Post by Cindy on Aug 13, 2015 13:31:08 GMT -5
Our Lord is just amazing....He honestly never ceases to amaze and delight me. I want to tell my husband's and my story to show the amazing way our Lord works in our lives and how intimately involved He is, making sure of every little detail. Because of that, this is liable to be long...I apologize for that, but the Lord has worked so many miracles that to shorten it would be to leave some out and I don't want to do that.
It all started on Sunday evening. We'd been under a lot of pressure and Bruce had been very stressed because of it. There was nothing on TV that night that looked good, so he checked to see what we had recorded that we hadn't watched yet. There were two movies left that we hadn't watched. I was hoping he'd pick the first one, but he decided on, "Facing the Giants". We'd recorded that almost 7 months earlier and still hadn't seen it. Neither of us is into sports much, although he likes it some and this had to do with football. Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled about the one he'd picked but I figured I could just read anyway so didn't object. However, within the first 15 minutes, I was captivated because I could really relate (as can many of you) to how one crisis was falling on the characters on top of another. Let me share a bit of that with you for those who haven't seen the movie:
Facing the Giants takes place in a southern Christian high school, where coach Grant Taylor (Alex Kendrick, who also wrote and directed the film) is struggling to keep the school's football program alive. The team isn't winning, the players are apathetic, and some of the parents are trying to have Grant replaced. When we first see him go home to his wife, Brooke (Shannen Fields), we learn that Grant's also having problems off the field; in fact, the film begins stacking the odds so high against Grant that it flirts with outright melodrama—his car won't start, his home is in a state of disrepair, he and Brooke can't conceive, (turns out it's his fault) money is running out, and most folks just plain don't like him.
OK, God had my attention and I could see that Bruce was glued to the screen so I knew He had Bruce's complete attention too. I don't want to spoil the movie for those who haven't seen it, but let me just say that by the time the movie was close to being over, I was sobbing so hard that Bruce had to stop it! They were tears of joy, but I wasn't crying over the characters in the movie, I was crying over the Lord's message to us through that movie. When I could talk, I looked at Bruce and could see tears in his eyes as well and knew He'd gotten the same message from the Lord. But I had to say it out loud. "We weren't supposed to watch this movie when we recorded it, we were supposed to watch it now when we needed it. The Lord is telling us that He is with us and that if we will give Him our best, He will face our giants for us and with Him, nothing is impossible!" We thanked the Lord for His encouragement and help and His promise and went to bed feeling more light hearted then we had in some time. Little did we know that there were yet more "giants" to come in our lives, and very soon too.
Monday was a different day to begin with. Normally Bruce leaves before 6am for work, sometimes before 5, but today he didn't have to be there until noon and was planning on working late. This was because he was working at a Surgery center and they couldn't have construction going on during the morning. He always likes to get to work a bit early, so I kissed him goodbye at 10:30 and he was off as it was an hour drive to get there.
He hadn't been at work long when he suddenly began to vomit. His supervisor saw him and realized immediately it wasn't "normal" because it was projectile vomiting and he wasn't able to stop. (Bruce had gone outside when he realized he was going to be sick) He yelled for help as Bruce kept passing out, and when he came to, he complained of pain in his left arm. They got Bruce inside and the surgical nurses were already running. As soon as they saw Bruce, the nurses yelled for a crash cart. In the meantime, since Bruce was now surrounded by doctors and nurses working on him and another nurse was already calling 911 to get an ambulance, his boss called me. It was 12:25 and he told me that Bruce was very sick and what his symptoms were and that an ambulance had been called. As soon as he told me the symptoms, I knew he'd had a heart attack, although his boss hadn't said that. He told me he'd call as soon as he knew more.
In the mean time the nurses had given him nitro, hooked up IV's and got them started...I'm not sure if they'd used the crash cart first or not.
Three minutes later, before I could do more then call on the Lord for help, he called back to tell me that Bruce had had a heart attack and was being taken to Holy Family Hospital in a place called Methuen, Mass. by ambulance which was only 8 minutes away and gave me their number.
