Finger Rosary

June 11th, 2008

Finger Rosary

I'm Not Dead You Know

“ I’M NOT DEAD YOU KNOW”

It was Friday, December 19th, l986 and I was fixing supper while anxiously waiting for my husband to come home from work. My emotions were at their usual high for the week before Christmas and it was also the night for the monastery, where we attended mass and benediction. It was in fact the highlight of our week. We had come to love the serenity and closeness we shared for each other through the same sharing of Jesus.

My preparations and introspection of the coming night was interrupted by the telephone. The voice on the other end changed my sereness into a morbidity that will live on in me forever. “Is this Mrs. McKenzie”, the voice asked me, “yes” I replied. “This is the Scarborough Police” and proceeded to ask me if I was sitting down. I was not so she asked me to do so. Suddenly the monastery, Christmas and everything was gone except for what she told me. “There’s been an accident, Mrs. McKenzie, and they have taken your husband to the Maine Medical Center.” She either could not or would not tell me what condition he was in, only that he was there.

I hung up the phone and tried to grasp the reality of what had just transpired. Not really knowing exactly what steps to take next, I fumbled to try and dial the hospital, perhaps there had been a mistake. There was no mistake, the emergency room nurse had told me. He was there and they needed me to come and make a positive identification. He had been hit by a car while he was waiting for the bus to come home from work.

It took me a few minutes to convince myself this was real and I needed to get there, but there was no way I could drive myself the twenty or so miles it was to the hospital. I called my brother-in-law and asked him if he would drive us both there.

There was nothing but silence as he drove down route 1 to the hospital. I think it was the longest drive on my life. What was my life anyway? I thought and prayed deeply within myself. If that was Bruce in that place, he was my life, he is my life. “Not mine but Thy will be done”. I repeated it over and over, what could God be doing, and why? These types of things only happen to others. Not this time, now it was happening to me.

The mesmerized state I was in was called to an abrupt halt when Mark pulled into the emergency entrance of the hospital. I felt as though I had to drag myself in there, while at the same time running. I think that the nurse at the door knew who I was just by the way I must of looked. She escorted me to a room where I had to go and identify a man who I prayed was someone else.

Unconscious and in a coma, there he was. His body really didn’t look that bad, at least that is what I told myself. He had a few cuts and bruises, but his head, as I went closer to him, was swollen out of proportion. His beautiful once smiling face could scarcely be recognized. I had enough medical knowledge to know he was in trouble. He was alive, but had a hematoma forming on his brain causing pressure to build.

I was asked to leave, because they needed to x-rays on him, so I went to the waiting room to an indefinite waiting vigil.

After what seemed like hours my state of unconscious oblivion was called to a halt, when the doctor, who was to have such an impact on my life came in and introduced himself. Quite to our good fortune, he was the best known neurosurgeon and most skilled in his field. His skill and expertise, however, had absolutely nothing to do with his bedside manner which suffered greatly. His arrogance and attitude was as cold as a chilly Maine Winter, while not forgetting his tongue, which spit out words as sharp as a razor’s edge. “We’ve done a cat scan on your husband and he has a great deal of pressure on his brain. We will need to take him to surgery and remove the fluid.” He showed us a picture of his scan.. His brain had been pushed over to the right side of his head completely off centered. “What are his chances,” I asked, His curt reply, “50-50” and off he went. Now started the time of waiting, praying and pacing. I thought negative thoughts, prayed for positive thoughts and then bypassing both, asked for God’s will to be done.

By now some of the family had arrived and knowing that they would be taking him to Special Care, we proceeded to go there and wait.

When the doctor arrived, he greeted us and told us that they had done all that they could do. They had relieved the pressure for now and if he could get through the next 72 hours?__ He left as fast as possible and even if we could have thought of some questions to ask him, he hardly gave us time.

As it was getting very late, I was coerced into going home to try and get some sleep. It went about the way I knew that it would. I spent my night pacing the floors. So much for sleep.

