Mike’s my friend and this is his story…
We are both Christian, not because we were born into Christian families, but because we have come to know the saving power of Jesus and his incredible love. At the beginning of this story I prayed and told God that if He were to save Mike it would be all for His glory. Mike’s story is a tribute to God and is for His Glory. The events in the story happened to real people with real impact to their lives. I hope that you are also impacted as you listen.
In January 2016, Mike returned from a mission trip to Cuba. During his trip he led 9 people to saving faith in Jesus, but he had not been feeling well. He was coughing and having trouble breathing…
When he got back home he went to the doctor and was diagnosed with a form of Leukemia (cancer) that, though present in his lymph nodes, was not active so only required monitoring. If that wasn’t enough, at the same time he was also diagnosed with a disease called IPF or idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. IPF is a fatal lung disease with no known cure. His lungs were hardening and becoming brittle and over time they would get to a point where they would no longer be able to provide his body with the oxygen that it needs. This was the cause of his coughing and breathing troubles.
So began a long series of doctor’s visits, evaluations, tests and searches for what could be done to help.
One of the places he went for answers was the University of Michigan to see a Dr. Kevin Flaherty. Kevin is an expert in IPF and in one of the ways that God weaves our lives together; it just so happens that he is also a good friend of our family and went to college with my brother and I. Though Kevin didn’t have some brand new cure, it was good to know that Mike was getting the best and most up-to-date advice available. Mike also went to Henry Ford Medical center, Beaumont Hospital and others to determine possible next steps – And he searched the web as well for anything that might give him hope. As a last resort, he looked into what it might take to get a lung transplant – if it came to that.
Throughout this entire time we were praying that God would intervene and be there for Mike, through a miracle or in some other way. One of the ways that God met Mike’s needs was through an IPF support group that met each month. This was a group of people who were all afflicted with similar conditions as Mike’s. It was somewhere Mike could go to get real life perspectives regarding his disease, what might help and encouragement to move forward.
Though there isn’t a cure for IPF, there are medications he took to help. Unfortunately, they didn’t slow down the disease’s progression. As time passed the disease took more and more of a toll. He tried to keep up normal activities with ever decreasing amounts of oxygen, however it became more and more difficult to breath and with the lack of oxygen came exhaustion. He started carrying oxygen and had to steadily increase the amount he was using over time.
Mike’s son, who was going through some personal struggles and living at his house, was not in a position where he was able to take care of his dad. This was one of the most difficult times Mike went through, and though his son helped in some ways, there were other things that he simply couldn’t do.
As he got worse, he set up an appointment to go to the Cleveland Clinic to see if they would put him on the lung donor list and perform a lung transplant. Most of the other hospitals he contacted would not take up his case due to the leukemia. The plan was for me to take him down to Cleveland for the evaluation which was scheduled in two months. Then he took a turn for the worse not long after making the appointment.
While trying to get some rest over a weekend at a local hotel he started to go downhill fast. I checked him in on a Friday and by Sunday when I checked on him he was gasping for his life. The cookies I picked up for him Friday night were still on the night stand on Sunday – a sure sign something was wrong. I called an ambulance so that he could be taken to the hospital. He was diagnosed with a blood clot in his lung and it was clear that he had not been receiving enough oxygen.
In the hospital they treated the blood clot, but they discharged him with a script for still too little oxygen. He was not in good shape and because he wasn’t getting enough oxygen, he was very weak and unable to take care of himself. He was sleeping most of the time. His doctor told him that he should see if he could move up the appointment for the Cleveland clinic if at all possible.
I told him to get the new appointment and I would get him there. I had no idea, what that really meant, but I knew that’s what he needed. By this point he needed 15 liters of oxygen to be able to get around. Just before we left for Cleveland, I loaded 16 bottles of oxygen into my trunk so that we would have enough for the round trip. I also learned how to read the flow meter and pressure gauge on the bottle and how to change the cord that delivers the oxygen. It was a matter of life and death.
