Angels Please Let Me See His Face

Approximately two months prior to my fiftieth birthday I sensed this one was going to be quite extraordinary. There were many nights I was startled out of sleep to find myself covered in a cold sweat. It wasn't the intense hot flashes I usually had that made me throw the covers off. These sweats made my body shiver and my teeth chatter as if I was immersed in a vat of ice cubes. These were gut-wrenching sensations, placing me on alert as if I was arming myself for a fierce battle. It wasn't that I was overly anxious towards receiving the AARP card in the mail or at the thought of viewing a birthday cake covered with fifty-one blazing candles. Weeks continued to pass and by this time my husband felt totally exasperated with me after hearing me repeatedly whine, "I'm not going to survive my fiftieth birthday."

"You're nothing but gloom and doom." He'd say, rolling his eyes at me.

There just wasn't any reasonable explanation for my sense of dread, even though memories of my healthy older sister suddenly passing away in her sleep at age fifty started to haunt me as I approached the same critical age.

My daughter became overly concerned when I started initiating late night calls to her, expressing feelings of love I felt towards having the pleasure of being her mother. "Mom, are you taking Ambien again?" She'd ask sleepily at midnight, wondering if I was taking sleeping medication. She'd plead with me to go to sleep and stop this madness. Before long she started believing that maybe I was withholding some serious medical issue from her, but a conversation with my husband convinced her I was probably just being crazy with emotion towards turning the dreaded fifty.

Three weeks prior to my birthday I started having gastric issues, experiencing bouts of indigestion that were only slightly annoying. On three regularly scheduled doctor appointments I casually mentioned my symptoms, was examined and diagnosed with simple gas. It didn't curtail any of my daily activities, though I continued to feel bloated as if I overindulged. After another few days the gastric discomfort subsided totally.

On my birthday I woke up feeling a slight sensation of gas again, as if someone was tightening a belt under my chest. My husband asked me if I wanted to go out to eat because I was a picky eater anyway, so I decided to decline. I just felt waves of depression engulfing me as I moved around trying to get a burp out.

"Come on, when are you going to snap out of this?" He asked.

I snapped back, "Let me know how you feel when you turn fifty in a few months, because I know midlife crisis is going to hit you hard. And don't be looking for any sympathy from me."

The next day the bloated feeling continued so I called my doctor to tell her the gas medication wasn't working, and she advised an ER visit to get checked out. I saw myself sitting around for hours in an uncomfortable plastic chair to only be handed samples of "Gas-X" and sent on my way. Still I went anyway because my husband kept bugging me. After an initial examination with the doctor prodding my bloated abdomen and finding nothing, he ordered an abdominal x-ray as a precaution, but informed me it probably was indigestion.

When the doctor stepped back into the room, immediately I realized something was seriously wrong because of his startled expression. The next words he uttered sliced through me just like a surgeon's scalpel without anesthesia.

"I'm sorry, but you've got a badly ruptured appendix. And there's a huge abscess running across your upper abdomen. We've got to go in there right away and clear it up. If you'd waited until tomorrow to come in, it might've been real serious. You might of slipped in a coma and...not to say this isn't critical. How long have you been walking around like this? Didn't you feel any excruciating pain? Appendicitis can bring a grown man down to their knees." He said, shooting questions at me and pressing on my abdomen as he shook his head in astonishment.

I was floored, completely in shock, physically feeling nothing while he pressed hard on my abdomen. I didn't feel any abdominal tenderness or rebound pain, but I wouldn't because my appendix had already ruptured. My stomach was bloated but no hardness. I didn't have an elevated temperature, no projectile vomiting or any other warning signs of appendicitis. There was only a sense of pervasive doom. I began to pray. All sense of dignity was stripped away as I hastily was prepped for emergency surgery.

It was the day after my fiftieth birthday. The doctor's words, "...if you'd waited until tomorrow it might've been real serious..." pounded around in my head. As I was rushed through the hallways I continued praying. I sobbed, attempting to quickly reach my children and tell them how much I loved them via a cell phone. They didn't even give me a chance to count down before anesthesia rapidly put me under.

After surgery I found myself waking up, drifting in a fog hearing someone speaking in a squeaky Mickey Mouse voice. "Monkey's uncle." That voice was mine. I kept repeating the same two words.

I was lying in a hospital bed. I had a raw throat as I breathed with an oxygen mask covering my face. Cardiac monitoring pads were glued to my chest, and my swollen stapled abdomen was covered in layers of gauze bandages with an abdominal drain tube connected to a clear plastic container filling with bloody drainage. A urine catheter was draining miniscule amounts of dark urine, and IV tubing was connected to one arm while an automatic blood pressure monitoring cuff alternately squeezed the other arm.

Several hospital staff members along with family members were hovering over the bed closely observing me. I awoke to critical post appendicitis complications which would last for weeks. Physically I lost the ability to walk and perform activities of daily living, and was experiencing vivid visual, auditory, and physical hallucinations.

