My Glimpse of Eternity (8 page)

8
My Changed World

I
tried to tell Dad about the experience I had just been through on the other side, but I don’t think he really heard me. He just kept smiling at me and squeezing my hand, tears sliding down his cheeks. His eyes seemed to devour me.

When the young nurse’s aide popped into the room and saw me sitting up in bed, she screamed, “Ma’am, you’re a ghost!” Her black face was ashen. I reached for her hand, surprised by the warm feeling inside that made me want to hug her and reassure her. “Tell the floor nurse, I’m not only alive, but I feel wonderful.”

The young aide scurried away and soon the chief nurse, with a shocked expression on her face, was wheeling back into the room the life support equipment that had been removed. Jubilant calls were made to John, who had just arrived at the station, and Mother.

The nurses wanted to put the tubes back in me but I shook my head. “I’m sure I don’t need them any more. I’m hungry. Please tell Dr. Bherne that I want some real food.”

Then I picked up the telephone and dialed my elderly paternal grandmother, Mom Perky. She was in her eighties, a gentle, old-fashioned servant of the Lord. “Hello, Mom Perky, this is Betty! Do you believe in miracles? I’m sitting up here in bed feeling great.” God love her, she was so confused. She had been ill for a long time and Mother had called just a short time before to tell her I had died. She now thought we were both in heaven and talking there on the phone.

Minutes later John arrived in my room, so moved he didn’t quite know what to do. He stood next to Dad, staring at me, trying to understand the journey I had taken. Every now and then he would reach over and pat me on the shoulder, or on my knee or the arm, or my side to see if I was real.

There sure wasn’t much left of me—just an emaciated yellowish-green face and a skinny disintegrated eighty-pound skeleton of a body. But how alive I felt!

Dr. Bherne was the next to arrive. I’ll probably never know what conversation took place between him and the floor nurse before he walked into my room. He gave me a long, careful look, paying little attention to my excited chatter. Then he began a careful examination. I noticed a tremor in his hand when he applied the stethoscope. Finally, he flashed me a cautious smile.

“You are indeed much better,” he said.

“The Lord has healed me,” I replied. “I died about an hour ago. I met Him over there and He let me return. It was in incredibly beautiful experience.”

The doctor looked uncomfortable. “Some things happen which we can’t explain. Whatever it was—you seem to be much improved.”

“How do you explain my sudden recovery?”

He smiled, “I believe in things I can personally explain.”

Several of my relatives arrived and the doctor started to leave. “Before you go, Dr. Bherne, I want you to know that I’m very hungry. When do I eat real food?”

It was the first time I had wanted solid food since the night of the bad pain down in Florida.

The doctor shook his head. “You must go very slow on that. Perhaps some 7-Up on ice to start.”

The festive air continued in my room all morning as a stream of relatives arrived. It was a victory party. Two more doctors appeared to examine and question me. But the 7-Up on ice never appeared.

Around noon the young nurse’s aide brought me a tray. On it were two pork chops, applesauce, cottage cheese, a square of lemon cake with warm sauce and a pot of tea. Hungrily I ate every morsel, thinking it the most delicious food I ever tasted.

Shortly thereafter a flustered nurse came in to examine my tray, pursued by an irate patient named Mrs. Underwood who had been served nothing but a few ounces of 7-Up for lunch. Upchurch and Underwood—it was easy to see how the mix-up occurred. Sure enough, behind the teapot on my tray was a card with Underwood on it.

Minutes later the nurse returned with a mobile unit. “I’m sorry. I’m going to have to pump out your stomach.”

Every fiber of my body protested that this was not necessary. “Please . . . please,” I insisted. “The food was so good. It went down so smoothly and I feel just fine.”

The nurse continued unrolling the tubing. “Orders are orders,” she replied.

“I’m sorry,” I said more firmly. “But I have lost so much weight that this nourishment is desperately needed.” She wavered. “I promise to ring you the moment I think I’m in trouble,” I continued.

Reluctantly, the nurse retreated with her unit. “Lord,” I prayed, “please help digest this food.”

The process of eating, digestion and elimination is so routine with most of us that we never appreciate what a miraculously smooth operation it is until something goes wrong. The next few hours was a time of great suspense. I hadn’t eaten real food in weeks. Would the pork and applesauce and cottage cheese pass through the digestive tract? If there was a problem, my stomach would quickly flash the warning signal.

Several hours went by as relatives continued to come and go. The body gave its sign and I pushed the call button. When the nurse appeared apprehensively, I flashed her my brightest smile. “Would you help me to the bathroom, please?”

Wobbly as I was, it was like a triumphant procession. And how can I describe my jubilation to find that all my plumbing worked?

The next morning Dr. Bherne closed the door to my room, examined me carefully and then sat down in a chair by the bed. Seeing that he had also adjusted a second chair near his, I pointed to it. “Anyone else coming to this pity party? Or is it a welcome back party?”

He laughed for the first time. “That chair there is for gangrene to set in!” he replied humorously.

I laughed too. How good it sounded!

I liked Dr. Bherne. He had been very negative about my chances; he was a somber man, but a fine doctor, a skilled surgeon. I felt a sudden burst of gratitude for the hours of care he had given me.

