Seasons Under Heaven (13 page)

As Brenda and David waited for the doctor to come, Brenda found the silence in the hospital consultation room to be smothering—but appropriate. There were no words that could adequately describe the fear she’d felt waiting for the ambulance to come get Joseph. She had wept hysterically as the paramedics barked out Joseph’s vital signs and conversed with hushed, panicky concern about the need to stabilize him en route to St. Francis. Although no one had said so, she was certain that his heart had failed. Like a sixty-year-old man, her baby had lain on the floor of the Adventure Museum in full cardiac arrest.

Brenda had ridden in the ambulance with him, and Tory had called David, then taken the other kids home. The emergency room personnel had treated Joseph like a Code Blue, which had frightened her to the point of dysfunction. David had arrived just in time to hold her together, and someone had shuffled them both into this room to wait for the verdict. In her wildest
dreams, she had never anticipated sitting in a room waiting to be told if her son was dead or alive.

She’d been thankful when Harry had appeared from his office, after Tory alerted him that Joseph had collapsed. He had gone to check with the doctors and promised to give them news as soon as he knew something. But so far, no one had come to tell them anything.

David got up and walked around the room, staring vacantly at the cheap oil paintings on the wall. Brenda closed her eyes and tried to pray. She wished the words she had given to Tory at the museum could filter into her heart right now. What was it she’d said about there being no point in worrying because God was in control? He knew everything that was going to happen. Why couldn’t she rest in that peace now?

Panic rose in her heart, along with the overwhelming sense that there was something
she
needed to do to keep Joseph alive. She could make her heart beat for his, make her lungs expand in and out to give him oxygen—she could keep him alive, if they would just let her go to him…

The door opened, and they both jumped. Harry and Dr. Robinson came in, looking like weary soldiers after a crucial battle. It took every ounce of restraint she possessed to keep from attacking them with her questions. Solemnly, Dr. Robinson and Harry shook David’s hand, then Brenda’s. Desperately, she watched their eyes for a clue.

“I’ve asked Harry to come in with me to talk to you,” Dr. Robinson said, taking a seat across from them at the table.

“Is he dead?” Brenda choked out.

“No, no.” Harry sat down next to her and touched her shoulder. “We would have told you.”

She felt a rush of gratitude followed immediately by renewed grief, and a fresh onslaught of tears ambushed her. She wilted against David.

“The news…it isn’t good, is it?” David asked as he held her. Brenda pulled herself together and sat up, unwilling to miss a single word.

Harry and Dr. Robinson exchanged looks. Finally, Harry spoke. “The medicine isn’t working. Joseph’s heart is functioning at fifteen percent capacity, and what happened today was a very close call.”

“
Fifteen percent?
” David threw the words back as if they were dynamite. “Why didn’t we know this before?”

“He wasn’t this bad at his last checkup,” Dr. Robinson said. “His decline has been pretty rapid.”

“What’s going to happen?” David asked, getting out of his chair, red-faced, and facing off with the two men as if they were threatening him. “’Cause you can’t just keep on putting a Band-Aid on it, pouring drugs down him…”

“No, we can’t.” Again, the two doctors exchanged looks, as if silently deciding which one would go on.

“There’s really only one option at this point,” Dr. Robinson said quietly.

“Surgery, right?” David prodded.

It was not so much what they were saying as what they were not saying that alerted Brenda. She got slowly to her feet, her tears falling freely. “Harry, what is it that we can do to save Joseph?”

“He needs a heart transplant,” Harry said.

Brenda’s mouth fell open, and she sank back down.

“A heart transplant?” David’s words were hoarse, just above a whisper. “But he’s just a little boy.”

“It’s the only thing that’ll save him. He’s in very bad shape.”

“But isn’t there some other less risky kind of surgery?”

Dr. Robinson shook his head. “The damage is too great. He’s going to have to have a transplant, or he’ll die.”

Brenda and David stared at each other, horror stricken, as if they each silently urged the other to do something to stop this madness.

“Where…where do we have to go…for a transplant?” she asked.

