Stories ::: Miraculous Healing
The Christmas break that broke…
We were rolling into Christmas time looking forward to spending time with family and friends. This is one of our favorite times of the year where we all slow down enough to spend time with family. For some of the family, we don’t get to see them for years at a time because of the distance and pace of life.
Cole, our oldest son, was incredibly excited to be going into the Christmas break! He was getting ready to kick off the break with a stay over at his grandparent’s house with his cousins. The kids have a great time on electronics, laughing, eating, etc! They all spent the night before we had a Christmas gathering with my parents, siblings, and our kids.
The Christmas gathering was about to begin and Cole went up to shower at his grandparent’s house. He’s upstairs for a few minutes …
We heard shampoo bottles hit the ground and then a THUD in the tub!
I took off upstairs and called out to Cole through the door.
Dad - Cole, Are you OK? I heard you fall!
Cole - Huh, yeah. I’m ok.
I went back downstairs and one minute later I heard another THUD in the bathroom …. I run back upstairs and pound on the door.
Dad - Cole, Cole! Are you OK? Cole!
Cole - <<silence>> …
A minute (which felt like an eternity) later, Cole starts screaming and is coming out of the bathroom.
Cole - It’s BURNING!!! IT HURTS!!! Ow, Ow, Ouch!! It HURTS!!
<<crying, screaming, hyperventilating, and completely inconsolable>>
Dad - Ok, calm down. You’re also bleeding. (dumb thing to say..)
Cole - What?!? Ouch, Oh No, This is … ouch, ouch … OH IT HURTS!!
Emily and I were upstairs trying to get him to calm down to understand what had happened. We sit Cole down and start putting some aloe on him, gave him some Benadryl, and Ibuprofen. Cole was using a new shower gel and we thought he was having an allergic reaction to it.
We moved him into the tub to splash water on his face and neck. In the meantime, I run downstairs and find some coconut oil to see if that would help to soothe the pain. I put the solid coconut oil under the sink and within 15-20 seconds, it was liquid! I put my hand under the water and it was SCALDING hot!
I immediately think … Cole’s been burnt by the water in the shower!
I walk over to the bathroom to try and ask Cole if he was burnt by the water.
I looked at Cole and saw that the skin on his face looked like it was melting right off!
Emily and I looked at each other and couldn’t believe it. We consulted and decided that we needed to rush Cole to the hospital via our car. We quickly rushed down the stairs and out to the van with Cole still in pain and inconsolable.
Rushing to the hospital
We arrived at the Emergency Room and Cole was still in pain. We finally had the time to send out a myriad of text messages to our prayer warriors. WOW!!! The prayers were felt and known immediately!
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. - Isaiah 41:10
Emily and I slowed down. We started experiencing HIS perfect peace in the midst of this storm. We knew that we were being covered in prayer and we rested in that confidence! Here are some photos of what he looked like.
We were checked into a room and finally seen by the Doctor. They gave him some pain medicine and then decide to stitch up his chin that was gashed open with 6 metal stitches plus they worked on orders to get us relocated to Riley’s Burn Unit.
We were granted an ER to ER transfer (thank you, Jesus!). We started another myriad of testing and were finally assigned a room on the burn unit floor.
Moved to the Burn Unit
We move up to the burn unit floor and the minutes were long but the days were short. The door was constantly opening with doctors and nurses walking in to check on, diagnose, etc on Cole. Due to the heightened flu concerns, the hospital wouldn’t allow but a handful of visitors that you list on a sheet of paper and no one under 18yrs old could visit. This left us somewhat alone as our other 3 kids couldn’t visit.
We were overwhelmed by all of the offers to help financially, watch our kids, provide meals, and prayer. It was amazing, truly, to see the body of Christ responding and God sending the right people at just the right time. We asked on Social Media that wanted to help to give some money towards buying gift cards for the patients and their families on the burn floor unit. We received enough to offer each room 2-$25 gift cards of their choice. We bought the gift cards for places locally.
Cole went with me from room to room to hand out the gift cards on Christmas morning. We were able to say that we were giving it to them because Jesus loves them and there are people all over the US that are praying for us and them, too. They were blown away … we were blown away …
That’s when Cole’s healing started to accelerate …Cole said
Dad, this was really awesome to be able to give these gift cards to these families that don’t have anything. They don’t have hope and are stuck here in the hospital on Christmas.