By God’s grace we checked into the hotel and I breathed a sigh of relief that we had arrived safely. A wonderful bellman helped me get Mike up to the room with several oxygen bottles and we ordered room service. That night I was awoken to Mike gasping for breath on the edge of his bed. He had gone to the bathroom and even that short distance was too much for him. I got more oxygen for him and we turned it up until he was able to catch his breath. It was alarming – I was glad we were at a hotel at a hospital. Also, in the back of my mind I wondered how he could possibly go home given the shape he was in.
The next morning I wheeled him into the hospital carrying two oxygen bottles on the wheel chair. Let’s just say that’s not normal and later in the day we would find out that was a big sign something wasn’t right. Nonetheless, they put him through a whole battery of tests to determine his eligibility for the lung transplant – he gave what seemed like 15 vials of blood, had all kinds of scans and other procedures, but worst of all was the lung “stress test.” It is a test to see how far you can walk and how much oxygen you need. It turned out that Mike actually needed 25 liters of oxygen to feel ok. Those in the medical profession may know that this was extremely high.
One of the last appointments for the day was a conversation with Dr. Marie Budev, the head of Cleveland Clinic’s lung transplant center. I wheeled Mike in and we waited for the doctor. She came in and her first words were “Mike, you’re a very sick man.” She knew something was up when she heard he was wheeled in with two oxygen tanks. This was the conversation that you see in movies when the patient is being given very bad news. As a friend, I felt woefully unprepared to support Mike and I’m sure Mike felt overwhelmed by what came next. “Your lung capacity is down to 37%. We need to admit you and you won’t be going home” she said as the amount of oxygen you need can only be provided in the hospital. Then she proceeded to lay out what else needed to happen and what Mike and I needed to do in order to see if he would be eligible for the lung transplant surgery and to be on the donor list.
In order to get a lung transplant you have to meet a lot of different criteria. One of the things that you need to have is support people in the area around the hospital to help after the surgery. Without this support system, you won’t be able to be driven to your appointments or be taken care of adequately after the surgery at home.
Though Mike’s son truly wanted to help his dad, he simply wasn’t in a state to be able to and his daughter, who is a nurse, lived and worked south of Detroit in a place that was also too far from the Cleveland Clinic. Mike also had friends from his ministry and church in the Detroit area, but again not close enough to Cleveland to provide the necessary support. Providing support after the surgery was really in question.
We prayed that Dr. Budev and her team would agree to the surgery and put Mike on the donor list, but I knew that he would have to get over a lot of hurdles before he would get a positive decision. They put him through the additional tests. Remember, there weren’t any other options. Either he was to get a new set of lungs, or he would be transitioned to hospice.
We prayed for positive news and then received what I had dreaded. Dr. Budev told him that he had passed all the tests and could physically have the surgery, but because of lack of support, they wouldn’t do the surgery. I remember hearing that news. There was a real sinking feeling. Had God brought Mike this far and this was the end? Again, we prayed. I had been sending out Mike’s status and prayer needs to a whole group of people. This was when Mike really needed God’s intervention.
When Dr. Budev had told Mike the bad news, she left open the possibility that she would call her friend who ran the Henry Ford Hospital Lung Transplant center in Detroit and would ask him if they might take on Mike’s case. Again, we prayed.
The text arrived the next day. The doctors at Henry Ford would at least bring Mike up and see if they would do the surgery. He was Medevac’d almost immediately to Henry Ford’s main location in downtown Detroit on a helicopter and was now much closer to his support system. Incredible!
Now we prayed that Henry Ford would accept him as a lung transplant patient and put him on the lung donor list. They did. More answered prayers. There was hope, but Mike was still very sick and getting more and more sick by the day.
He was now on the donor list and he was high up on the list because of his deteriorating condition, however he still had to wait. He needed a donor that had lungs close to his size and with the right blood type to come available. At this point he was not going to be picky about where they came from. God new what he needed and if it was His will He would provide.