Now I really saw him for the first time; a short man with rimless eyeglasses, furrowed brow, graying thinning hair closely cropped. His eyes were friendly, but somewhat disapproving. I sensed he was about to give a sober serious talk about what the illness had done to me.

“I think we can release you from the hospital in a few days,” he began. “This is good news, of course. We are delighted by your comeback. But you have been a desperately sick woman for a long time. It will be many months before we know the extent of the damage to your system.” Then he went on to tick off the areas which were of concern to him. It seemed that the infection had collided with nearly every organ in my body.

“We did not remove your reproductive organs,” he continued, “but I could tell that they were severely damaged by the gangrenous infection. There is such a thin membrane between the appendix and the ovaries that peritonitis is always a severe threat to a woman’s fertility. In your case, there is hardly one chance in a hundred that you could conceive, one in a thousand that the baby would be normal. In fact, the odds are probably even worse than that.

“I strongly urge you and your husband to use contraceptives from now on. Considering the massive infection which bombarded your ovaries, I also suggest that you consider having them removed sometime soon. A deformed child is quite a price to pay for carelessness, although I do not believe there is much chance you could conceive under any circumstances.”

When he had finished his lecture, the doctor gave me that approving smile he reserved for cooperative patients and left to make his rounds.

It was several days before Nurse Mary Barton returned to duty. She came into the room, stood at the foot of my bed and stared at me, speechless and wide-eyed while I described the healing I had received.

“I just can’t believe it,” she said. “You were dying when I last saw you.” She picked up my chart and stared at it in disbelief. “And you’re now back on solid food, too.”

All I could do was grin at the bewilderment on her kind face.

Later that afternoon, on her coffee break, Mary crossed the street, entered the fountain of the Walgreen Drug Store and purchased a large chocolate ice cream soda. With a giant-sized smile on her face, Mary Barton then appeared in my room and presented it to me with a great flourish, making good on her promise. “This is one bet I never thought I’d have to pay off,” she said.

What a treat it was! I don’t know who enjoyed it the most: Mary, the grinning gift-bearer, or Betty, the eager recipient.

Several days later John brought me home. It took two trips to carry the accumulation of flowers, plants, gifts, and personal items. I was still so frail and weak that I could only take a few steps at a time. But what a thrill for John and me to be back in our own home, to lie again together in our bed, to sit across the breakfast table, to hold hands on the living room couch as we watched television, to see Brenda dashing about the house with her dolls and toys, telling friends excitedly, “Mommy’s home! Mommy’s home!”

What a difference I felt now about my home. Gone was the restlessness, the desire to escape to Florida. Instead, there was a steady continuous feeling of praise. In the hospital the Lord had first helped me see myself and my sinful nature and then through His Word He had shown me what correction was needed. How wonderful to have this personal relationship with Him. How incredible to encounter Jesus personally in His world and to stand in His light and feel the marvelous flow of His health pass through my body!

I began each day with Him, absorbing more of His Word, seeking His Presence with a joyful sound on my lips. One morning as I was to start a recuperative program, there came a clear message on the mirror of my mind:
You shall be like a tree planted by the water.

Quickly I reached for my Bible and turned to the First Psalm, which is a tribute to the righteous man. There it was—third verse:

And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,

that bringeth forth his fruit in his season;

his leaf also shall not wither;

and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

(KJV)

The more I meditated on this, the more I felt that the Lord would have me key on the word “water,” that He was advising me to drink six to eight glasses a day to continue the flushing out of impurities in my system. My skin, my tissue, all my organs were crying for moisture. It is a procedure I have followed to this day, resulting in a long period of good health, no colds, clear skin. Thank You, Lord! (A man who heard me tell about this in a speech wrote me recently that he had been unable to wear contact lenses until he began drinking six to eight glasses of water per day. Results: more moisture in his eyes and the irritation gone.)

During the months that followed, I slowly built up my body, regained lost weight and watched carefully for problems that Dr. Bherne indicated I might have. There were no aftereffects to the pain-killing drugs. My body functions were normal. My eyesight seemed unimpaired.

Some years later I went to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to renew my drivers’ license. I read the charts quickly and easily. The testing officer then asked me to remove my contact lenses and read the fine print on the lower line again. He could not understand the jubilation of my reply when I said, “I’ll reread the lower line, but I don’t wear contact lenses.”

Before my illness I had a fear of high places. Looking down from a tall building made me weak, paralyzed, yet there had been no feelings of fear when I descended from God’s City. Nor have I felt any apprehension of high places ever since.

John and I talked and prayed about the possibility of a malformed pregnancy resulting unless we used contraceptives. My inner guidance was that when the Lord heals, He does it completely. John was inclined to follow the doctor’s advice—at least for a while. I decided to obey my husband.

The healing was not limited to my body. In addition to dealing with my restless spirit, the Lord cleansed me of lifelong prejudices toward minority groups and a distaste for certain personality types. One of the first persons I sought out was Art Lindsey to thank him personally for the therapy of his visit to me in the hospital. Next was to be Mother Upchurch.

My recuperation period was marred only by John’s setback. He came home early from work one day complaining of severe fatigue and went to bed. It was so unlike John I wanted to call the doctor. John said no; he just needed a day or so of rest. Unfortunately this was the time Mother Upchurch chose to visit us.