Nothing to Worry About
We stopped at the nurse’s station to pick up the paperwork and get report on our patient. As she handed me the envelope the nurse said, “She’s really nervous about the procedure, so I hope you’re ready for a challenge this morning. Oh yeah – she wasn’t supposed to eat anything but there wasn’t an actual order saying that, so she had two cans of soda this morning, but nothing for breakfast. If you’d pass that along, I’d appreciate it.”
I opened the envelope and absent-mindedly flipped through the paperwork looking for a face sheet so I could get her biographic information entered in my computer. “What’s she going in for?”
“She’s having a brochoscopy. She’s been whistling when she breathes and they want to see if there’s an obstruction somewhere. She had an accident riding a horse about a month ago. She had a skull fracture with a cerebral hematoma. She was in a coma for 11 days. Respiratory failure with a tracheostomy that’s capped. She’s actually in pretty good shape considering how bad she looked a few weeks ago. She can walk and talk and she’s alert. Oh…and I gave her a milligram of Ativan to calm her down a little.”
“Did you save any for me?”
“Do your best to keep her calm, okay? She’s really anxious.”
“Nervous Nellies are my specialty. I’ll make sure she knows she has nothing to worry about.”
We pushed the gurney to her room and my partner went in. I stayed out in the hallway to enter her name, date of birth, address and phone number in the computer. After I finished I walked into her room. Looking her in the eye, I said in my best game-show host voice, “I just want to let you know you have nothing to worry about!”
She busted up laughing. So did her mom who was standing next to her bed. “So the nurse must have told you…”
“They tell us everything,” I said smiling. “Oh, wait. Maybe I should introduce myself.”
We got the introductions out of the way and I asked if she had any questions.
“Yeah, I do have a question. Exactly what are they going to do to me?”
“Didn’t anyone tell you?”
“Not really. They just said I’m going to have a bronchoscopy and I’m not sure what that is.”
“If no one told you what’s going to happen I can see why you’re anxious about it, so let me explain.”
Sahara had a tracheostomy, which is a surgical opening in the front of the neck that goes into the trachea. After the surgical opening is made, a curved tube is inserted into the opening and a breathing device can be attached to it. Patients who have a tracheostomy are usually in respiratory failure and are usually placed on a mechanical ventilator. Sahara had been taken off the ventilator after she came out of the coma. When a patient no longer needs help to breathe, a cap is placed over the tracheostomy.
“The procedure you’re having done is a bronchoscopy, where they take a small fiber-optic camera and feed it into your trachea. They look around to see if there’s something wrong.”
“Am I going to be awake, when they do it, ’cause I swear I’ll freak out if I am.”
“Haha…good question. Ummm… no, actually you’re not going to be awake. They’ll give you some happy juice to put you in la-la land so you won’t remember a thing.”
“Well that’s good to know, because I do NOT want to be awake for it. Wait!” Are they gonna stick any needles in me?”
Well…yes…they will need to start an IV so they can give you the medicine to sedate you.”
“I HATE needles! Isn’t there any way they can do it without sticking me with a needle?”
“Look Sahara, they don’t have to use a big needle. They’ll probably use a small one. Don’t worry…it won’t hurt much.”
“What if I’m not really in la-la land when they do it and I’m actually awake but they don’t know it? I don’t want to feel anything.”
“Sahara, here’s what you need to do. When we get you to the hospital, you need to talk to the nurses and tell them your concerns. Ask them every question you can think of. Tell them what you’re concerned about and make them answer all your questions. Let them know they aren’t doing the procedure until you’re comfortable with their answers. Does that sound like a plan you can live with?”
“Yeah, I can do that.”
“Okay, well why don’t we get you in the ambulance?”
Her mother asked if she could ride along with us. I said she could. We went to the ambulance, got her loaded and began the 30 minute drive to the hospital. I got my report started and let Sahara and her mother talk for a while. Eventually I had to write down her chief complaint and I didn’t actually know what that was yet.
“Sahara… what’s bothering you the most right now?”
“The back of my head. If feels like someone is stabbing me with a knife over and over.”
“Stabbing you with a knife?”
“Yeah.” She pointed to the back of her head. “Right here. It’s really sore all the time. I have these constant stabbing pains that won’t go away.”
“On a scale from one to ten how bad is the pain?”
“About a nine.”
“How long have you had the stabbing pain?”
“I think I’ve had it ever since I came out of the coma.”
“So… like a few weeks?”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
If I were able to see in the spirit with the ease some of my friends do, I would have expected to see some kind of demon standing behind her holding a long metal blade, repeatedly jabbing it into her head. While I do sometimes see things that indicate the presence of demons — they aren’t usually very dramatic.
We arrived at the place in our provider-patient relationship where a decision had to be made. I’d built a strong enough bridge with Sahara that she would probably trust me if I asked her about prayer. But the easy way out would be to let her continue talking with her mother the rest of the trip while I finished my report. The thing is — I really wanted that pain in her head to stop. I felt a bit of confidence rising up inside of me as I looked at the back of her head. I knew that if I could just touch her — she would be healed.
“I have a weird question for you Sahara.”
“And what would that be?” She asked innocently.
“Can I pray for you?”
“Of course you can!” She said excitedly. Her mother lit up like a Christmas tree. It was obvious she approved.
“Okay. I’m going to place my hand…”
“Don’t touch it!” She said fearfully. “It’s really sensitive there.”
“Alright, Sahara. I know it hurts. I’m not going to touch your head. How about if I hold my hand a couple inches away from the sore spot?”
“That’s fine.”
“Cool. I’d like tell you a story about someone who was healed last week.” I shared the story about the girl with the unicorn who was healed of a torn meniscus and scoliosis. As I told the story I held my hand a few inches from the back of her head.
“Sahara, do you feel any different?”
“No.”
I was hoping this would release healing, but it didn’t seem to do anything. It was time to get serious. “I command spirits of pain to leave right now, in the name of Jesus. I command soft tissue to be healed, I command bone to be healed, I command spirits of trauma to leave. Holy Spirit bring your power upon this young lady and bless her with healing.”
“Okay – what do you feel now?”
“Nothing,” she said with a stunned look on her face. “I mean… there isn’t any pain at all. It’s completely gone. How did you do that?”
She felt the back of her head where the pain had been, gently at first, testing it to see if she could make it return, but it would not come back. She was healed and she was pretty ecstatic about it. The look on her face was absolutely priceless and it made me laugh. “How great is God, Sahara?”
Her mother chimed in. “Sahara, when you were little, I remember you would sit in the front of the TV and watch Veggie Tales and sing that song, ‘How Great is Our God?’ You’d sing it over and over and over. You just loved that song.”
Sahara and her mother continued their conversation and I went back to writing my report. And God…well, He’s still out there doing what He does best. Healing hurt people and loving on them like the awesome Father that He is.
This is an excerpt from my soon to be published book My Top 100 Craziest adventures with God. To receive a notification of when the book will be available — sign up for my updates through the widget in the right-hand sidebar of this website.
