the nurse told them a second liver was available!
Our son and I had gone to the hotel late that evening for a rest, but I was lying awake, tossing and turning in bed, alternately praying, but then despairing that a donor liver would not be found in time. I wept and begged God to spare David’s life once more.
Suddenly, at 3:30 a.m., a lamp at the other end of the room switched on suddenly, flooding the room with light! Amazingly, I was not the least bit afraid. Instead, I thought: There is light at the end of the tunnel.
I felt as if God was saying to me that He would light the way and that David would survive. Feeling reassured, but still somewhat in disbelief, I got up, turned off the light, and immediately fell into a peaceful sleep, murmuring a prayer of heartfelt thanks to God.
Toward morning, when our daughter called with the tremendous news that a donor liver had been found, I was overjoyed! When I arrived at the hospital and told my husband what had happened with the light, he started to cry. He said that right after he was told about the liver at 3 a.m., he asked God for a sign that everything would be okay. It seemed clear to us that God was saying, “I will light the way before you and I will bring you through this.”
As David was wheeled to the operating room on November 11, just three days after his transplanted liver began to die, our family had an overwhelming sense of peace and confidence that he would live. When the doctor came out after the second six-hour surgery, he told us that David would not have survived much longer.
Unbelievably, David developed internal bleeding the next day, and on November 13, another six-hour surgery had to be done, although the cause of the bleeding was never found. It was David’s fourth major surgery in forty-nine days!
Our youngest daughter and I were alone in the waiting room, waiting for the surgery to be finished, feeling lonely and overcome with emotion, when we both spontaneously started singing the same praise song.
God touched our hearts and filled us with His peace, reassuring us that He was in the room with us, and that He was with David in that operating room. Miraculously, the bleeding stopped on its own the following day.
While everyone was euphoric that David had survived this trauma, a difficult time lay ahead as his body struggled to heal. He had lost thirty pounds. Often it seemed there was little progress, but he was continually winning small battles just to stay alive. Everything was a struggle for David, but nurses called him a fighter and constantly encouraged him. The occupational therapist said, “Think of this time as similar to learning to ride a bike. Right now, you’re using training wheels.”
Our daughter quipped, “But you’ve been run over by the bike!”
Finally, after five long months in Vancouver, we drove back to our home six hours away. David had high hopes of a fast recovery in familiar territory.
It was a long, difficult year for us, however, with many ups and downs. At first, David was too weak to even step into the shower alone. He only weighed 108 pounds. He couldn’t put his own socks on. He had no energy. Nothing tasted good. He only ate because he wanted to live. Sometimes God seemed far away.
As we, and countless others, continued to pray, the Lord worked His miraculous healing in David’s body. He gradually regained his strength, and after some months he began to write his transplant story to encourage himself and others.
You cannot go through a journey like this without learning some profound spiritual lessons. I learned that nothing is too hard for God. When things seemed hopeless to me, God gave hope and whispered, “Trust me.” When my strength was gone, God carried me.
Above all, I realized afresh that God is only a prayer away, and He delights in the cries of His children. David could not have survived the trauma had it not been for the grace of God in answer to all the prayers. He is truly a God of miracles!