My Miracle(s)
It did not take long when I woke up that early April 2009 morning to figure out that I was lying in a hospital ICU bed. There were tubes running in and out of my body. My arms were tied down to the bed- because apparently I kept trying to pull the tubes out. My hands, arms and legs were literally twice their normal size because of the IV fluids- I had been dehydrated. It was 5am and out of the darkness, and out of view, I heard a voice say, "Are you in any pain?" It was a doctor making early rounds. I thought that was a good question and after a quick inventory I shook my head "No" because the tubes in my mouth would not let me speak. He repeated the question a couple of times- perhaps out of disbelief. I did not know that I had been 9 days in a diabetic coma- nor how I got there.
Much of March that year I had not been feeling well. My favorite foods and drinks tasted bad to me. I could not keep anything down in my stomach- and was perpetually exhausted. Later in the month I had a lime green bowel movement and thought to myself "That is not good- I should have it checked out" which I immediately dismissed. To this day when I see "Obey Warning Signs" on the roadway I say "Yes Lord", I will.
I played the piano for church, as usual on that Sunday, but felt like I had just ran a marathon afterward. I went home afterward to rest and woke up 12 hours later- still exhausted. I slept most the next day. The next thing I remember was my helper leaving at midnight Monday night. I told him I would get up later and lock the door- which I did not do. Good thing. My daughter,not being able to contact me for two days, made the drive across town with her husband to see if I was ok. They found me unconscious on the floor lying in my own vomit and urine. I had been there for 20 hours from the night before. They called 911. Had she not come to check on me, I would have surely died.
The doctor came out to the ER waiting room and told them that he was sorry, but that her daddy would not be alive in the morning. My blood sugar was 2400, BP 60/20, temp 107 and all my organs were shutting down. My temp spiked to 112 and they packed me in ice. I was on a respirator and life support- in a coma. People simply do not survive, he said, with those kind of numbers
My family started to pray and make their way to Houston. I was alive in the morning, given a 5% chance to survive. They told visitors if I did not die, I would be a vegetable because of the high temp.
My son-in-law Dave left a msg with Pastor Rick saying that I was in ICU and not expected to live. Pastor came to the hospital and talked with the head nurse. She said she has done this for 30 years and people come in sometimes with very high blood sugar. Many of them die and none of them had blood sugar levels as high as mine. He talked with the doctor who told him that they've done everything they can and that I was in God's hands now. Turns out that's a pretty good place to be.
After prayer meeting that night, Pastor Rick felt like God was telling him to go and read scripture over me. So he got special permission to see me after hours. He saw my pale gray skin color, my oversized body, the respirator breathing for me, and the ice cooling me down. He opened his bible at random, not sure what to read. He said, "Chuck- here are red letters, words of Jesus. Let's start here." Of all the verses in the Bible, his eyes fell on that open page to John 11:4, right after Jesus was told that his friend Lazarus was dead. "This sickness is not unto death but for the glory of God, that God would be glorified". He said he kept reading that verse over and over for a very long time. That's when he knew that God would do a miracle of healing. I remained in a coma for 9 days.
The day I woke up was a celebration day. People from church and friends came by to rejoice with me. My pregnant daughter, who had been there every day was my rock. Several people told me that when they came by earlier in the week, they found Pastor Rick and Pastors Neil and Joan Sayers praying over me- sometimes praying in tongues for God to do a mighty miracle. My 86 year old folks had driven straight through from Minnesota to Houston. They had been there the whole week. My brother Rick drove down from Denver. His daughter, Tonya, and her husband, Chris, flew in from California. Sister Patti and brother Randy also flew down. My brother told me that Tonya prayed a very powerful prayer with the family around my bed. Afterward, he fully expected me to wake up- which, of course I did- just not right then.
The moment I came out of the coma, I had bits and pieces of memories rattling around in my brain. They seemed to be memories of when I had been in a coma. I started to piece them together. I remembered being in a small room. It had locker room style benches, no doors or windows, and red lights flashing in the upper corners. I could see myself lying on the floor- and as I lifted up on my elbows to look around. A voice spoke to me and said, "You might die tonight. The decision has not yet been made. When the lights stop flashing, then you will know". I simply nodded my understanding and laid back down in total exhaustion, too tired to pray or even think of my family. I remember hearing a noise as I was lying there. It was the sound of people talking in an auditorium before an event. Crowd murmur. You could not tell who was talking or what they were saying. The noise kept getting louder. I started to hear snippets of what they were saying. At some point I realized that these were prayers being prayed for me. "In the mighty name of Jesus..." For your glory, God..." "Jehovah Rapha, our healer..." Somehow I could tell where they originated. Right next to me, in the building, city, state , country- even overseas. Later that summer I got emails from Africa from missionaries that my cousin Char had asked to pray for me. I literally had a dream team of prayer warriors. The crowd noise got so loud that I watched myself put my hands over my ears. Then, like someone flipped a switch- it stopped. There was a moment of silence followed by a shout of victory praising God for the miracle that He was doing in me. I thought of the shout that caused the walls of Jericho to come down. The shout eventually faded out and then the lights in the room stopped flashing. I remember saying "Oh-oh" right out loud. A voice spoke to me and said, " You're not going to die tonight. Not here. Not now." Then it said "Rest". And I knew that did not mean sleep. It meant that He was going to rest me - mentally, spiritually, physically , and emotionally. And that's what He did.
