Tag: ventilator

Living the Impossible

Impossible.

That’s what they told us. Oh, they used different words at different hospitals, but they all said the same thing. After Kevin’s devastating spinal cord injury sustained in a fall, his situation seemed hopeless. He lay paralyzed from the neck down and kept alive by a ventilator.

He was first taken to the local hospital at Lethbridge, Alberta, but was quickly transferred by helicopter to a Calgary hospital. We drove twelve hours through the night to join him after we received the call. When we arrived at the Calgary hospital the next morning, we were ushered into a gray room and joined by a gray doctor. He talked somberly about all the challenges Kevin faced. I don’t remember much of what he said to us. But his face said it all:

Expect the worst.

The second consultation was with a sour doctor who presented us with a bunch of “nevers.” Kevin would never breathe again. He would never move his body below his chin or possibly his shoulders. He might not even survive the complications of the injury. He would never go home to the United States, because no airline would take him on a flight. No medical crew would consent to accompany him, and no doctor in the States would accept him as a patient.

And, the doctor added, they didn’t have vent patients there. Kevin’s only way out was death.

But God is a God of the impossible.

We rejected this push for euthanasia, and God opened the way for Kevin to be flown back to a hospital in the United States in a chartered Lear jet, accompanied by a volunteer medical team and his brother Erik. Through the generosity of the people of Canada and here in the States, everything was paid in full. Kevin’s Canadian surgeon was a wonderful man who gave us our first ray of hope by telling us Kevin would probably survive, although his chances of recovering any function or feeling were one in a hundred. Virtually impossible.

Kevin’s trials increased after transferring to Spokane, when he experienced two respiratory codes and nearly died both times. He struggled with two bouts of pneumonia, finally stabilizing enough to be moved to a rehabilitation hospital. Along the way, he surprised the medical personnel by beginning to regain feeling and some slight movement.

Still, they reminded him that he could never wean off the ventilator. They told us that it would be impossible for us to care for him at home, and he would have to live in a nursing facility.

Our God is a God of the impossible.

Seven weeks after his injury, Kevin went home with us, his family, as his caregivers. Two years after the injury, he weaned off the vent during his waking hours, only going back on it at night to sleep. He gained more feeling and movement back in his body.

Today he can run a computer, walk with help, and do a few things for himself. Recently he began a new, self-imposed exercise regimen and has made new gains. He taught himself computer animation and 3D graphics, ran a studio with his brother, and now is the founder and senior editor of a website devoted to Christian music, http://www.cmaddict.com.

In 2008, he served as honorary groomsman at his brother Erik’s wedding. He was honorary groomsman at his friend Grant’s wedding, as well. Last September, Kevin rolled down the aisle of our church to stand beside his brother Daniel as his best man at his wedding.

Every day for twenty years, we have lived the impossible.

It has been with great joy we have watched God work in our weakness. He has given us miracles without end in this journey. Together, we have watched God bring our family closer through trial and release the fragrance of His grace in our broken lives and dreams. We have stood amazed at the tenderness and love with which our adult children have served their brother and us. We see with joy that God is building new dreams.

Yes, life has been hard. Kevin has suffered much. But he has chosen to serve God in his suffering. We have chosen to serve God in standing beside our son. The beauty we have been privileged to witness far outweighs the sorrow.

Today, on July 11, 2017, we celebrate twenty years of watching an awesome God at work. We rejoice at twenty years of life restored to our son. We look forward to the future, knowing that our Lord is still a God of miracles. Every day, in His power, we live this wonderful, impossible life together.

 

The things that are impossible with people are possible with God.

-Luke 18:27

 

 

The Shepherd Family

lifeshepherdfamily
The Shepherd Family (l to r): Laura, Paul, Linda, and Jimmy

It was just a shopping day with her mother and eighteen-month-old daughter Laura. Linda was driving the car that fateful day after Christmas when an unguarded moment sent them careening into the path of a minivan at sixty miles an hour. The collision took off the back seat of their car.

Linda and her mother were dazed but okay. But little Laura’s car seat went flying out of the car on impact and landed in the middle of the freeway with Laura still buckled in. She was much too quiet.

At the hospital, Linda discovered Laura had suffered a devastating brain injury. She was sent to ICU, where she was wracked with seizures. Surgery relieved the swelling, but she remained unconscious and hooked up to a ventilator. Linda repelled the doctor’s suggestion they remove Laura from the ventilator, and when they had the opportunity to move her to a hospital closer to home, Linda was sure her daughter would begin to improve.

At the Colorado hospital, however, twenty-four health care professionals gave her an unanimous decision: Laura was in a vegetative state. She was given no hope for improvement.

Although Linda outwardly fought for her daughter to be kept on the ventilator, inwardly she was in turmoil. One desperate night she made plans to take Laura off the ventilator and overdose herself on pills to end their suffering. As she contemplated this, she knew her actions would also be taking the life of her unborn child, barely two weeks old.

Thankfully, her reason returned before she acted on her impulse. She went to sleep that night terrified of her own dark thoughts and the knowledge she had almost acted on them.

That moment signaled a turning point for the Shepherd family. Linda surrendered her life and the lives of her children once again to God. Laura stayed the same until, ironically, she awakened from her coma one day at the sound of her new baby brother crying.

lifepamwithlaurahr
Laura interacts with therapist Pam Hyink

Today Laura remains paralyzed and on a ventilator. But she smiles and laughs and fills her family with joy. Her father Paul and brother Jimmy are her tender protectors. She has taught her world much about the value of those who are broken by the world’s standards, but beautiful beyond comparison in the eyes of God.

Linda is an author and speaker who shares the lessons God has taught her through their tragedy. The trials she has endured form the springboard from which she ministers the peace and healing she has received through her Savior.

Laura’s life is a reminder we are all broken in some way, and God loves all the imperfect vessels He calls His children.

Linda4lg

Linda Evans Shepherd lives at home in Longmont, Colorado, with her husband and their two children, Jimmy and Laura.
Linda is an author and speaker, the  publisher of Right To the Heart of Women Electronic Magazine and president of the nonprofit organization, Right to the Heart.

Read more about Linda Evans Shepherd:

Linda and Laura Shepherd
Right to the Heart of Women
http://www.righttotheheart.com/
Linda Evans Shepherd
Linda’s e-book: Grief Relief

Photos courtesy Linda Evans Shepherd

Nominate a family to be featured in this series!

Do you know a very special family that personifies the word “unstoppable?” Can you think of someone that has taken on the challenge of disability or chronic disease and turned it into a victory dance?

They are all around us, people who live with what others might think of as loss. They are people with incurable conditions, devastating disabilities, or birth defects. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, they have risen above their suffering to live fully. These people and their families have learned how to appreciate the beautiful in the broken. Trials are just bumps in the road for them

They are the everyday heroes.

They are unstoppable.

If you know a family that expresses the spirit of a victor, nominate them to be featured on this site in a future story. Just be sure to get their permission first. Then go to the contact page and send me their names and an e-mail address at which they can be contacted. I will never share their addresses, or yours, with anyone else.

Follow Me