After weeks on the transplant list and waiting in intensive care, now on 40 liters of oxygen, he received the good news. Lungs for him had become available. Unfortunately, they were coming from some distance away. More prayer. The lungs arrived, but the doctors told him they were a little stiff. That’s not what you want to hear when it comes to lungs. Lungs should be like soft sponges. Fortunately, the doctors thought they would still be ok. More prayer that the surgery would be successful and that the lungs would respond as needed.
Your lungs are protected by your rib cage. That means in order to surgically replace old lungs with new ones you need to open the rib cage and take the old ones out and put the new ones in. Stop for a minute and think about that. This is a major undertaking and it takes courage to go through it and a team of experts with amazing skill and experience to perform this operation. It took a little less than 12 hours for Mike’s surgery to be completed and for him to be in recovery. The surgery had been successful. They did not have to crack his sternum (the bone in the middle of your chest) and he only had two relatively small incisions under each lung. More prayers answered
You can imagine how exhausted Mike was after all he had been through and now he needed to concentrate on getting better. At first, things were looking pretty good. He had made it out of the surgery and the lungs were responding. They started to turn down the amount of oxygen he was receiving and they took out the ventilator. This was a good sign.
Then he developed a hematoma on the upper right side of his chest. A hematoma is blood clotting outside of the blood vessels. This wasn’t that uncommon, but it wasn’t a good sign and one of his lungs wasn’t improving like the doctors had hoped. They were going to have to put the ventilator back in. This wasn’t a good sign. They put the ventilator back in. I remember as I was at work during that day being reminded of how precarious Mike’s health was. I knew that I could get a call at any time with bad news. More prayer.
Throughout the whole time Mike was in the hospital (over 2 months) he experienced something that he would share many times later. As long as he focused on God and rested in knowing that he was being looked after, situations that would have caused him to be upset in the past would be resolved. As soon as he started to worry and fret and try to manage the situation on his own, things would get worse. If he remembered God and what He had done for him he would have peace. If he thought that the mountain was too high and that he’d never get to the top and if he relied on his own strength he would get worse. There was nothing that Mike, his family or any of us friends could do, but pray.
This is the part were something even more amazing happened. Mike was incredibly sick and the doctors were concerned that they were going to lose him. I had been down to see him just a day before, and I was so hopeful and now we were all helpless. Mike’s daughter and granddaughter were there by his side and we visited, but Mike was in God’s hands. He needed something only God could provide and He needed it soon. God answered our prayer.
Mike recovered so quickly that it would be easy to forget the condition that he had been in and they took out the ventilator for the second time. This time they didn’t have to put it back. Mike started sitting up and walking and doing all that he was asked to do and more. He had to be reminded regularly to slow down as his new lung’s nerves were not attached due to the surgery and though he might feel like he could physically walk faster, he had to wait to let his lungs catch up. One of his nurses told him that she had never seen anyone that went through what he had recover so quickly.
We all thought he would have several more weeks before he would be released and then word came that he would be released in less than two weeks. We thought there was time to figure out his living situation, but there wasn’t. His house really needed a lot of cleaning. For the guys who responded to my request to help clean Mike’s house, God knows how you stepped out and the blessing that you were. A lot of cleaning is a bit of an understatement.
Another incredible answer to prayer came in the form of Mike’s daughter being able to stay with him after the surgery. All along I had been praying that someone would be able to be there in this way for Mike and God answered that prayer with Mike’s daughter and granddaughter being able to move in with him. Not only would he have a nurse with him, but he would be able to spend precious time with his daughter and granddaughter.
I put a welcome home sign on his front door that said Welcome Home – Ambassador. Only Mike truly knows what that means and what he experienced during this incredible time, but it is evident to everyone who knew Mike prior that his faith was strengthened and he was changed in an incredible way.
We sat eating dinner not that long after he came back home and we saw a movie. I remember thinking that I had to capture this incredible story so that we could share it with others.
All for God’s glory!
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