The first night after my coma in ICU I woke up in the middle of the night and sensed the spirit of the Lord there with me. I saw something I could not quite make out on the floor in the corner of the room. It looked like a person that had been crumpled up into a ball like trash and thrown away. As I looked closer, it looked a lot like me. I cried out "Jesus- why did you throw me away". I'm sure I heard Him laugh, "No- that's not you. That's who you used to be. Old things have passed away and behold all things have become new". He went on to tell me that there was nothing special about me that caused the miracle to happen to me. It was God's people- their prayers and faith that brought the miracle of my healing. He said that He does not have a bucket full of miracles that would someday run out. Everything He does is a miracle. He said that it did not take any more power for Him to raise me up from that deathbed than it did for Him to wake me up this morning. He said I would spend the rest of my life telling this story and letting people know that He is still answering prayer and doing miracles.
I went to my daughter's house when I got out of the hospital. I could not walk without a walker. Having no insurance there was no physical therapy to help. Pastor Rick, from his own experience, told me that the most important thing about recovery is exercise. That's what, he said, drives your appetite and rest. Walk on your walker to the end of the driveway, then the next day to the neighbor's mailbox. Then to the end of the block... etc. It took a couple of weeks to get off my walker. Then a few months to get back to normal.
Those of you who minister to others, and yourselves, on the piano will appreciate this next part. My cousin Gary's son, Justin, is a neurologist- brain surgeon. Justin told his dad that because my temperature was so high there had to have been damage to the neuron pathways that go from your brain to your fingers. When I heard that, I was deathly afraid to play the piano. What if I could not play? It took a couple of weeks before I found enough courage to try. I sat down at the piano and closed my eyes. I put my hands on the keyboard and started to play the Dennis Jernigan song "For all that You've done I will thank You". Tears of relief started to fall as I played through the whole song. Another miracle. Thank you Jesus. Jernigan did a concert at my church later that year. I told him this story. He started the set with this song in honor of the miracles God did in my life. It may not have been the highlight of my life, but it ranks right up there.
Dialysis
I ended up being in the hospital for three weeks. Every day they did dialysis in my room- or in the clinic- because my kidneys were damaged by the from the whole ordeal. When I got out of the hospital, they set me up for three days a week dialysis in a Davita clinic. It's not a particularly painful procedure but it's definitely not something that you look forward to. I remember sitting in the parking lot before my session crying- but thanking God for my miracle and for the opportunity to be there to have dialysis. I was truly blessed to be able to drive myself. Some people would come in an ambulance. They would put them in a wheelchair with a sheet on it. Then they would lift them- and the sheet- into the dialysis chair. Then reverse the process when it was over. Sometimes they did not even wake up. Quite a few had toes or limbs amputated.
Dialysis is like someone pulling the plug on your soul while you are sitting there in the chair. It doesn't hurt that much, but part of you is missing after the process.
They start asking you to get rid of the hospital catheter on the first day. It can very easily become infected and because it is connected to your heart- that could be fatal. They want you have a fistula put in your arm, which is a much easier and safer way to connect to the machine. My doctor wanted to wait for the fistula because, she said, sometimes your kidney function kicks back in 4-6 weeks after trauma. In June, she ordered a 24 hour urinalysis test. I recall her walking to my dialysis chair a week later reading the results of the test. She was shaking her head side to side. "I'm so sorry Mr Bollinger", she said, "but it looks like you will be on dialysis for the rest of your life. We need to schedule you to have a fistula put in your arm". They test for many things in the urinalysis test, but the main one she looked at was a composite creatine score. Normal range is 60-80. My score was 6. The news was like a dagger in my chest. I said to myself-"you know what? You can do this". There are a lot of things worse than dialysis.
I went to the fistula place and asked them if they could guarantee that there would be no chronic pain or diminished motor function in my hands. Of course they could not do that. So they grafted a high tech tube to an artery in my left upper thigh. They could poke the needles into it through my skin and set up the process using the tube. The holes would "heal" themselves.
