How Almost Dying Saved My Life
When a newlywed develops an annoying cough just months after her wedding, she doesn’t think much of it. But after weeks of worsening symptoms and treatments that aren’t helping, she reluctantly accepts that there is something seriously wrong.
But it was almost Christmas, and her new husband had been widowed due to another awful illness. She can’t imagine bringing those memories and that pain back into their home, especially during the holidays. So, she pushes through.
Then her daughter comes home and finds her barely holding on. The woman is rushed to the hospital and receives a diagnosis worse than she ever imagined. Inexplicably strange circumstances—by earthly standards—involving cardinal rules being broken result in her life being saved, but leave her comatose.
Weeks later, she emerges with the scariest and most miraculously inexplicable story of her life.
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Shortly after marrying my previous husband, I developed an annoying but persistent cough. Throughout the next few months, other symptoms arose, one of the most concerning being a constant fever that ranged between 102 and 105 degrees.
I was repeatedly misdiagnosed with pneumonia, but treatments for it weren’t having an effect. Instead, I grew worse over the next several months. But nothing will ruin the holidays quicker than a serious and scary diagnosis, so…I avoided getting one.
Instead, I powered through, because it was our first Christmas with our new family. That makes sense, right? Then, in mid-February, my daughter found me delirious when she got home from school one Tuesday. It was clear I was barely hanging on.
Despite negative skin tests, they determined I had a critical case of tuberculosis, which left me with less than 25% lung capacity.
I remember heading in for my first lung procedure on Thursday. I returned to my negative air-pressure room and tried to get my nose ring back in. (Silly, since I was due for several more surgeries.) That’s the last thing I remember. No one was allowed in to see me without a good reason and following all necessary protocols, including what was essentially a hazmat suit. Nothing was to be removed from my room.
Yet, for some reason, a hospital employee who was not part of my care team entered my room that evening. The story was she needed to “borrow” something. From my disease-infested, everything-on-lockdown, no-one-should-risk-entering, no-air-flowing-from-my-space, room.
But, she came in. And, according to the story, she found me barely breathing and circling the drain.
She saved my life. Without this stranger–who no one could explain–I would not be here.
But wait. There’s more. More than these inexplicably strange circumstances—by earthly standards—involving cardinal rules being broken that resulted in my life being saved.
I was left comatose. Over the following weeks, I experienced something surreal. I was looking down from above at my own body. I was in a room that was not the room I had been in when I was last conscious. Next to me was…someone. A being. He said nothing, but his presence gave me immeasurable comfort. The room below was flooded with angels and demons warring with swords over my body as I watched from above.
I knew that much more than my physical survival would be determined by the outcome of this battle. But as I watched and waited, my faith was not in anything other than the One who held my soul. The one who created me and loved me enough to give me another chance in life.
When I woke from the coma, the room I was in was identical to the one from my vision. The veil had been peeled back between this life and eternity for me to see something few people get the opportunity to experience.
And my experience changed me. It changed the path I was headed down. It changed my outlook. And it inspired the first manuscript I ever completed—Book One in my series.
Coming soon!