Posted on 02/16/2015 11:29:19 AM PST by Mrs. Don-o
“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” Mark Twain
Hello, Freepalicious friends, this will have been your first and probably your last communication from me until Christ our God grants a better body/brain recovery. But I wanted to write what I can before it all disappears down the Memory Hole.
Collapsed on Jan 19, septic shock from UTI. EMT's say BP fell to something like 40. Dead.
Cardiac arrest. And again. And again. Dead, dead, dead.
No bright tunnel of light, no golden escalator with old Fleetwood Mac mix tapes, no exclusive book and movie rights. I even forgot that I'd promised, if I were ever in dramatic straits, to ask for the intercession of Elizabeth Anscombe, one of God's noblewomen, who just needs a teeny-tiny documentable miracle in order to be beatified. I even blew THAT. I wasn't only nearly dead, I was really most sincerely dead.
Teams of people, however, were darting me with epis and drilling holes in my face, neck and groin to pump in corpse-warmer concoctions faster than my baffled body could tolerate them. They forced the issue, Lord love 'em all. I was on a ventilator for fifteen days.
Prayer groups started double and triple teaming me, which opened up spaces even in the Enemy's territory where grace could operate. Dozens of St Mary's people came tumbling into the Med Center ICU with their hand-knotted rosaries and their Divine Mercy prayers, with sweet trust bordering on obstinacy.
Was it before or after my airway collapsed that a Greek Orthodox priest friend anointed me with sweet oil from a myrrh-bearing icon of St. Anne? Was it before the Two Specialists started staring at the CT and MRI results and muttering “Look at the size of that obstruction. Christ Almighty, what a mess!”--- that my pastor came and gave me the precious Viaticum –- a transfusion from the veins of Jesus Christ Our Lord?
Lord have mercy 12 x. Lord have mercy 40 x. Lord have mercy Women's Plus Size XXL with elastic waistband.
Was it before or after I started hallucinating, that the “Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, Chant-o-Matic” was being dialed up to Max right there in the Med Center atrium? Yes, dearest Baptist friends, Catholics do chant. (And OK, Orthodox buddies, we do mumble.) Anyway, a skeptical world could see how Catholics come fully armed and ready to rumble.
If you're laughing a bit, here's where it stops.
I was given a vision of evil.
I am not writing this because I want you to think, “Oh woo-woo, Mrs Don-o must be holy, she has these Mystical Experiences TM” or even (closer to the truth) “Is there nothing this proud, ignorant, hypocritical woman will not say for 15 minutes of fame?” I haven't the strength in my shaking hands to waste on dubious claims of “God told me,” nor breath in my body to argue about these things, nor (this is the important point) do I understand what I saw. God (!) told (!) me (!), “You're not going to understand but zero-point-one percent of this,” and behold, all-y'all, the fact is, I don't understand it.
I saw evil.
I saw the mouth of evil.
I know that, trembling hands or not, I'll have to explain about the “mouth,” –- though I can't. But I'll try.
It was not large. It was about an inch square, no bigger than a typical chessboard square. It was not a lewd, loose-lipped, lolling Miley Cyrus mouth, nor a thin-lipped Atheist Medical Ethicist mouth with moustache attached, like a cheap movie Mephistopheles.
In fact, there was no face attached. It was a mouth. It had one single snaggle tooth, barbed and recurved on itself like the kind of fish hook that, when the fool fish tries to back off, just digs in deeper. On the tip of the snaggle tooth was a single drop of green venom sufficient, I thought, to destroy life on all inhabited planets.
And the mouth was inside-out.
How you can tell a “mouth” is "inside-out" I do not know, except that it seems I read somewhere about some odious marine parasite that chomps down on some part of its intended victim and then turns itself inside-out, so that the victim is enveloped and slowly digested by the writhing, now-exterior intestines. Holiness? Heaven? People speak of near-death experiences glowing with consolation and beatitude; my NDE was more involved with Homicide and Hell.
I saw a RN I despised, a sort of pontillist-Catholic as it happens, one who got passive-aggressive with me when I was experiencing anguish and terror. She had disputed with me for hours, contemptuously, dismissively, over whether I could have a freaking mouth swab.
Not that I could speak much beyond “ungh, ungh.” But I could point to the mouth swabs which were an inch beyond my reach, and point to my mouth where everything was stuck together like Crazy Glue, and make the classic Praying Hands gesture, and she would say, “You had swab 32 minutes ago, thang Q!” and then walk away.
I couldn't make out her accent but she had evidently trained in someplace where they told her that it is the ultimate in American professional courtesy to end every sentence with “Thank you,” regardless of context. Thus:
“Do not bite tongue, thang Q!”
“Do not move finger, thang Q!”
“Stop breathing, thang Q!”
“You are not thirsty. You had swab 44 minutes ago, thang Q!”
He face right next to mine (and she smelled like Citrusy-Fresh Floor Disinfectant) “You are not thirsty. You had swab only 55 minutes ago, thang Q!”
I was left sweltering in my own sweat for hours in an underground claustrophobic corridor between the CT unit and the ICU. Nurse DeeDee attempted no gesture of consolation, offered nothing, disappeared for hours without explanation, would pop back round the corner with,
“I SAID, Do not bite tongue, thang Q!”
Bad nurse. Nurse Ratched. Motto: Service to Subumanity. DeeDee, Destroyer of Worlds.
If I had a choice between Jesus Christ or a filet knife, I would have chosen the knife. I could do more damage with it. If I had a choice between Jesus Christ or pushing this despicable woman through a window, my dying words would have been, “Ah, bloody plate glass.”
Then I saw the Mouth of Evil open up to swallow me and the entire world. And the entire world. And I heard an intense warning:
“Forgive her.”