In October 2009, they did another 24 hour urinalysis test. My church was praying and believing that God would heal my kidney function- as was I. I remember praying one night during the summer for my kidneys to be healed. Seems like I heard a voice that said, "You did not have anything to do with the miracle of your deathbed healing. That was God's peoples' prayers- and faith. But this, your kidney miracle, is on you". I started to cry. I said "I do believe you can heal my kidney function, Lord, I've seen what you can do". I took my bottle of urine into the clinic one early morning before my session. It was dark and no one was in there. It seemed silly, but I put my hands on that bottle of pee and prayed that God would work yet another miracle of healing my kidney function- for His glory. My dialysis center had 100 chairs. They said it was the largest in the world. They were uber efficient at every detail of testing and the process, so when I realized around Thanksgiving that year that I never got my test results, I asked the nurse to see if she could find them. It took her a while, but she brought them to me, I was surprised to see that my scores for most of the different tests were within, or very close to, the normal ranges. My doctor was not there, but she took the results to another doctor there that day. He looked at them and told the nurse that if I was his patient, he would greatly reduce the dialysis time- or take me off altogether. Later, my doctor agreed. In December, he asked if it would be ok to go from 3 days a week treatment to 2 days a week treatment. In January, he came to my chair, looking at recent test results . He said that there was no longer a reason for me to need to have dialysis and sent me home. Thank you Jesus
Special thanks
To Christy and Terie who drove down from Wichita
To Rick Eubanks who dropped everything to come pray for me in the hospital. He said he didn't know whether or not to bring a suit- for a funeral. He never did tell me if he brought one.
Willie Francis and Jay Everett went way out of their way to visit. Former co-workers. They will never know how much that meant to me.
My good friend Bil Cusack took time from his busy schedule to visit several times. He also took on my workload tuning pianos. He set aside a percentage of the proceeds and when I got out of the hospital, he cut a nice check that was a huge help getting restarted. Especially when doing dialysis 3 days a week.
My nephew Chase drove down from Waco. He stopped along the way and picked (illegally) some April Texas bluebonnets. He talked with my doctors and made sense of what was going on with me.
=========================================================================================
Fast forward to 2022. COVID Pnuemonia
I should have added this miracle a couple years ago- it's all kind of a blur now.
July 1, 2022
It was a time that Covid 19 was beginning to overwhelm ER rooms all over the country. I spent about a week at the end of June not feeling well. I couldn't keep food down, running a low grade fever, coughing, and had very low energy. So I took a Covid test at a CVS drive thru. The results come back a day later and proved to be positive. The instructions with the results said to stay home and contact your PCP. I stayed in bed for two days, not answering the phone. I woke up the third day to someone pounding on my front door with what sounded like a sledge hammer. I went to the door to find my son banging on the metal frame door trying to get in to see if I was ok. My daughter and her husband were also there. I told them I was ok, but after taking one look at me, they said we were going straight to the ER. I didn't argue.
It was pretty crowded, as I recall. We waited in a hallway for quite some time- maybe 3 hours or so before they took me back into an ER rooms where they did tests and X-rays to find that I had Covid Pnuemonia. They took me to a Covid floor room and hooked me up to 80 liters of oxygen. They told me to stay in bed and let the oxygen work. They did whatever Covid protocol they were doing for everybody. But it wasn't helping. They did MRI and periodic X-rays but there was no improvement. One lung doctor told me that the Covid created something like cottage cheese in the lungs and that it would never go away. PT's would come by, look at my X-rays and results and discuss what kind of therapy to start with but they would say there was nothing they can do at this point. I told each doctor that stopped by that I felt like I was on a slippery slope and it was just a matter of time until I would slip off into the darkness. Each doctor would shake their their head and say "It's Covid. Different people react differently. This is all we know to do". Obviously they did not have a clue. And how could they? The only doctors that were successful were using politically incorrect treatments and ended up being ostricized. I didn't have one of those doctors. One evening in my room, I tried to get out of bed to use a bedside commode. The next thing I remember was being on the floor with a nurse screaming "Code blue". It seemed like an army of nurses getting me back into bed. I heard one of them saying, "Breathe Poppy. Breathe Poppy" as she hooked me back up to the oxygen pump. They tried to wean me off the 80 liters but they had no success. After 2 weeks, they basically gave up and sent me over to Kindred Rehab Hospital to let them see if they could help.
The ambulance crew had trouble with the oxygen pump during transit and I would go in and out of consciousness on the way. Once I got into my room, it was comforting to get a welcome and attention from the nurses and doctors. One doctor pointed to the high volume oxygen pump and said "When we get this oxygen pump down to 6 (from 80) you'll get to go home. We have occupational therapists, physical therapists, and breathing therapists that will be working with you several times each week. Stay in bed." It was the first time I felt like there might be hope.
Visitors were not allowed for Covid rooms at the hospital. When all you have to do is lay in bed, it's easy to get discouraged. I remember praying, but it seemed like no one was listening. I read Psalms and didn't remember how often David said "O Lord how long before you rescue me..." But I kept on praying because faith is all about believing something is happening when you can't see anything happening. I prayed for my mountain to be moved, Lord I know you can move my mountain. But I could not see it moving. All I saw was 80 liters.
