Asking the Angels and Saints for Help
It was St. Jude I asked to help the doctors wean my mother off the respirator.
In late October 1987, she my mother was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. After four days of IV antibiotics, she improved, and we hoped she would soon be released.
Then she took a turn for the worst.
I slept by her hospital bed for two nights. I knew in my bones something was wrong and warned the doctors that she would have a stroke if they did not do something quickly. On Tuesday, they told me they scheduled a CAT scan for her for Wednesday at 9 a.m. “That will be too late,” I said. Sure, enough at 5 a.m. Wednesday morning I was startled awake by her coughing. Choking. I tried to clear the phlegm as I did the previous nights but she kept shaking.
The room was dark, I turned on the light above her hospital bed. I saw her eyes roll back in her head, she was red and blue, and violently shaking.
I frantically pressed the nurse call button. No response.
I ran into the hall screaming. No one was at the nurse’s station. I ran and screamed, “Help, Help! Help my mother!” I opened the door to the nurse’s lounge where I found a few nurses. I ran back to her room with them. Then on the overhead speaker, I heard, “Code Blue and her room number”.
At that point, I was escorted out of her room as they worked on her.
They resuscitated her but she spent several months in the ICU on a respirator. She had been without oxygen for too long and was semi-comatose.
In order to get her moved to a nursing home nearby so that my elderly father and I could visit her, she had to be weaned from the respirator that kept her alive.
Her doctor tried unsuccessfully multiple times. I did not trust that he was not being haphazard with the speed at which he wanted to wean her. We didn’t have the greatest relationship. His bedside manner was atrocious and he lacked empathy and compassion.
It was a Saturday night in late January 1988; I went to church and begged St. Jude to help. The next day at 10 a.m. I went to see my mother. A man was working the controls of her respirator. “Who are you?” I asked. He introduced himself, he was the head of the respiratory department. Unbeknownst to me, he’d taken over her case. I said, “You’re going to be successful in weaning her off the machine.” He was not confident or egotistical. He simply said, “I’ll do my best.” I told him again, “You will succeed.” I knew he was the miracle sent by St. Jude. Within two days he succeeded when so many other attempts failed. I give St. Jude credit for guiding that doctor.
We live in a free-will zone and must ask for assistance. Call upon your Angels, Guides, and Guardians, the Saints, your ancestors, every day. Form a close relationship with them all. They will absolutely help if you ask.