I felt strangely calm. I'd known from the first he was having a heart attack, and that it was a bad one. I know what that means; I've worked in health care all my life. I prayed and finished the last sentence on the bible study I had been typing before the phone call and posted it.
In the ambulance they gave him more nitro and started IV pain medication going, along with the other meds that the nurses at the surgical center had already begun a few minutes earlier.
Nine minutes later, at 12:37, the hospital called me. Since it was an 8 minute ride, he'd only been there for 1 minute when I got this call! It was the nursing supervisor. She wasn't aware I'd been notified about anything already and told me that my husband was there and had had a massive heart attack. She tried to be gentle but there's only so many ways you can tell someone that their husband would most likely be dead in the next few minutes. She wanted me to be able to have a chance to speak to him one last time but the doctors were swarming all over him and she couldn't get through them. In fact, as we spoke, they were taking him in for surgery.
Instead of her calming me down, I tried to calm her down! I told her it was ok, to just give him a message for me and tell him that I love him and to remember that the Lord would fight our giants and that we were all praying for him, (I'd sent out the emergency request between phone calls) and nothing was impossible with God. She was quiet for a second and then repeated that he might not live. I again told her that I was aware of what was happening and to please, just give my husband that message as he would understand what I meant. She agreed to do so and I later found out that she had given the message word for word as Bruce repeated it back to me later that evening.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself. So, within minutes of his first symptom, because God had him working at that particular place, he was already being given the appropriate life saving treatments which continued right up to his being taken to the hospital and afterward; and within 20 minutes of his first symptom, Bruce was being operated on. If Bruce had been anywhere around our house, he wouldn't have gotten that first life saving treatment; nor would the ambulance attendants have been helpful, plus it would have taken about 20 minutes for them to even get here, and the hospital probably would have killed him because they don't do very well over there with most things and especially not hearts.
I hope you can see all the miracles that happened so far; all the ways that the Lord intervened to make sure that Bruce would indeed survive, but that's not the end of the story...He wasn't done with the miracles yet.
The staff at the hospital, including the doctor, seemed to think I was really strange since I never freaked out, broke down sobbing or anything like that, but was instead quite calm every time they talked to me. In fact, at first they were downright hostile toward me like they thought I didn't care or something. I spoke with them a lot over the phone before arriving at the hospital, since it took a couple of hours for me to get there, but once I was there and they saw me with Bruce, apparently they decided I must love him and was just weird because I still wasn't falling apart, because at least the hostility stopped. Most of them, including the doctor however, seemed to go out of their way to try and make me fall apart. I think they thought perhaps I didn't fully understand the danger he'd been in/was in or something. They kept reiterating how he'd had a "massive heart attack," "shouldn't have survived", how badly blocked his arteries had been and at least one still was, etc. I got pretty tired of that real quick. Thankfully Bruce was pretty out of it so didn't hear most of it.
I finally told them that I had been and still was fully aware of what had happened but that I was also fully aware that nothing was impossible for my God. I knew they were all aware of the "weird" message I'd left for Bruce and their reactions to my statement only proved it. They chalked me up as "one of those religious fanatics" and figured I was hopeless. but thankfully mostly left it alone after that. During all this time though, although I could tell I was running on adrenalin, I felt completely at peace and was quite calm. I'd forgotten until recently but now remember that before I left the house to go to the hospital, this scripture came to mind: Philippians 4:6–7 — Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. so I told the Lord that I really needed Him to guard my heart and mind as I just couldn't stay focused enough to take my thoughts captive myself that day and still handle the emergency. Bless His heart, He did guard my heart and mind all that day and night, enfolding me in His peace and enabled me to do all that needed doing. (when I say I was calm and at peace, I was, but at the same time, my mind was very busy trying to work out logistics and make plans for how I was going to get to the hospital etc, but there simply was no fear or panic.)