“Until a year ago, the only place in the state was Knoxville. But since St. Francis is a teaching hospital, we started doing them here. Our transplant team is excellent. One of the best in
the South. They do a wonderful job, and the survival rate is very high.”

“Survival rate?” Brenda muttered. It wasn’t a question really, just words she never thought would have anything to do with her children.

“So when—when do we do this?” David choked out.

“We have to wait for a heart to become available.”

“And how long will that be?”

“There’s no telling,” Dr. Robinson said. “The wait is usually a couple of months. It could be longer, it could be less. It just depends on when a match is available. The transplant team will meet with you tomorrow, and we have a family support team that will help you tremendously. We’ll have to start testing Joseph immediately to make sure he’s a good candidate for transplant, but I feel sure he will be.”

“But he doesn’t
have
two months if his heart is only functioning at fifteen percent,” David said. “And what about next week—it could be ten percent, or five. It could stop altogether.”

“We’re going to put him on a Left Ventricular Assist Device, otherwise known as a Heart Mate. It’s a portable heart that will keep him stable until the transplant. We’ll have to keep him here in the hospital,” Dr. Robinson said. “But that will keep him alive until the heart is found.”

“Keep him alive,” Brenda repeated mechanically.

“What is this…this Heart Mate?”

“It’s about the size of a hockey puck, and it weighs about two and a half pounds. We implant it just under the diaphragm, and then we use an air compressor outside the body to power it. It has a battery that lasts up to thirty minutes, so he’ll be able to detach from the machine and walk up and down the halls a little, to get some exercise. We’ll also have him doing some supervised exercise and physical therapy to build him up for the surgery.”

Brenda was speechless. She couldn’t find rational thoughts, much less words.

“So he’s going to have to stay in the hospital for weeks? Maybe months?” David asked in a shaky voice.

“That’s right,” Harry said. “It’s the only option.”

“I don’t believe this.” Brenda got up and walked across the room. “How could this happen? Just a few weeks ago, he was so healthy. How could one little virus do this?”

Neither of the doctors had any answers.

“Are you prepared to stay with him while he’s here?” Dr. Robinson asked gently.

Brenda shook her brain out of its reverie. “Uh…yes, of course.”

“What about your other children?” Harry asked.

“They’ll be fine. I have to stay here with him.”

David nodded. “One of us will be with him at all times.”

“Doctor, are you sure he’ll make it?” Brenda asked. “I mean, until a heart becomes available? Could he the before it happens?”

“Eighty percent of our critical patients on Heart Mate survive the wait for the transplant.”

“
Eighty
percent?” she asked, astounded. “That means
twenty
percent don’t?”

Harry hesitated, then replied simply, “He’s in very good hands, Brenda.”

She leaned back hard in her chair, unable to drag her mind away from the odds.

“We’ll need to put him in the cardiac unit, rather than the children’s hospital,” Dr. Robinson went on, “so it could be a challenge to keep him occupied.”

“Why there?” David asked. “Wouldn’t he be better off with other children?”

“Emotionally and mentally, maybe. But they’re not equipped to handle this kind of thing over there. Our transplant teams are located near the cardiac unit, and we really need to have him there so he can get the best of care.”

“He’s just a little boy,” Brenda whispered again.

“A very sick little boy,” Dr. Robinson said.

Brenda went into David’s arms and buried her face against his chest. He held her tightly and looked over her head to the doctors. “What now?” David asked.

“Well, now we need to admit him and get him on the Heart Mate. Then we start the series of tests that will tell us what we need to know.”

“But right now, before we do anything else,” Harry said, “there’s something I’d like to do. If you don’t mind, I’d like to pray with you.”

David shot him a surprised look. Brenda knew he’d never met a doctor who prayed with his patients. He didn’t argue, probably figuring that anything they tried was better than nothing. He held Brenda tightly as Harry quietly, simply, asked God to see them through this crisis.

