The Cords of Death
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Upon arrival at New Glasgow that evening, Mother’s sister and brother-in-law took her immediately to the hospital. She was diagnosed with a perforated colon. She was in septic shock, dehydrated, had no blood pressure, and her kidneys were not functioning. After resuscitating her, the doctors performed the necessary surgery, but told my aunt that my mother was not expected to survive.
My sister, Patricia, who lives in southern Indiana, phoned me that evening as soon as she received the news. I immediately made reservations to fly out from Nebraska, where we were on furlough at the time, and meet Tricia in the Chicago airport. From there we would fly on together to Halifax, Nova Scotia, then rent a car to drive to the hospital in New Glasgow.
Very early the next morning, my husband, Paul, and I drove 75 miles to Grand Island, the nearest airport. As I was flying from there to Chicago, I turned to the Scriptures for comfort, and started reading the Psalms, beginning with Psalm 1. On and on I read, until I came to Psalm 18, and it seemed to grab my attention, particularly the first 19 verses.
It spoke of a person being encircled by the cords of the grave and confronted by the snares of death. He cried to the Lord for help. God replied by a strong show of His power, and by what seemed to me to be His anger at the enemy of death, and He rescued the distressed one from “foes who were too strong” for him.
The passage made a strong impact on me. Was God giving me His promise that He would deliver my mother? Certainly the foes of toxic shock and infection were too strong for her. As the doctor later told us, “No one has ever survived this kind of surgery.” I read and re-read the passage, believing God’s power to rescue her, yet unsure if He was really giving me His promise to claim for Mother’s situation.
I met Tricia in Chicago as planned, and we flew on to Nova Scotia. As we were driving from Halifax to New Glasgow, I did share with her that passage and what I thought it meant. We arrived about 10 p.m. at the hospital, where Mother’s doctors met us and explained the surgery. The anesthesiologist said he was surprised she had even survived the procedure. They repeated the prognosis that she could not be expected to live. Even if she made it through the first two or three days, the 7-10 days after the surgery would be critical because of the potential for an abscess to develop; her temperature would rise as the infection overwhelmed her body and she would succumb to it. Those potential dates would be the weekend of September 10-12.
Three days after the surgery Mother was having respiratory difficulty, and there was infection around her lungs. The next day they put the ventilator tube back in, as blood tests determined that she wasn’t getting enough oxygen. The doctor thought that the infection was increasing, and gave her no hope at all. As he examined her, the nurse heard Mother say, “Jesus is coming. Good-bye.”
The next day there was a slight improvement, with less fluid in her lungs, and her kidneys were functioning. At the 8th day after surgery, she was making some progress. She couldn’t talk because of the ventilator, but she understood what Tricia and I were saying to her.
On the following day I sensed that Mother was going through a crisis. It was September 12, the critical period predicted by the doctors. Then her temperature started rising, an indication that the infection was probably increasing. The pneumonia she was experiencing was determined to be from the intestinal bacteria that had flooded into her abdominal cavity prior to the surgery.
Every day I had been reading Psalm 18 over and over, which still spoke to me strongly. I claimed His power to heal her, if that was His will. The medical indications were certainly to the contrary, but I left the decision to God.
Later we learned that on that date, which Mother herself identified as September 12, she had a vision or dream that she was picking yellow flowers in a field while I was looking on. When she picked the last flower, which was brown, she would die. But she lost interest in the flowers before reaching that last one, and she felt that that was the turning point in her recovery.
Mother continued to make progress, although she was so weak she couldn’t even turn herself over in bed. After six weeks in the intensive care unit and another week in a regular hospital room, Paul accompanied her on the journey back to Indiana.
The cords of death were broken.
Mother lived another 23 years to see her six great-grandchildren and bless us all.
Vera Farley
September 4, 1909 – August 5, 2006
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