My daughter's husband, Bob, took the day off work so they could take me to the hospital. Management where he works will fire people at the drop of a hat and have frequently fired people for missing work because of a crisis. Bob was legitimately concerned that he could lose his job for this, but took me anyway. (I didn't ask him too, he volunteered.) Jennifer's response to the whole thing was that God was in control, they had enough money to see them through for a little bit so that if worse came to worse, they'd work it out and she was sure they'd be just fine. Of course we did pray that the Lord would intervene there too and I asked you guys for prayer for that as well. His job requires that they get a note from the doctor or hospital to prove where they were, and believe it or not, the hospital and doctor wouldn't give us one! Bruce's boss just happened to be at the hospital when all this happened so I asked him if he could help. He didn't even hesitate, but said he'd take care of it and he did. He not only wrote a note on company stationary for Bob, but called their management office and spoke to them too. In all the years Bob has worked there, they have NEVER been understanding or helpful there. Not even when baby Gracie cut her finger off and had to be rushed to the hospital! This time however, they were caring, respectful and told Bob there was no problem at all and that he wouldn't even be written up for it! Not only that, but the new woman in management there, questioned him about Bruce's name and then confessed that she knew Bruce... and sat next to him in high school! (I thought that was a really neat touch the Lord pulled off there!)
And there is still more: The next day, the doctors did some more tests to see how much damage was done to his heart by the heart attack. The doctor told us that he expected to see quite a bit because of the severity. When he came back in after the test to tell us the results, he was much quieter. He said he just couldn't believe it...there was practically no damage at all! Of course I immediately praised the Lord and thanked Him and once again repeated, "Nothing is impossible for God!" He left shaking his head.
The next day there were yet more tests including a "low level stress test" and the doctor told them to be careful that he didn't want to tire Bruce at all. Well Bruce got on the treadmill and was still going when the doc came back and made them stop although Bruce wasn't winded and hadn't broken a sweat, and said he felt just fine. Let's just say the doctor was very surprised!
Finally it was the day they were going to let him come home but it turned into a real nightmare. I'd gone to bed the night before in a lot of pain. My body was rebelling from all it had been through. I did all I could to keep it in check so I'd be able to function the next day, but when the pain woke me up early the next morning, I also couldn't breathe. The RA attacks my lungs as well as my joints and it had attacked my entire body big time, on top of the pain in my back. By 9am I knew it was going to be physically impossible for me to do anything at all, but I needed to leave the house within an hour to be there in time to pick Bruce up. So I called his brother who was supposed to take me, so I could warn him that I was moving slow and see if he was going to be on time. I was kind of hoping he'd be just a little late. It turned out that he'd had some problems of his own come up and he wasn't going to be able to take me at all.
I started to get angry and frustrated, but knowing how I felt physically, I had this tiny idea that God was still in control of everything. So I just started making phone calls to see who I could get to take me there. (I can't drive normally and there was no way I could have that day anyway) I went through my whole address book and people either weren't home or had appointments they couldn't break. I knew Jenn would do it but her sense of direction is as bad as mine so that wasn't really viable. I kept calling Bruce too to see if the doctor had seen him yet to release him, because by now it was after 11am and he should have been on his way home. But the doctor hadn't shown up yet! I still wasn't dressed even as I still wasn't really able to walk or move well enough to get dressed so was still struggling to get my body to cooperate with me.
I finally had to call Bruce's boss and ask him if he'd have one of the guys pick Bruce up. He said that he could and that it would be easy since they were working only 8 minutes away. I'd forgotten about that, so that made me feel better as at least they wouldn't have to be going out of their way a lot. Plus, although I desperately wanted to see Bruce, my body still wasn't cooperating and I was still having a real hard time breathing too so I figured that would give me more time to pull myself together since it would take them at least an hour to get him home.
Only problem was, by 3pm when the guys get off work, the doctor still hadn't showed up! At least by then though I was finally able to get dressed and beginning to be able to function. Every time I'd start to get angry about the situation though, I'd remember that if it had happened the way it was supposed to have. I might have wound up in the hospital myself from trying to do something I wasn't capable of, and even if Bruce's brother had been here like he was supposed to have been, I wouldn't have been physically able to have even gotten into the car. Instead, because I was able to take care of myself, and with a LOT of help from the Lord, by the time Bruce did get home, I was able to function normally and enjoy having him home. Thank You Lord!