As soon as they’d finished praying, David let her go. He got up, slid his hands into his pockets, and faced off with the doctors again. “I have to ask you a question that’ll probably seem pretty callous,” he said. “But it has to be considered.”

“What?”

“How much is all this going to cost?”

Dr. Robinson exchanged looks with Harry again.

“Because I don’t have very good health insurance,” David said. “We still haven’t paid what we owe from the last time Joseph was here. And I don’t want somebody in the hospital credit department finding that out and cutting off Joseph’s care halfway through this. I’m a self-employed cabinetmaker. We have all the insurance I can afford, but it won’t pay everything.”

“Most policies cover heart transplants now,” Harry said.

“
If
ours does, it’ll still only pay seventy percent,” David said. “We’ve got to pay thirty, plus a two-thousand-dollar deductible. How much are we talking?” He looked from one doctor to the other, his eyes glistening with tears. “Look, I’m just saying that I need to know ahead of time so I can work my tail off to earn it. I’m going to provide what my boy needs. I’m not going to let him the because of money.”

“It can cost between fifty-seven thousand and a hundred ten thousand,” Harry said. “It all depends on how long he has to be here before the heart is available, what has to be done in the interim, and how well his recovery goes.”

David did the math in his head. “So, including the deductible, we’re talking anywhere from nineteen thousand to thirty-five thousand, out of pocket. Possibly more.” He looked at his feet. “Well, we can’t get a second mortgage, because we already have one. But maybe if we sold the house…”

“Before you consider that, you need to talk to social services. There are programs that can help,” Harry said.

David shook his head. “I want any decisions about Joseph’s care to be made on the basis of his medical needs—not on the basis of cost. If social services was involved, I’d be afraid of that.”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Harry said. “It doesn’t work that way.”

David wasn’t convinced. “I’m willing to pay whatever it takes. I just need to be able to plan on it.”

“Well, a lot depends on how long the wait is,” Harry said. “Look, if I have to pay the bills myself, David, Joseph is going to get his transplant. We’ll raise the money. Don’t worry about that. You have enough to think about.”

Brenda wiped her eyes, praying silently that Harry’s open, unashamed prayer—and his willingness to act on those prayers—would affect David. That faith-in-action was something David had rarely, if ever, seen in Christendom; it was just the opposite of the abuses that had soured him to the whole institution.

She was grateful to Harry for another reason, too: His promise to see this through gave her strength, reminding her that God was working.

But she wasn’t sure that her faith was much stronger than David’s. Not when her child’s life hung in the balance.

As David watched over Joseph, who slept soundly in his hospital room, Brenda went to the chapel to have a word with God. Kneeling at the altar at the front of the room, she gave in to the heartbreak and despair closing over her. But as earnestly as she prayed, those prayers didn’t feel as if they connected.

What is it, God?
she asked fervently.
Is there some sin in my life that’s keeping You from hearing me?
She had confessed everything she could think of—even the despair that, she feared, demonstrated a lack of faith. But she did have faith. She knew that God would do His will in her family. She just didn’t think that will was going to coincide with hers. Desperately, angrily, she pleaded for mercy, for healing, for God to align His will more closely with hers.

Then she chastised herself for such a selfish prayer. Would it make God turn away and quit listening altogether?

When the door opened, Brenda turned and saw Sylvia coming toward her. She got up to give the older woman a hug, unable to hide the despair on her face.

“David said you’d be here,” Sylvia said.

They sat down on the front pew, and Sylvia gave Brenda a handkerchief. Thankfully, Brenda blew her nose and wiped her face.

“Brenda, I know how hard this must be for you,” Sylvia said. “You must just be a wreck.”

“I am,” Brenda admitted.

“Is there anything I can do?”

Brenda shrugged. “You can explain some things to me, maybe.” She could see on Sylvia’s face that she knew some of the questions she had. That she had struggled with the answers herself.

“The elders prayed over him at church,” Brenda said, her eyes glistening with tears. “We prayed for healing, and it didn’t come.”

“I know,” Sylvia said. She touched her shoulder, squeezed it, and wiped her own eyes with her other hand.

