Do you believe in Miracles?? God’s great power.

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Comment by Ricprimus on April 20, 2013 at 3:08pm

  Two miracles stand large in my heart and mind, the first as a young Marine on a day when by all rights I should have died. The second is this:

1/24/2011 (11/19 edit to RTF format)

　 7:05am, June 1st, 1981 my son Paul Edward was born: I was alternating between wiping my wife’s brow with a cold damp cloth, and staying close to the "business end of things" to watch just exactly was going on; and my son’s first act on appearing in this world was to pee past the doctor and introduce himself to dad (perhaps a commentary on our what our relationship in his early teen years was going to like).

　 Paul was born at 2 lbs, 4 oz., he suffered from skin rashes, jaundice (his skin having a medium gray tone), various major vitamin deficiencies, and he didn’t know how to breathe on his own.　 He was given a 10% survival chance and each day for the next two months in intensive care, he gained another percent a day.

　 But all, I could think of, and feel to the depths of my being was "I have a son!"　

　 I relearned how to pray during those 2 months: spontaneous, unprepared prayers from the depths of my heart and soul.

　 Even in his incubator, wires in both feet, arms and chest, he knew his mom and dad: as soon as we would walk into the OSU neonatal ICU to his incubator, he would pee, and the alarms would go off that he had forgotten to breath; he was so small, my little finger was bigger than his arms (one of my posted photos is from the first time at 1.5 months that I got to hold and feed him..

　 The neonatal ICU at Ohio State was an impressive state-of-the-art unit, yet of the some 2 dozen babies clinging to life, overshadowed everything with a sense of gloom.　 And when we would walk in, we could sense from the nurses that an incubator had became empty before its time.

  For 2 months, every day twice we drove the 80 miles to stand by his incubator and speak to him.

　 And every day, Paul gained strength and weight, and learned how to breathe on his own.

　 August 1st, we showed up excited, because the day before he had made 4 lbs., 15 oz.: 5 pounds was the magic number for him to come home.

　 As soon as we walked in, the nurse in charge ran over and explained that he was in surgery, he had over the past 2 hours developed hydrocephalus (the cranial fluid around the brain doesn’t drain off, and the pressure on brain and skull begins to increase dangerously.　 They had been trying to contact us for 2 hours; we were on the 3 hour drive to the hospital as they tried.

　 So, 3 hours we waited for the surgeon to finish installing the shunt (a tube device that would drain the fluid into the neck).

　 Dr. Cordero finished the surgery came out and told us Paul was physically fine, but from direct observation and the CT scan, major areas of his brain had been damaged to the point were being able to ever dress himself would be a major undertaking.

　 Shock, grief…yet "I had a son".

　 Another month he came home..lol, that Christmas, the entire living room around the tree was solid gifts for Paul: yep, even footballs, baseballs, basketballs and the largest collection of stuffed animals you could imagine.

　 Often in his first year, he would be next to me swinging away in his wind-up swing, while I was at the drawing board or typewriter, and as I constantly chatted with him, he’d watch everything I did: at 9 months, he started getting his turn pounding away at the keys of my old manual typewriter; I thought his writing was superior to Shakespear himself.

　 By his second year, we started playing games I made, one was various shapes cut out of poster board: "where’s the circle Paul, where’s the triangle" etc.　 And we also did colored pieces: "show daddy the red Paul, where’s the blue?"　 And, eventually a harder game, combining shapes and colors; "Paul where’s the purple rectangle, find daddy the yellow square".

　 By his third year we were doing numbers, and abcs.

　 On the week after his third birthday, a follow-up exam was done at OSU to check on his shunt and how he was doing with basic life skills, walking, feeding himself (lol, a year earlier, Penny and I was sitting on the floor one night eating a cheese pizza discussing if it was time for him to be completely weaned　when Paul decided the issue by grabbing a　 piece and wolfing it down without trouble.

　 At OSU, we sat down with the evaluator, and she said, "well, I think we can pass over the more difficult things like his knowing the alphabet, when Paul jumped up and started going through them, ending at"z, zipper" and opening his zipper".　 The evaluator looked puzzled, reread all her notes, and then said: "he shouldn’t be able to do that,　 please wait while I get the doctor".

　 So Paul did his thing with colors and shapes, his abcs, some counting, and the doctor immediately scheduled him for a CT scan.

　 And, by the unexplainable love and grace of God, Paul had not a speck of brain damage.

　 The doctor would write a paper for one of the neurosurgical journals, since the 1981 CT scans clearly showed the brain damage, and the 1984, showed nothing.

　 Paul is 32 and lives in Virginia now,　 he is a fantasy artist and does computer graphics for several computer gaming companies. Friday nights we play several of the games he did digital art for (Everquest/Vanguard) on-line for 4-5 hours to catchup, I haven't met his newest girl-friend, although I know she is a Goth lLol where did he get that from?)　 Paul thinks I became a grandfather in 2000, a boy; he doesn't know for sure.

  Penny, well, all the strain and stress took its toll, she once yelled at me: "I can't even have a normal baby".  I was all caught up with cooking, housework, taking care of Paul (Penny was a workaholic) since I was the one that knew how to and Penny was leery of Paul (he reminded her of her "failure"). By November she had gotten in touch with a ex-boyfriend from high school years, and became pregnant, something which I could not endure; the marriage was dissolved June 5th, 1983.

　 I have a son - thank you My Lord and my Lady, it was more than worth the trouble, although the mother was not the one I had thought she would be).

Believe in Miracles? You betcha! Large and small, and in between they surround us, though often we are too blind to see.  The biggest miracle of all, is that God has always been with me, although often I wasn't with Him.