But there's still a couple more miracles: First, when his boss brought him home he had to run in and get his insurance card so he could go get his prescriptions as he needed to take them that night. Problem was it was 7:40pm when he walked in the door, it was at LEAST a 20 minute drive to the pharmacy, and the pharmacy closed at 8! I called the pharmacy, explained the problem and they graciously stayed open for him so he was able to get his meds. (It's so nice having friends like our Lord in high places!) So he finally got home to stay at 8:30 that night and I was never so glad to see him! It's amazing how the Lord worked that out as the doctor had told us the day before that he'd be on his way home long before noon!
Finally, I'd told his cousin and brother who'd taken me to the hospital the second day, about one of our other problems...we had to replace our hot water heater...a $500 expense we couldn't afford and one I really didn't want Bruce stressing over. His cousin Mark, immediately told me that he thought he could get one for us for free! He'd have to check to be sure of course, so when we got home they took a look at ours to be sure to get the right kind. The little room the heater is in also has to be completely re done as it's full of black mold and the ceiling and floor are gone anyway. So they suggested I call Bruce's boss and ask him for help with that too since now Bruce wouldn't be able to do the work himself. I did and his boss told me that while he couldn't volunteer anyone himself, he didn't think there'd be a problem if we could get the hot water heater. I didn't want to say anything to Bruce though as I didn't want him to stress about anything at all, that would defeat the whole purpose.
Well, the day after Bruce got home, his cousin Mark showed up with a perfect hot water heater for us! I was just thrilled!!! So Mark then told Bruce what we'd done and Bruce was just speechless! He's not the kind of guy to like "getting help" with things though, and both Mark and I knew that well. The way Mark dealt with it though, put Bruce totally at ease for which I was very grateful. He asked me if I had any other little schemes going. I told him the only thing I done was try to take care of everything that I could possibly do about our other problems so that he wouldn't have to even think about them. The miracle of Mark having the hot water heater which saved us $500 and was all the Lord's doing. Although his boss had said the guys from work would come to do the work, we wound up not needing them to, as another friend heard about it and came over and did the work himself.
I just told Bruce that I loved him and I didn't want him to stress about anything.There was no need for him to anyway. You'd have to be stone cold blind to not see that the Lord was fighting our giants for us. He took care of Bruce, me, and everyone else involved and He still is! There are actually a number of other major miracles the Lord pulled off for us while Bruce was recovering at home, but I'll tell about that in another post.
It all started on Sunday evening. We'd been under a lot of pressure and Bruce had been very stressed because of it. There was nothing on TV that night that looked good, so he checked to see what we had recorded that we hadn't watched yet. There were two movies left that we hadn't watched. I was hoping he'd pick the first one, but he decided on, "Facing the Giants". We'd recorded that almost 7 months earlier and still hadn't seen it. Neither of us is into sports much, although he likes it some and this had to do with football. Needless to say, I wasn't thrilled about the one he'd picked but I figured I could just read anyway so didn't object. However, within the first 15 minutes, I was captivated because I could really relate (as can many of you) to how one crisis was falling on the characters on top of another. Let me share a bit of that with you for those who haven't seen the movie:
Facing the Giants takes place in a southern Christian high school, where coach Grant Taylor (Alex Kendrick, who also wrote and directed the film) is struggling to keep the school's football program alive. The team isn't winning, the players are apathetic, and some of the parents are trying to have Grant replaced. When we first see him go home to his wife, Brooke (Shannen Fields), we learn that Grant's also having problems off the field; in fact, the film begins stacking the odds so high against Grant that it flirts with outright melodrama—his car won't start, his home is in a state of disrepair, he and Brooke can't conceive, (turns out it's his fault) money is running out, and most folks just plain don't like him.
OK, God had my attention and I could see that Bruce was glued to the screen so I knew He had Bruce's complete attention too. I don't want to spoil the movie for those who haven't seen it, but let me just say that by the time the movie was close to being over, I was sobbing so hard that Bruce had to stop it! They were tears of joy, but I wasn't crying over the characters in the movie, I was crying over the Lord's message to us through that movie. When I could talk, I looked at Bruce and could see tears in his eyes as well and knew He'd gotten the same message from the Lord. But I had to say it out loud. "We weren't supposed to watch this movie when we recorded it, we were supposed to watch it now when we needed it. The Lord is telling us that He is with us and that if we will give Him our best, He will face our giants for us and with Him, nothing is impossible!" We thanked the Lord for His encouragement and help and His promise and went to bed feeling more light hearted then we had in some time. Little did we know that there were yet more "giants" to come in our lives, and very soon too.