“I did that against David’s will. He has this…this thing…against church. It goes back to his childhood. He warned me not to do it, because he thought it would traumatize Joseph. But I did it anyway, without telling him. I thought it was the right thing to do, and what David didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. I think that’s what messed things all up, my doing it against David’s will. God didn’t honor it.”

“Oh, honey.” Sylvia made her look up at her. “God wouldn’t punish you for following his own instructions. That’s not what’s wrong. Brenda, God’s not a genie in a bottle. He doesn’t answer prayers on demand. If God chooses not to heal Joseph, it must be for some other reason than that. I’m sure you prayed about it before you asked for the elders to pray for Joseph. I’m sure you thought it was one of those times when you have to serve God before your husband.”

“I did. I thought that, Sylvia.”

“Our prayers aren’t buttons we push to get the results we want, Brenda. It’s all tied into God’s will. We don’t see the whole picture, but He does.”

Brenda looked up at Sylvia, her eyes pleading. “Sylvia, why does the Bible say that the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well? Why does it say that?”

“Brenda, have you ever known God’s Word not to be truth?”

She didn’t even have to think about that. “No, never.”

“So that passage must be truth.”

“Then why didn’t it happen?” Brenda asked. “Why wasn’t he healed?”

“Because God’s timing isn’t our timing, Brenda. Maybe He plans to heal him through this heart transplant. Maybe He just needs for you to trust in Him a little longer.”

“I have to,” she said. “He’s the only one with any power to change things.”

“That’s true,” Sylvia said. “And it would bring real glory to Him if He cured Joseph.”

“But see, that’s just it.” Brenda got to her feet and went to the altar, then turned back to Sylvia. “What keeps going through my mind is that sometimes
death
brings glory to God. Sometimes people are won to Christ through someone else’s death, and I’m so afraid that’s how He’s going to use Joseph.” Her voice squeaked with the words, and she broke down and covered her face with both hands.

Sylvia pulled Brenda into her arms. She dropped her forehead against Brenda’s neck and held her for a long time. Through her grief, Brenda gradually realized that she was breaking Sylvia’s heart, too. That was the last thing she wanted to do. She stepped back and tried to pull herself together. She looked up at the stained glass window with the dove representing the Holy Spirit, flying down from heaven.

“My mother died of breast cancer years ago,” Sylvia said. “What God taught me through that death is that God gives wonderful blessings to us, sometimes in the form of people we love. And we have to hold those blessings in open hands, willing to let Him take them back if He chooses. We can’t hold them in clenched fists, Brenda, because they’re not ours. None of what we have is ours.”

Brenda tore her eyes from the window. “I know that’s true,” she choked out. “I have to be willing to give my blessings back, whenever He comes to take them. But I’m just not there yet.”

Sylvia wiped her own tears and shook her head dolefully. “Neither am I. I’ve been praying that He’ll teach me, with my own kids, and they’re not even sick. They’re happy and healthy—just not with me. I feel so ashamed.”

“Don’t feel ashamed. We both love our children. For me, you can pray that I’ll know for sure that God is watching over Joseph. And that everything that happens, happens because God is guiding it, that there’s a reason, and that it’ll work for good. I know those things in my head, Sylvia, but please pray that I’ll embrace them in my heart. And pray for David.”

Sylvia nodded, promising that she would.

“You know, there have been days—before Joseph got sick—when I’ve prayed so earnestly for David that I’ve told God if He had to take my life to save David’s soul, I was willing. But I never volunteered Joseph’s life. And I didn’t expect Him to take it.”

“What if that is what He has to do to bring David to Christ? What if that is God’s way?”

Brenda sank back down. “I know how Jesus felt in Gethsemane. ‘Let this cup pass from me.’” She covered her face and sobbed quietly for a moment, then took a deep breath and looked at her friend again. “Oh, Sylvia, pray that this is not the cup I have to drink.”

Sylvia hugged her fiercely again. “Can I pray for you now?”

“Yes, please,” she whispered.

Sylvia began to pray.