To Death’s Door—and Back
Modern medicine can do a lot, but we needed the power of a loving God,” says Rebecca Rumble, who says her faith and a miracle pulled her through the near-death experience of her husband, Peter.
“Every story has its beginning,” she says, “and this one started with the flu. He’d been struggling with the flu, and realising it was settling on his chest, went to the doctor. By next morning, I couldn’t wake him. I knew something was terribly wrong.”
Rebecca aroused him enough to get him into the family car and rushed him to the Port Macquarie Base Hospital. By the time they arrived, Peter was having difficulty breathing. An X-ray revealed a serious case of pneumonia, so he was sedated and put on life-support.
“Its so hard to breathe,” he murmured, then the sedative took effect. It was Rebbecca’s last conversation with Peter for quite some time.
Peter was diagnosed with atypical pneumonia and, already low, his condition began to deteriorate even further. Massive doses of antibiotics and 100-per cent oxygen was pumped into him.
Rebecca was informed that his condition was critical and that he had at best a 50 per cent chance of survival.
“They were words no wife wants to hear,” said Rebecca.
Peter is a member of the Port Macquarie, NSW, Seventh-day Adventist church. Members there, along with at least eight other church communities of different traditions, began to pray for him. “Even our local church school children were praying for him,” says Rebecca.
She took her faith one step further and requested that Peter be anointed as instructed in James 5:13-15, and placed in God’s hands.
But despite the prayers and best wishes of so many, there was no change in Peter’s poor condition until the next day, while moving him to assist his breathing, he took a dive. Rebecca was called in and told her husband wasn’t going to make it.
“His hands and arms were cold—his system was shutting down—Peter was near death,” Rebecca recalls. And sitting at his side she said out loud, “Surely I’m not going to be a widow at 40, am I?”
Peter wasn’t expected to last the night, but, says Rebecca, God must have had other plans for him. With the morning came obvious improvement, much to the amazement of the medical staff.
But there was little improvement in his general condition: his kidneys were now showing signs of imminent failure, and with dialysis for unconscious patients available only in Newcastle, hundreds of kilometres away, help was unavailable. He was too critical to be moved.
Then another problem presented: Peter’s potassium skyrocketed, and if it couldn’t be reduced, it would put him into cardiac arrest.
“We continued to pray,” says Rebecca, “but the potassium level remained elevated. We wondered if we’d reached the end of the road?”
“Does your church believe in anointing?” one of the nurses asked.
“Why, yes,” Rebecca responded. “Peter was anointed when his condition first began to deteriorate; I believe it could only have been God who stepped in and helped him survive the night.”
Not understanding biblical anointing, the nurse replied, “Well, it worked once, why don’t you do it again?”
That evening, Rebecca was reluctant to leave Peter, but went home anyway. For 10 long days she had been riding this emotional roller-coaster.
“I was expecting a phone call at any time to say he’d lost his battle,” she says. “But God stepped in once again. I got a call, but not the one I was expecting. For no explainable reason, Peter’s potassium level had dropped; he had stabilised and the hospital wanted to know if they could fly him to Newcastle.
“One minute I was bracing myself to lose him, and then I was given a ray of hope. I felt he might have a chance.”
Peter hated even the thought of flying. He’d never flown anywhere. This would be his first plane ride. A group of praying church and family friends watched as the air ambulance lifted off. They prayed that God would take care of its precious cargo and transport him safely to Newcastle. He made it, and was soon in the ICU and starting dialysis.
The next weekend was Rebecca’s first of many trips down the Pacific Highway to Newcastle. Peter was not a pretty sight: he had tubes feeding him and a ventilator breathing for him, mechanically lifting his chest in an unnatural manner.
When Rebecca walked in Peter’s physician greeted her with “some good news and some bad news.” Rebecca chose the bad news first.
“Peter has only about 2 per cent of his lungs functioning on their own,” he said. “If there’s no improvement, he has less than a 50-50 chance of survival. The good news is that we’re not giving up on him, and if he survives, his lungs will regenerate.” Then he added, “We’re not looking for miracles here!”
Rebecca drove despondently home, where her children awaited her. She would spend the weekdays caring for them, ringing the hospital daily for an update, then on the weekend drive to Newcastle.
“No change. Sorry, Rebecca,” was the usual answer to her daily inquiry as to Peter’s status.
As weeks passed and there was no apparent improvement, worrying thoughts began to invade Rebecca’s mind. Because of Peter’s reduced lung functioning, his oxygen intake was low. Would there be brain damage? she wondered.
Next Peter’s drug dosage, which was high enough to keep him comatose, was now being reduced to see if he would wake up and breathe on his own. But still he didn’t respond. A brain scan was ordered to determine what was happening, but just before it was to happen a nurse observed Peter open his eyes. After lying comatose for 36 days, Peter was starting to wake up! Rebecca was overcome with excitement at such a small step forward.
Peter’s minister, who had twice begun composing Peter’s funeral service, put his notes away. He wouldn’t be needing them.
Peter couldn’t talk because of all the tubes, and he couldn’t move because of muscle wastage, so his eyes were his means of communication. So when, at Rebecca’s next visit, Peter’s eyes lit up, there was no doubt that he knew her, and by hand gestures, lip reading, kisses and hugs, they had their first “conversation” since he’d entered the emergency ward six weeks before.
Over ensuing weeks, his X-rays showed improvement. He was weaned off dialysis as his kidneys started to function on their own. Then finally the doctor spoke to Rebecca: “You know, he’s doing so well; we are looking at flying him home tomorrow.”
From when Peter was settled back into intensive care at Port Macquarie Base Hospital, he hasn’t looked back. He was told it would take at least three months to regain his strength, learn to walk over again, and be well enough to return home. With God’s help, he says, he did all this in six weeks.
Seeing him walking the long hosptial hallways unaided, the doctor who had admitted him almost four months before, said he’d never seen someone so close to death and still survive. “It’s miraculous,” he said.
Rebecca agrees—and so does Peter.
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