Early the next morning the phone rang. It was the hospital. They had to take Bruce to surgery again. It seemed the pressure had built up again and they needed to do an emergency craniotomy. This is an incision made into the head like a V only sideways. It measured about six inches in length and was closed with very large grotesque looking staples. As I remember it now, he sort of resembled a creation of Frankenstein. I made my decision then, I would stay at the hospital until he either died or got better.

It was now a couple of days and two surgeries later. He had to have holes burred into his head, called Trephine drainage. This was to eliminate the fluid that was continually building on his brain. He was hooked up to everything. Intravenious’s going into different portions of his body. Different fluids for different needs. He had a breathing tube down his throat. He was connected to oxygen giving him enough air and he had electrodes monitoring his heart and his head, monitoring his inter cranial pressures. He was being given 150 mg. Of Pentobarbital every hour to keep him in a coma. The seriousness of the situation warranted this because they needed to keep him very quiet and still. Had he awakened, it could have proved dangerous, because any movement would have made his head pressures go up. Because of the excessive Pentobarb level, his blood pressure was very low, so he was given Dopamine, which is a blood pressure medication, to keep it at a more stable level.

The doctors and nurses did all that was expected of them on a twenty-four hour basis and I and my family and friends did what was expected of us. We prayed unceasingly, kept a vigil in the chapel, said numerous rosaries and tried to fight off the depression we were facing because of the pessimistic attitudes of most of the hospital staff.

During the time when Bruce’s pressures should have been going down, they were increasing, thus lessening his chance for survival and with it, not much more than a life of vegetation. It seemed as though the odds were totally against us.

About one week had gone by and Bruce’s condition continued to worsen. He had little or no blood pressure at times and his inter cranial pressures elevated at the slightest movement they had to do to him. To exacerbate the situation he was in, he developed pneumonia and it was important that he be moved frequently. This was nearly an impossible situation because of his head pressures that would elevate at the slightest movement.

There was little or no brain activity going on within him and on this one occasion I tried to visit with him, they were about eight hospital personnel around him. Unbeknownst to me, at that time, they were trying to revive him. He apparently had died and this happened at least three times that I know of.

After this episode of his loss of blood pressure and the fact that he had been comatose for so long, the doctor did not feel as though there was much hope for his having any brain function left. He told me that he was going to do an Evoked Potential on him. This is similar to an electroencephalogram, but is done on brain stem activity only. The doctor told us that if they found no activity within his brain, that they were going to unplug him. I thought to myself, “This is what he thinks.”

They did their test, but they found minimal activity. Minimal was more than they expected, so they could not legally remove him from his life support. This was the beginning of many miracles that was to be wrought by constant prayer and faith by me and his family and friends.

It’s hard to know exactly how much time passed, but the good doctor came in to greet us. I asked him how my husband was doing, his crass reply, “well it’s like this, he’s like a hunk of meat in your freezer, we won’t be able to tell if he’s any good until we thaw him out.” Once again he left us stunned with this incredibly tactless statement.

Of course I later found out that the reason for the remark, which could have been told to us in terms that would have been much more charitable, meant that, because he had been comatose for so long that we could not tell the condition of his functioning, mentally, until he regained consciousness.

Another statement which I remember so clearly, after asking the same question as above, how is he doing, he said, “well he’s either dead, alive, or indifferent.” Can you imagine how hard it was to keep up your positive attitude and faith, when you had to deal with such a cynical, pessimistic man who appeared to have little or no faith himself? I thank God for His love and mercy toward me and for Bruce, for if it were not for this, I would have folded under this kind of attitude from everyone. I was willing to let God have his way with Bruce, because He may have wanted him, but that did not deter me from keeping a positive attitude and in constant prayer. Despite my constant positive attitude toward his recovery, the medical staff considered this a denial of reality and forced me into seeing someone in the social service department of the hospital. It was supposed to be their job to convince me of the uselessness of thinking that my husband was going to live. Well, they did not change my way of thinking, except they did help me, though unknown to them, to be more in line with the will of God. Up until that point, I really was living with certainty that Bruce would be all right, simply because I had been praying so much as well as everyone else, how could God not spare him? It was then, that there was an enlightenment for me. God’s will was always uppermost in my mind, but it was in the hopes that His will would meet mine, and not that I would meet His. It was at this point that I would honestly say, “Not mine, but Thy will be done”. I told God that if He wanted Bruce more than I, that I would live with that decision. I also said that if He would spare him, that I would take him, no matter what the results. So in a sense I gave him up and was ready to let him go if necessary, but I also was forming an ultimatum with God if He would choose to let him live.