The 1st Monday at Kindred the OT woman stopped by with some 2 lb weights. They used a special lift to take me out of bed and into a comfortable chair to do some excercizes. She handed one of the 2lb weights and said , "OK, I want you to 10 reps bending at the elbow down and up". She was looking at the oxygen sensor and after 4 reps she suddenly grabbed the weight out of my hand and said, "sorry- we can't do this yet. Your oxygen level just went down to 75" (even though I was still on 80 liters). She said she would be back and I asked her to close the door- so they couldn't see me cry. It was the lowest point of the ordeal.
She did return the following week. PT and breathing therapists also stopped by- all with minimal success for the 3 following weeks. They still asked me not to get out of bed. I was not improving. They tried to wean me off the oxygen but my O2 level would drop whenever they did that. The 4th week at Kindred the PT assistant therapist came by and did a quick session. She whispered in my ear, "You need to get out of bed".
Somehow that made sense to me. That night I sat up on the edge of the bed, stood up, took two steps forward, and back to the bed. It was like a marathon. I did it several times that night. The next day I asked them to put a wheelchair close to the bed and close the door. I stood up, held the wheel chair and pushed it about 6 feet to the wall and then backward to the bed. I would watch the O2 level because it would drop into the 80's almost immediately. I would need to recover in bed until the level went back into the 90's. The challenge was to get the O2 level to take longer to drop and then faster to recover. I had the PT assistant get me longer oxygen tubes so I could walk farther. The room had 18 tiles from the door to the wall, 18 feet.
Within 3 days, I started walking 18 feet 100 times, 3 times a day. I could only walk about 20-25 times at first before the levels dropped to the 85 or so. Then I'd rest until the level went back up, then do another set of 25-30, then rest, etc. Eventually I could do 50-60 trips at a time and the recovery time would decrease. They started to turn the oxygen level down. A week later it was around 30 and the doctor said, "Whatever you're doing, keep doing it". I was walking 1800 feet three times a day. That's more than a mile. I thought "This is my job now" don't even think about not walking. This was week 7. I asked the doctor if I could have someone bring my keyboard into my room because I hadn't played for almost 2 months. Izzy brought it up to me and I got to play it as much as I wanted to. Every morning there would be people from other rooms and floors walk by my room as I played . It was all part of my healing. I found out that there were other patients on my floor with Covid Pnuemonia, same as me, but they had to have a tracheostomy and their therapies took much longer was much harder than mine. I was very thankful I didn't have to have a hole in my throat.
Week 8 the volume was under 10 and they hooked me up to a bottle of oxygen and had me walk the corridors until my O2 level dropped. After a few days of that, the pump level was at 6 and I was maintaining O2 levels in the 90's. It was time to go home. Thank you Jesus. Izzy let them into my home to set up an oxygen making machine and deliver (2) oxygen tanks. I got my initiation to freedom by fainting when I tried to go from the car to the front door. Izzy helped me in and connected me to the oxygen generator. This was on a Wednesday. Thursday I just rested at home. Early Friday morning- I woke up to an audible voice. It said "Where's your mountain? You did not see when I moved your mountain. You weren't watching when I cast it into the sea". I started crying and thanking Him for this miracle. So sorry I didn't give Him the glory as soon as I left the hospital.
Pastor Rick said that I should not try to play at church that 1st Sunday. I was glad about that. But there were tuning jobs that I needed to do for a school (it was now the 1st week of September) and at a piano bar. Izzy took me to those jobs and pushed me in a wheelchair to the pianos- dragging an oxygen tank. The tanks would only last a couple hours, so we had to rush everything. My brother Randy came in from Tennesee to help me. He was a great help. He took me to a school in Laporte pushed me in the wheelchair, again dragging an oxygen tank. The next Sunday we took the oxygen generator to church and I was able to play for the service . When he went back to Tennesee and I had to carefully plan tuning jobs that took less than 2 hours and where I didn't have to walk very far- or up flights of stairs. The tanks themselves were rationed and not readily available because of all the Covid, so sometimes I would not have a tank to leave home with. Schools where I would tune 8 or more pianos at a time I'd have to do 2 at a time. I did order a portable generator and in October I could pretty much do 3-4 pianos a day, while my stamina was improving. I used it through November and then turned in my home generator and tank when my level seemed to stabilize at normal levels. Praise God for His faithfulness
I'm tempted to go in and have my lungs x-rayed again to see what Covid damage is there, if any. But I know that God has healed me. I'm back to moving pianos, tuning 90 + pianos a month, enjoying my grandkids , church, and friends. That's all the proof I need.
My daughter Audrey, who literally saved my life, and my 86 yr old mom. Still in a diabetic coma.