Monday was a different day to begin with. Normally Bruce leaves before 6am for work, sometimes before 5, but today he didn't have to be there until noon and was planning on working late. This was because he was working at a Surgery center and they couldn't have construction going on during the morning. He always likes to get to work a bit early, so I kissed him goodbye at 10:30 and he was off as it was an hour drive to get there.
He hadn't been at work long when he suddenly began to vomit. His supervisor saw him and realized immediately it wasn't "normal" because it was projectile vomiting and he wasn't able to stop. (Bruce had gone outside when he realized he was going to be sick) He yelled for help as Bruce kept passing out, and when he came to, he complained of pain in his left arm. They got Bruce inside and the surgical nurses were already running. As soon as they saw Bruce, the nurses yelled for a crash cart. In the meantime, since Bruce was now surrounded by doctors and nurses working on him and another nurse was already calling 911 to get an ambulance, his boss called me. It was 12:25 and he told me that Bruce was very sick and what his symptoms were and that an ambulance had been called. As soon as he told me the symptoms, I knew he'd had a heart attack, although his boss hadn't said that. He told me he'd call as soon as he knew more.
In the mean time the nurses had given him nitro, hooked up IV's and got them started...I'm not sure if they'd used the crash cart first or not.
Three minutes later, before I could do more then call on the Lord for help, he called back to tell me that Bruce had had a heart attack and was being taken to Holy Family Hospital in a place called Methuen, Mass. by ambulance which was only 8 minutes away and gave me their number.
I felt strangely calm. I'd known from the first he was having a heart attack, and that it was a bad one. I know what that means; I've worked in health care all my life. I prayed and finished the last sentence on the bible study I had been typing before the phone call and posted it.
In the ambulance they gave him more nitro and started IV pain medication going, along with the other meds that the nurses at the surgical center had already begun a few minutes earlier.
Nine minutes later, at 12:37, the hospital called me. Since it was an 8 minute ride, he'd only been there for 1 minute when I got this call! It was the nursing supervisor. She wasn't aware I'd been notified about anything already and told me that my husband was there and had had a massive heart attack. She tried to be gentle but there's only so many ways you can tell someone that their husband would most likely be dead in the next few minutes. She wanted me to be able to have a chance to speak to him one last time but the doctors were swarming all over him and she couldn't get through them. In fact, as we spoke, they were taking him in for surgery.
Instead of her calming me down, I tried to calm her down! I told her it was ok, to just give him a message for me and tell him that I love him and to remember that the Lord would fight our giants and that we were all praying for him, (I'd sent out the emergency request between phone calls) and nothing was impossible with God. She was quiet for a second and then repeated that he might not live. I again told her that I was aware of what was happening and to please, just give my husband that message as he would understand what I meant. She agreed to do so and I later found out that she had given the message word for word as Bruce repeated it back to me later that evening.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself. So, within minutes of his first symptom, because God had him working at that particular place, he was already being given the appropriate life saving treatments which continued right up to his being taken to the hospital and afterward; and within 20 minutes of his first symptom, Bruce was being operated on. If Bruce had been anywhere around our house, he wouldn't have gotten that first life saving treatment; nor would the ambulance attendants have been helpful, plus it would have taken about 20 minutes for them to even get here, and the hospital probably would have killed him because they don't do very well over there with most things and especially not hearts.
I hope you can see all the miracles that happened so far; all the ways that the Lord intervened to make sure that Bruce would indeed survive, but that's not the end of the story...He wasn't done with the miracles yet.