The next several days were very difficult for all of us to deal with, seeing Bruce in that condition and seeing a body which appeared to have no spirit left. He just lay there motionless, only moving when they moved him. He depended upon everyone for everything. He was always so independent, he would have hated knowing what was happening to him. He always did for others and now these strangers were doing everything for him.

Despite the fact that these strangers were doing all that was necessary to keep him alive, they acted as though he was dead. I knew that even in a comatose state, there could be recognition and his mind could still be stimulated. I talked to him, read to him, put on some of his favorite music and even shaved him and put on my favorite after shave. Well, maybe, he didn’t appreciate what I was doing, only God knew for sure, but it made a difference for me and I continued to do it.

After about two weeks some people other than family came to see him and pray for him. There were several pastors from different churches, who were all friends of ours and each in turn did their part in offering their prayers for Bruce. On one particular occasion which I can recall, a priest from the Franciscan Monastery came to see him. Father John was a good friend to us and believed in the healing power of the Lord. There were three of us present at this time. My mother, myself and Father John. We all held hands around Bruce, each of us praying our own prayer. During this time a strange, but wonderful thing happened. My mother felt, as she later described it, as if a bolt of lightening had gone through her hand, which was on Bruce’s left arm. When that happened, Bruce moved his arm. A moment later, I felt compelled to say the rosary, which I started saying to myself. At that same moment, Father John interrupted me and asked, if I ever said the rosary. I replied that I did indeed say it often and that I had been saying it then. It was at that moment in time after these two small miracles that I knew that somehow Bruce would be all right.

Well Bruce did not recover with an instant healing, in fact he took a turn for the worse. His temperature shot up to 105 degrees where it stayed for quite sometime. He had developed a brain infection. He also lost his blood pressure one more time, which was probably the third time or more. His pulse was very slow at best. They were having trouble controlling his medications. They would give him one kind for one thing, but it would affect something else and so they would have to give him another drug to counteract the one given. He was very unstable. It looked as though the end was near for him. The one person, a nurse who had been my only friend during this whole thing, came to me and gave me a hug and said, “Bruce may not make it.” We both cried.

My emotions were really being tossed back and forth by this time. With what medical science was throwing at me and the fact that I believed in the healing power of prayer, I was in state of Limbo. I wanted desperately to believe that he would be all right , but what was being told to me did not make this easy. God did not ever say, that it would be easy and this certainly was proof of it. “Not mine, but Thy will be done”. I repeated it once again and tried to bypass my feelings and believe it. What did it really matter anyway. Logically speaking, God is going to have His way, despite how we feel about it. I gave up, that is I gave Bruce up and gave God full charge. I left his room and left him with God.

The next couple of days Bruce began to exhibit some changes. He was becoming more alert. As the doctors told me, he was becoming immuned to the excessive levels of Pentobarbital which had been given him to keep him in a coma. He started to come around. They could not really keep him on this anymore, because the length of time he had been on was already too much and may have caused brain damage. They let him come out slowly. This was good I thought. They said otherwise. All it meant was he was waking up, but to what degree he would be a functioning normal human being remained to be seen.

As the pentobarb was weaned slowly off, he became more and more awake. His eyes were open, but he could not see. He could not hear either because he could not respond to any verbal commands.. He did not respond to any stimuli, and could not move.

