In July of 2009 something in my head exploded.
I went out for a run early that morning. I came home and was finishing my workout in the basement when I felt something begin to tear inside my head. I gingerly walked upstairs and sat on our kitchen steps where my wife buzzed around getting the kids ready for school. She asked if I was ok, I said “somethings wrong”. Then whatever had started to rip in my head finally burst all the way. I fell down on the floor grabbing my head, screaming. I have never felt so much pain, it was blinding. My wife wanted to get me to the hospital, I resisted. I choked down a bunch of Tylenol instead. I staggered upstairs and somehow managed a quick shower, I thought if I could just lay down for a couple hours I could still make it to work by lunchtime. Yes, I really am that dumb.
I threw up the Tylenol, then staggered back downstairs and asked Marji to take me to the hospital. Our local ER was under construction, so I had to make my way from the front of the building down a long hall to the ER. I could barely walk. When you hemorrhage inside your head there is no where for the blood to go so the pressure on your skull continues to build, the pain is crippling. When I finally made it to the window I told the woman about my sudden headache. She asked, “would you describe it as a thunderclap headache?” I said, “yes, that is exactly how I would describe it!”
They took me back immediately, no paperwork, no ID, no insurance card, no more questions. I had an emergency CT scan, and they gave me morphine. The doctor told me I had a severe bleed in my head, and they were not equipped to handle it, so she called a helicopter to transport me to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. At HUP they snaked a camera from my groin up into my head to get a 3D image of my brain, amazing technology. The plan was to open my head and install a shunt to drain the blood in an effort to prevent brain damage or death. I vaguely remember friends and family being there, they looked frightened. The surgery never happened.
My wife had called the church for prayer. There was a lot of praying that day and that week, not by me, I couldn’t even think. I laid in the ICU for ten days while they conducted test after test. Several times a day they would do cognitive tests to make sure my brain wasn’t being damaged. As long as I was able to pass their tests they would not cut my head open. The pain remained severe, I could not move, and I needed the room to be kept dark. I am a miserable patient and I just wanted to be left alone, but they kept poking and testing me. the Professor of Neurology would come in with his team of neurologists and students and they would gather around my bed, staring down at me, wondering what to do. They did not inspire confidence.
Several weeks later we went back to see the professor. We asked him why this happened to me, he did not know. We asked if I was prone to this and if it could happen again, he didn’t know. We asked if there was anything I could do to help prevent future bleeds; he noticed I was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and suggested I take up meditation. Driving home I kept hearing the voice of Buzz Lightyear in my head, saying, “I don’t think that man has ever been to medical school.” Ha.
So, what happened to me? Did God answer the prayers of his people by intervening directly in my injured head to prevent serious damage or death? If we say yes then we must ask why did he allow it in the first place; wouldn’t it have been easier to simply prevent a life-threatening aneurism than to clean up the mess of an exploding head? I do not have direct answers to such questions. He does not see fit to provide me such information. But here is what I do know:
Most of the people with the type of hemorrhage I had do not even make it to the hospital, I made it to two.
I know that an event that should have at least had a serious permanent impact on my quality of life had no such thing. I walked with a cane for about a week because I was dizzy and light-headed, that was it. I was on disability for six weeks but got so tired of looking at my living room that I painted it.
I know that the professor of neurology at a world class teaching hospital when asked why I survived without surgery said they had no explanation for how I was healed. He eventually shrugged his shoulders and said, “somehow, you healed yourself.” Huh.
I know that during these events, but separate from them, the insurance company was having a hearing to decide whether to provide nursing care for our severely disabled daughter, Megan. For seventeen years her only nurse had been her mother. When the case was presented to them, about a family with seven kids, the extent of Megan’s disabilities, a mother who bathed her and tube fed her and gave her all her medications, and now a father whose head had just exploded; the room was silent for a long time. Then there was a unanimous vote to provide daily nursing care for Megan. The social worker from the insurance company told us she has never seen anything like that happen before. Did God allow me to suffer two weeks of crippling pain so my beautiful daughter could receive the care she needed, and a great burden could be lifted from my wife’s shoulders? I do not know, but if he did it was totally worth it, and I would do it again.
I know that the cost of my injury was over two hundred thousand dollars. What did that get me? With all their training and degrees, the expensive equipment and wonderful staff; the medical community accomplished exactly nothing. If I had just stayed in my own bed for ten days the result would have been the same. I am not against modern medicine. I am grateful for much of what it can do, and some of my favorite people on Earth are nurses. But there is an anti-supernatural bias here in the West that is depressing. It is cold, sterile, clinical and soulless, and it has infected the Church. We do not expect miracles. We do not look for the hand of God in our lives, and so we never see it. We put our faith in men instead of God. We do not have, because we do not ask. Sometimes it’s enough to make my head explode.
“When we rely upon organization, we get what organization can do; when we rely upon education, we get what education can do; when we rely upon eloquence, we get what eloquence can do… but when we rely upon prayer, we get what God can do.” AC Dixon
“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
Jesus