Hope, love, & generosity open the doors for Jesus
You see … we were able to offer HOPE to those around us. Through the giving of HOPE, we were refilled with HOPE. This was the turning point for Cole’s healing. He was able to get over his own pains and issues to see others as to where they were at that point.
The blessings continued to flow. We had so many people bring us meals, send us gift cards, and cover us financially that we were overwhelmed with how God was providing! In the hospital, we would have meals sent to us and there would ALWAYS be extra. We were able to feed the nurses, doctors, and other staff members nearly every meal. The staff would ask … who do you all know?
We just know a bunch of Jesus-loving people!
You see, we were able to point it all back to Jesus! Our Hope. Our Joy. Our Peace. Our Generosity. Our acts of love. We could point all of those back to Jesus. We continued to give His praises day in/out. We always pointed the other patients to Jesus. We pointed the staff back to Jesus. This song, says it all…
Jesus at the center of it all
Jesus at the center of it all
From beginning to the end
It will always be, it's always been YouJesus (“Jesus at the Center” — Israel & New Breed)
We broke some rules …
The family unit was starting to strain. We all wanted to be back together as a family unit. The nurses helped us to be able to “look for” the teen room and we “accidentally” took a “wrong turn”. Around the corner, Cole was able to see his siblings! It was a pretty special time, for sure!
Continued Prayers & Upcoming Surgery
We had people praying for us Every. Single. Day.! It was awesome! We had thousands of text messages, Social Media comments, etc. and they were all pointed back to praying for Cole. We were at complete peace, overall. We did have some moments of pain … like the cleanings for Cole. Imagine scraping your knee on the asphalt and using a wire scour brush to clean the wound. That’s about what the cleanings were like for Cole on his neck even with a LOT of pain medicine! He’s one tough kid!
The doctors said we had a long road and were preparing us for the worst-case scenario but what they felt would be the case. They said that the ideal world would be to have Recell treatment (check out this link, if you want… basically, they take a smaller patch of skin, liquefy it, and spray it on to the burn area) on Cole’s neck for grafting and not a big patch of skin.
Sunday morning, the day before the surgery, the plastic surgeon and his team looked at Cole’s neck. He was certain that we wouldn’t be able to do the Recell spray. We said we would #prayforspray!
“You can pray for spray, but I don’t see that this is an option.” - Plastic Surgeon Dr
Miracles Happen
We were praying for the spray and the whole process. We were the first one’s to request music to be played in the surgery room with Cole. We created a surgery playlist and they downloaded it onto an iPad to play during the entire surgery! First time ever! We had people singing and praising Jesus in unison with Cole and the medical staff hearing the music and words … while he was covered in prayer!
Cole was rolled into the surgery room and the bandages removed.
The medical staff couldn’t believe their eyes!
Overnight, Cole’s neck had healed enough to be able to have the Recell … #prayforspray was a success!!! WOO, JESUS!!! The surgery was a success.
We meet the plastic surgeon in the post-surgery room. He comes in smiling and said,
I’ve never seen this. His neck was healed enough to do the Recell. Cole still has a long road of healing ahead and will likely need another skin graft plus will have up to 1yr of compression fittings that he will need to wear.
He went on to tell us a few other details about the surgery. We were able to ask if he could explain Cole’s healing medically, and he couldn’t!
JESUS!!
Heading home
We were released and head home. What a great day it was to be heading home! It was peaceful for about 12min with the whole family and then it was back to normal … HA!!
Cole was at home recovering and getting back into the swings of being home. He had to wear the bandages for the entire week until we headed back to the hospital 7 days later. Additionally, he wore a heart monitor for 30 days to try to capture any issues with his heart that may have caused him to faint.
Fully Healed and Medically Released!
After the 7 days, they remove the bandages and the medical staff couldn’t believe their eyes. His neck had quickly healed. We went back 2 weeks later for another check and …
His neck is healed! He doesn’t have to wear the bandages nor does he need the compresion!
`WOW!!! JESUS!! He was healed and released!
After a myriad of testing with the doctors, they still can’t find the reasoning behind Cole passing out. He has been medically released as they can’t find the reason to explain him passing out.
Watch for another post in the coming weeks … we will tell you the reason why, and it’s not what you expect!
Social Media Posts
Here is a compilation of most of the Social Media posts that we had out there.