The doctors were surprised that he even woke up to an alive state, but to what degree he was alive was anyone’s guess at this time. They still were quite pessimistic about his whole condition and what it would be.

A few days went by and it became obvious that he could feel touch. He was responding to pain. He very slowly started moving his fingers on his right side, but it was a start. I asked him if he could squeeze my fingers, to see whether he could follow a command. It was weak, but he did it. He heard me and he followed the command to squeeze my fingers.

We were still not sure if he would be able to talk at all, because the respirator was still in. The doctors tried removing it, but he could not manage on his own. He hyperventilated and so the breathing apparatus was placed back in. He did try to make groaning noises however. There would be several attempts at taking out the tube, before they could actually leave it out and he could breathe on his own.

His movements were becoming more extensive now. His whole right arm was beginning to move and I was seeing something in his eyes, that maybe he was starting to see. I stood to one side of his bed, to see if his eyes would follow me. They did and no two eyes ever looked so good to me. He was seeing!!! Praise the Lord!!

Healings accelerated from there on and his movements improved, his breathing became normal, but he still could not speak. I did not know if that would ever come or when.

We wanted to see if there were any signs of memory or recognition of people and things around him. He needed to be told about his accident and the surroundings in which he was in. Each of us started a regiment of training of who he was, where he was and what had happened to him. It was a daily, sometimes hourly task to reorient him to time, place, and why he was there.

It tortured me to have to say the same things over and over to him, until there appeared some reasoning power on his part. You are in the hospital, you were hit by a car while trying to come home from work. Over and over. The date and time of the accident was repeated, and his condition and that he was going to be all right now. It seemed as though he would never understand what we were saying, for he just stared into space with a blank look.

After days of this same repetition, he being that much more alert, actually comprehended what was being told to him. The shock of it hit him and he formed big tears in his eyes, which let us know that he knew.

Now came the time to move him from the bed, so as to see if he could move any other parts of his body. They brought in a recliner chair so they could sit him in it. As his body was limp they had to tie him into the chair, so as to keep him there. He kept slipping his way out of it. It was kind of funny to see, he looked like an overstuffed rag doll. He knew that he was being amusing too, because he put a big grin on his face every time that he slipped of the chair. He just knew he was doing something funny by slipping out of it.

He seemed as though he was becoming more aware of who he was and where he was, although still not talking. He would grin every now and again and show recognition of different things that I would bring in to show him.

I visited every day and stayed as long as I could and on this particular day, when it was time for me to leave, I noticed for the first time a trace of sadness in those big blue green eyes. He was obviously upset because I had to leave and I knew it, for the first time in weeks he was showing an emotion. It was very sad, but very good at the same time. He did not need to talk, to let me know on that night that he was sad. I assured him that I loved him and would return the next day, he seemed to understand.

Now that the critical part of his hospitalization was over, he could safely be moved to a step down unit. Still special care, but less needed supervision. He would be sent there and start to receive some of this many therapies which he would be given over the next several months.

His muscles would each be worked on, his speech therapy would begin, even his swallowing would need to be monitored and he would have nothing more to eat than thick milkshakes and he would shown how to walk again.

After a few more weeks, his voice box was healing and he was able to say a few words, but nothing extensive, but it was a start.

Incredible as it would seem and as unlikely in the eyes of medical science as it was, Bruce was alive and was a proof of God’s love and mercy. He fought the odds and if anyone would have seen him on that day in December of 1986, they would not have believed that this could be the same person who was given a prognosis of death, or a life of vegetation. He was truly a living. loving progression of miracles that continue on to this day in his healing.

I am not sure of the exact date of this, but at this particular incident, Bruce had not yet been able to complete a full sentence. I asked him if there was anything that I could do for him, before I left for the day. He motioned for me to come closer and then he picked up the sheets and made a gesture for me to get inside with him. This took me by such shock and surprise, I just said,”BRUCE”! His reply, “Well I’m not dead you know”

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