The staff at the hospital, including the doctor, seemed to think I was really strange since I never freaked out, broke down sobbing or anything like that, but was instead quite calm every time they talked to me. In fact, at first they were downright hostile toward me like they thought I didn't care or something. I spoke with them a lot over the phone before arriving at the hospital, since it took a couple of hours for me to get there, but once I was there and they saw me with Bruce, apparently they decided I must love him and was just weird because I still wasn't falling apart, because at least the hostility stopped. Most of them, including the doctor however, seemed to go out of their way to try and make me fall apart. I think they thought perhaps I didn't fully understand the danger he'd been in/was in or something. They kept reiterating how he'd had a "massive heart attack," "shouldn't have survived", how badly blocked his arteries had been and at least one still was, etc. I got pretty tired of that real quick. Thankfully Bruce was pretty out of it so didn't hear most of it.
I finally told them that I had been and still was fully aware of what had happened but that I was also fully aware that nothing was impossible for my God. I knew they were all aware of the "weird" message I'd left for Bruce and their reactions to my statement only proved it. They chalked me up as "one of those religious fanatics" and figured I was hopeless. but thankfully mostly left it alone after that. During all this time though, although I could tell I was running on adrenalin, I felt completely at peace and was quite calm. I'd forgotten until recently but now remember that before I left the house to go to the hospital, this scripture came to mind: Philippians 4:6–7 — Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. so I told the Lord that I really needed Him to guard my heart and mind as I just couldn't stay focused enough to take my thoughts captive myself that day and still handle the emergency. Bless His heart, He did guard my heart and mind all that day and night, enfolding me in His peace and enabled me to do all that needed doing. (when I say I was calm and at peace, I was, but at the same time, my mind was very busy trying to work out logistics and make plans for how I was going to get to the hospital etc, but there simply was no fear or panic.)
My daughter's husband, Bob, took the day off work so they could take me to the hospital. Management where he works will fire people at the drop of a hat and have frequently fired people for missing work because of a crisis. Bob was legitimately concerned that he could lose his job for this, but took me anyway. (I didn't ask him too, he volunteered.) Jennifer's response to the whole thing was that God was in control, they had enough money to see them through for a little bit so that if worse came to worse, they'd work it out and she was sure they'd be just fine. Of course we did pray that the Lord would intervene there too and I asked you guys for prayer for that as well. His job requires that they get a note from the doctor or hospital to prove where they were, and believe it or not, the hospital and doctor wouldn't give us one! Bruce's boss just happened to be at the hospital when all this happened so I asked him if he could help. He didn't even hesitate, but said he'd take care of it and he did. He not only wrote a note on company stationary for Bob, but called their management office and spoke to them too. In all the years Bob has worked there, they have NEVER been understanding or helpful there. Not even when baby Gracie cut her finger off and had to be rushed to the hospital! This time however, they were caring, respectful and told Bob there was no problem at all and that he wouldn't even be written up for it! Not only that, but the new woman in management there, questioned him about Bruce's name and then confessed that she knew Bruce... and sat next to him in high school! (I thought that was a really neat touch the Lord pulled off there!)
And there is still more: The next day, the doctors did some more tests to see how much damage was done to his heart by the heart attack. The doctor told us that he expected to see quite a bit because of the severity. When he came back in after the test to tell us the results, he was much quieter. He said he just couldn't believe it...there was practically no damage at all! Of course I immediately praised the Lord and thanked Him and once again repeated, "Nothing is impossible for God!" He left shaking his head.
The next day there were yet more tests including a "low level stress test" and the doctor told them to be careful that he didn't want to tire Bruce at all. Well Bruce got on the treadmill and was still going when the doc came back and made them stop although Bruce wasn't winded and hadn't broken a sweat, and said he felt just fine. Let's just say the doctor was very surprised!
Finally it was the day they were going to let him come home but it turned into a real nightmare. I'd gone to bed the night before in a lot of pain. My body was rebelling from all it had been through. I did all I could to keep it in check so I'd be able to function the next day, but when the pain woke me up early the next morning, I also couldn't breathe. The RA attacks my lungs as well as my joints and it had attacked my entire body big time, on top of the pain in my back. By 9am I knew it was going to be physically impossible for me to do anything at all, but I needed to leave the house within an hour to be there in time to pick Bruce up. So I called his brother who was supposed to take me, so I could warn him that I was moving slow and see if he was going to be on time. I was kind of hoping he'd be just a little late. It turned out that he'd had some problems of his own come up and he wasn't going to be able to take me at all.
