My Angel Encounter

A sermon about angels at church yesterday led me to this post. I learned yesterday that most of us have had encounters with angels, sometimes in human form and sometimes not, but many people don't realize it. Indeed, I didn't realize it at the time, but it was very clear after the fact that I had had an angel encounter...

In October of 2008 I had a stroke. After my 5 days in the hospital I was released with a severe and constant headache and extreme vertigo, in addition to other difficulties (swallowing, some cognitive and even personality issues that remain to this day), but these 2 were the most life-altering. My life was spent in a recliner, mostly holding my head in my hands. When I walked my husband described as a "beebee in a boxcar" - I wove my way from furniture piece to furniture piece to wall, fighting nausea and pain the entire time. Imagine a brain freeze after eating your ice cream too fast - that was the pain that never left my head. When winter came I wore hats constantly, because it helped a little - maybe 5% but even a slight improvement is an improvement.

My personal doctor tried a broad range of pain killers, and none of them gave me any relief. Not even a little. My husband took me to the emergency room at a large hospital that just sent me home again because their MRI couldn't find the cause. I was tested and retested over the next couple of months, and nobody could help me. Nothing showed up on brain scans. I sent my records, on the advice of an internet friend, to an acclaimed brain doctor in Canada. He saw something there, and told me what to recommend to the next doctor I saw - but the next doctor I saw ridiculed me, and the recommendation. I was in too much pain, and too tired, to fight. I couldn't have lived like this much longer, and was even started to entertain thoughts of suicide, it was that awful.

At this point my sister intervened. It would be an entire post in itself to how this was accomplished, but she got me admitted to a large hospital in our nearest big city (about 2 hours away). They even allowed her to stay in the empty bed next to me. I saw a neurologist there who got the ball rolling, ordering more tests and an exam by an ophthalmologist. Still nothing. Until he asked if I'd had a spinal tap at the first hospital. And of course I had...

I was seen by an anesthesiologist. I was taken to the pre-op room on a Sunday evening in the basement of the hospital. Nobody else was there, except an assistant. He gave me his name, showed me his name tag, gave me his name again, and then spelled it out for me. I thought that was odd but maybe doctors who work in basements develop oddities, who knows?

He proceeded to explain that sometimes after a spinal tap the hole doesn't completely close the spinal fluid can leak, causing headache and vertigo. He also said that mine was quite severe, and that since it had been months (as opposed to hours) that the neurologist didn't know if a blood patch could help me. But this anesthesiologist was going to try.

The procedure wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't painful either. (My definition of "painful" had been altered by what I had been enduring!) He finished, and I was taken back to my room. It was late, and it wasn't long before I was asleep.

The next morning I woke up, and steeled myself for my first movement of the day - the worst part of each day, where the pain and vertigo and resulting nausea all blasted me at the same time. I gingerly turned my head - nothing. I turned over - NOTHING. I started moving my head from side to side - NOTHING!! I woke up my sister...LOOK AT THIS! and I started whipping my head back and forth. I sat up. I walked straight to the bathroom. NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING!!! It was...unbelievable!!

This all sounds like a medical issue resolved by competent doctors doesn't it? Here is the REST of the story...

I got a phone call that morning from the doctor that did the patch, asking how I was. I thought it was unusual but he was happy to hear how well I was doing. I went home the next day.

A few days later I wanted to write him a letter, so I looked him up online. When I couldn't find his name at the hospital site, I looked at the licensing sites. Hmmm...not there either. I called the hospital, and was reassured that all of their physicians are listed on the site except doctors that fill in on an as-needed basis from an agency. She looked up the name of the doctor I gave her, and she told me that she didn't see a doctor by that name had been there, but she'd connect me with the person in charge of the contract doctors. I talked to this person, and she assured me that there had been no doctor by that name, at that hospital, ever. She even checked older records - nope. Nobody by that name.

Nobody by that name affiliated with the hospital. Nobody by that name had ever worked there. Nobody by that name listed by any of the medical sites, including licensing sites, online. I spent days trying to find him. When his name didn't turn up anywhere I scanned photos of anesthesiologists all over the state to try and find his face. Nothing.

I talked to my regular doctor after this. She couldn't find him either. But she told me that angels are at work all the time, sent to do God's healing work; she said "I've seen it happen a lot." She wasn't surprised, but rather accepted it as a matter of fact: I had had an encounter with an angel.

(Why haven't I written his name here, you might ask? It's because he was MY angel, and you may sometime have your own angel, and your angel may have a different name, a different face...the name isn't relevant; that he was sent by God to do His work, is.)