“I can't, Lord. Can't You see my mind is disintegrating?”
“Forgive her.”
“Are YOU freaking crazy, too? I'm being destroyed by this stupid disease and I'm laying in this stupid lithotomy position at the mercy of this stupid odious DeeDee, my mind is being shattered under the hammer-blows of pain and fear. I can't chose anything, can't calculate anything, can't desire anything ...”
“I didn't say anything about 'Calculate.”
“I can't forgive her.”
“Of course you can't. Your pulmonary, cardiac and renal function are failing. Your brain function is disintegrating. YOU can't forgive her. How right you are. Ask Me to forgive her.”
“How long do I have to decide?”
“You moron! There is no more time! Do it now!”
I was well and truly freaked. “Oh, Dear Lord...?”
“Yes?”
“Dear Lord, forgive DeeDee...”
“And?”
“And wash away her iniquities, or whatever it is You do...”
“And?”
“And don't hold her offenses against her. And help her to become the kind of RN and the kind of good Catholic woman she ought to be.”
Forgive your DeeDee's.
Glad to hear you’re on the mend.
I’m continuing to pray fro you and anticipate your return to the FRRF.
Yes, BlackElk is another scary good writer. If FR had a way to subscribe to posters, I'd be one of his followers.
I'm not surprised that Mrs. Don-o has a book to her credit. Not surprised at all.
Luke 6:45: “A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.”
While in no condition to talk, it sounds like your vision may have stirred you to forgiveness of what was going on in your brain. At church yesterday the class and sermon was about loving one another. And it can be so hard to love THOSE kind of people. You know, the ones that .....(fill in the blank).
And that is when we need to rely on God’s love in order to love them. Just like you wrote. A constant battle for me.
I’m glad you are feeling better. And glad that you are feeling better about Nurse Dee-Dee. That must have been terrible to lay there thirsty - and then compounded with the hate and anxiety that can build up.
I remember having very painful surgery, maxed out on the drugs, and the only thing that would give any relief was ice packs. “Well - this is your second ice-pack in an hour - I can’t be running in here with an ice-pack all the time, we are running out!”
Pretty sure I didn’t forgive her. I had my wife bring in a bunch with my name on them - just for me!
Mrs. Don-o, your writing is fun and communicates a deep message - I hope your book(?) will get mentioned. Prayers for comfort and peace to you and yours.
They still need you, of that I have no doubt.
Irreplaceable.
Thank you for going to the effort to provide the personal testimony.
By such as that, darkness is defeated.
Now if I could better, and more completely forgive the forum trolls (and those whom just don't know any better than they *think* they know) around this here taco stand, I may be better able to avoid 'ol snaggletooth, myself.
I do recall years ago, after being miraculously delivered (from being held at gunpoint, and more which I won't go into) that after I was far away from that danger -- which the awesome power of the Lord had delivered me from, I spent some time thinking on how I was could go back and ruin the devil worshiper (he was that, by his own words) who had held me a gunpoint, had otherwise also assaulted me -- and would have possibly killed me.
After some time of returning again and again to those type of thoughts, building up within myself some latent intent to do the man harm, I had what I know to be the Spirit of the Lord tell me in no uncertain terms to stop (that sort meditation) or He would "have nothing more to do with" me.
The words in quotation marks are as best as I can remember, word for word, and I can say He was angry with me, at that point, and has been at times since.
Many long years later, that individual traveled all the way from Louisiana to the Central Coast of California, looking for me. So he said, anyway, after my passing right by him and not recognizing him until he spoke.
We had an interesting conversation...but it seemed to me there were still satanic forces within himself trying mightily to instill something within me which could lead not only to my own ruination, but preclude, block out future good that I may be used towards furtherance of His (God's own) desires for us all. Those desires are not for our harm (even though many of us, because of sin, deserve nothing less than Him to turn away from us forever).
Thank You! (and, I DON’T mean, “Thang Q!”) So glad you are back with us.
Thank you Mrs. Don-o for that magnificent story! I am SO glad you are still with us. God Bless you.
Can't say I'm surprised after having read her post up top. She's got a gift.
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Thank you for the reminder.
May Our Lord continue to bless you.
I had never heard of these Jewish nighttime prayers — what noble words, and how God-pleasing such forgiveness must be!
Thank you for sending
Some things are ok to bark at, I think. ANd you didn't even growl, much less bark and show teeth, so no problem, as far as I can tell...
I think the one(?) person who could have been perceived as saying something in an offensive way, may have been writing in support of the concepts your wife underlined, but it came across kind-of sideways?
Besides, whatever it was which you said in reply was not that bad (afaict)...and I doubt would be cause for anything like abiding hard feelings? Or so I hope...but won't openly ping the one person, though should perhaps pm that soul to say I think I understood what they intended to have conveyed, which wasn't an actual criticism of the mrs., from that person's perspective (I hope, anyway, and can see room to do so).
Thanks for all, and for having kept those of us here in the loop. It made it easier to know what to pray for.
Please FReepmail don-o, who may provide information on the book at his discretion. I don’t want to violate their confidentiality.
BlackElk has this vehemently vivid verbosity thing going on. Mrs. Don-o is a little more concise.
That's cool, but most authors enjoy getting every bit of free advertising they can for their books. I wouldn't think it would be a secret.
I'll freepmail for details.
Yes, I don’t want to out her real name.
Nice, mom. Truly!
Hi.
Good to hear from you.
Ah, good catch and a funny pun; No, it is intended to help Jews who have fallen in an addiction recover from such.
I figured as much. ;)
Wow ping
Prayers up, Mrs. Don-o
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