I started to get angry and frustrated, but knowing how I felt physically, I had this tiny idea that God was still in control of everything. So I just started making phone calls to see who I could get to take me there. (I can't drive normally and there was no way I could have that day anyway) I went through my whole address book and people either weren't home or had appointments they couldn't break. I knew Jenn would do it but her sense of direction is as bad as mine so that wasn't really viable. I kept calling Bruce too to see if the doctor had seen him yet to release him, because by now it was after 11am and he should have been on his way home. But the doctor hadn't shown up yet! I still wasn't dressed even as I still wasn't really able to walk or move well enough to get dressed so was still struggling to get my body to cooperate with me.
I finally had to call Bruce's boss and ask him if he'd have one of the guys pick Bruce up. He said that he could and that it would be easy since they were working only 8 minutes away. I'd forgotten about that, so that made me feel better as at least they wouldn't have to be going out of their way a lot. Plus, although I desperately wanted to see Bruce, my body still wasn't cooperating and I was still having a real hard time breathing too so I figured that would give me more time to pull myself together since it would take them at least an hour to get him home.
Only problem was, by 3pm when the guys get off work, the doctor still hadn't showed up! At least by then though I was finally able to get dressed and beginning to be able to function. Every time I'd start to get angry about the situation though, I'd remember that if it had happened the way it was supposed to have. I might have wound up in the hospital myself from trying to do something I wasn't capable of, and even if Bruce's brother had been here like he was supposed to have been, I wouldn't have been physically able to have even gotten into the car. Instead, because I was able to take care of myself, and with a LOT of help from the Lord, by the time Bruce did get home, I was able to function normally and enjoy having him home. Thank You Lord!
But there's still a couple more miracles: First, when his boss brought him home he had to run in and get his insurance card so he could go get his prescriptions as he needed to take them that night. Problem was it was 7:40pm when he walked in the door, it was at LEAST a 20 minute drive to the pharmacy, and the pharmacy closed at 8! I called the pharmacy, explained the problem and they graciously stayed open for him so he was able to get his meds. (It's so nice having friends like our Lord in high places!) So he finally got home to stay at 8:30 that night and I was never so glad to see him! It's amazing how the Lord worked that out as the doctor had told us the day before that he'd be on his way home long before noon!
Finally, I'd told his cousin and brother who'd taken me to the hospital the second day, about one of our other problems...we had to replace our hot water heater...a $500 expense we couldn't afford and one I really didn't want Bruce stressing over. His cousin Mark, immediately told me that he thought he could get one for us for free! He'd have to check to be sure of course, so when we got home they took a look at ours to be sure to get the right kind. The little room the heater is in also has to be completely re done as it's full of black mold and the ceiling and floor are gone anyway. So they suggested I call Bruce's boss and ask him for help with that too since now Bruce wouldn't be able to do the work himself. I did and his boss told me that while he couldn't volunteer anyone himself, he didn't think there'd be a problem if we could get the hot water heater. I didn't want to say anything to Bruce though as I didn't want him to stress about anything at all, that would defeat the whole purpose.
Well, the day after Bruce got home, his cousin Mark showed up with a perfect hot water heater for us! I was just thrilled!!! So Mark then told Bruce what we'd done and Bruce was just speechless! He's not the kind of guy to like "getting help" with things though, and both Mark and I knew that well. The way Mark dealt with it though, put Bruce totally at ease for which I was very grateful. He asked me if I had any other little schemes going. I told him the only thing I done was try to take care of everything that I could possibly do about our other problems so that he wouldn't have to even think about them. The miracle of Mark having the hot water heater which saved us $500 and was all the Lord's doing. Although his boss had said the guys from work would come to do the work, we wound up not needing them to, as another friend heard about it and came over and did the work himself.
I just told Bruce that I loved him and I didn't want him to stress about anything.There was no need for him to anyway. You'd have to be stone cold blind to not see that the Lord was fighting our giants for us. He took care of Bruce, me, and everyone else involved and He still is! There are actually a number of other major miracles the Lord pulled off for us while Bruce was recovering at home, but I'll tell about that in another post.
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