Unaware of what was happening to my body, I started singing gospel songs at the top of my lungs to my roommate's chagrin. They eventually removed her and ordered my room to be kept private. Teams of medical specialists filtered in to examine me, attempting to discover why I was having such extreme critical complications. My pain medication pump was immediately discontinued the morning after surgery, but my bizarre behavior continued. Even though I had a large abdominal incision with a drain and staples, I exhibited no physical evidence of feeling pain. I felt and saw a tire sized gel mass wrapped around my middle, heard the sloshing sound as I shifted in bed. It was unbelievable sensations but I continued to sing for hours on end, even with family and staff attempting to quiet me down.

The day after surgery my surgeon strolled in. He informed my family and I that my kidneys had failed, probably a temporarily situation but I still had to immediately start dialysis for an undetermined time in order to save my life. I was again rushed through the hospital hallways to implant an uncomfortable dialysis shunt in my carotid artery in my neck. I believed they were installing internal electrodes to control my limbs because I couldn't move on my own.

My senses became highly enhanced with certain aromas and sounds triggering strange verbal and physical tics. When light hit my face or call bells rang in the hall, my extremities would become rigid, my verbal intonation altered to a cartoonish pitch, and my face performed bizarre facial grimaces as if I was experiencing a grand mal seizure. All brain scans turned out negative for seizure activity.

Word quickly spread about my unique medical case. Soon the entire hospital staff started to visit me, offering well wishes and prayers, aware my doctors were uncertain of the eventual outcome of my mental and physical status.

Lying on a lounge chair in dialysis for the first time I listened to the swishing sound of the blood washing machine, continuing to sing and pray with my eyes closed. Prior to this hospital stay I hadn't attended church in quite awhile and wasn't in the habit of doing daily prayers even if I did believe in God. When I opened my eyes I noticed a male dialysis nurse gazing down at me. He smiled and started singing along with me.

"You've been crying out that you're ready to go to heaven." He said, sharing verses from the bible and telling me the Lord loved me and that I should put my faith in him to heal me. Much later I became aware he wasn't a part of my physical delusions, and was indeed a dialysis nurse who also happened to be an ordained minister. Being aware of my critical condition from my records he had prayed over me. Today I do believe he was an earthly angel who was sent to assist me in my recovery. How many southern accented, male dialysis nurses do you know, that are ordained ministers?

My husband being somewhat shy would come to visit daily for hours. He'd step off the hospital elevator to hear his wife singing at the top of my lungs, waving her arms high up in the air as she sat in a lounge chair in front of the nurse's station. He would see people stare at me as I was wheeled through the halls shouting, "I see my dummy body being wheeled behind me." Doctors and nurses attempted to reassure him, telling him I'd probably recover but they couldn't explain how long or what was exactly causing my medical complications. At times the medical staff asked him if I suffered from schizophrenic behavior before, or that maybe this illness triggered a bi-polar disorder. For over two weeks I remained in the hospital acting in a bizarre state.

One night after feeling totally exhausted I was trying to relax to escape the constant visual hallucinations. As I drifted off to sleep after being awake for an incredible week and a half, my body started to float up from off the bed, drifting right pass my family who were staring at me. I floated above the bed until I started drifting higher into inky darkness. Amazingly I only felt slightly alarmed. A brilliant golden light radiated through my shuttered eyes as I continued to float higher. The light dramatically changed to billowing shades of amber and magenta, until a rich pink color. My eyes opened and I gasped, viewing a circle of angelic sculptured faces with beaming warm smiles gazing down at me. I felt a sense of utter warmth pleasurably engulf me with all sense of fear diminishing as I continued to drift towards them. The sensation was total euphoria.

As I rose through layers of pink chiffon clouds I cried out, "Please let me see God's face!" The cherubs pushed aside the clouds as if they were billowy curtains and a luminescent face was revealed. The vision took my breath away and immediately released my body from its tremendous weight. I felt utterly free as I gazed at this wonderful face with intense eyes that were piercing right through me. Waves of indescribable joy wrapped around me lasting for timeless moments. As I drew closer, so close the radiance of his eyes blinded me, though I could see clearer than I ever did.

The next thing I knew I was rapidly falling. In an instance I found myself back in my hospital bed feeling a nurse pressing on my abdomen, asking me how I was doing. For the first time since I was admitted after surgery I was able to clearly answer her in a strong voice.

Within a day my kidney function reversed itself and I started urinating large amounts to everyone's delight. My kidneys had returned and the startled doctors made the decision to immediately halt my dialysis treatments and remove the shunt. You could hear joyous screams throughout the hospital as hospital staff members joined in with my celebrating screams.

The night before I was miraculously discharged I heard unseen voices speak to me as they surrounded my bed, telling me to re-examine my life. They informed me I should release myself from any past episodes of pain and bitterness. I really believe my guardian angels decided to utilize my fiftieth birthday to reiterate the fact that life's a gift and should be treasured, and were there to save my life through a medical mystery.

I left the hospital described as a miracle case with my doctors still unsure about what occurred and why everything instantly turned itself around. After being home two more months I am now back to myself, a full recovery.

The End