We Stuck to Our Beliefs

Are there any beliefs that you would put above the preservation of your life or the lives of your loved ones? Early Christians held such beliefs, refusing to worship the Roman emperors even though this meant their being thrown to wild beasts in the arenas. Christians today also hold to God’s laws even in the face of death, as the following account shows.

WHEN the doctor confirmed that I was pregnant, any joy of expectant motherhood was taken away by the insistent and unrelenting fear that the new life I was carrying would die within months after being born. But why such a dreadful anxiety?

Four years earlier I had given birth to a beautiful little girl we called Lisa. But suddenly, without prior warning, she became tragically ill and died within two short months of her birth. The cause of her death was an uncommon blood disease called Amegakaryocytic Thrombocytopenia Purpura—the inability to produce blood platelets.

The uncertainty of how or why Lisa got the disease haunted me. With my next baby, Adam, I worried and had some anxious moments, but was relieved when he showed no evidence of the disorder. But this time the news of my pregnancy caused a horrifying sense of fear, for I began to imagine that this rare disease had a peculiar cycle of striking every other child. Our first child, Dana, born two years before Lisa, is perfectly healthy.

My husband, Gary, tried to tame my negative thoughts. “Jan, it might not be hereditary,” he would argue. “It could have been the medicine that caused the problem; you’ve read reports of how some drugs have been suspected of causing blood disorders in babies. This time you haven’t taken anything, not even aspirin.”

Finally, early Thursday morning, June 23, 1977, birth pains served notice that delivery was near. It was at 1:35 p.m. that our baby—a boy—made his anticipated entrance into our family circle. Using the LeBoyer method of natural childbirth, the doctor gently placed him on my stomach. After a short while Gary cut the umbilical cord, and then the doctor placed the baby in a bath of water warmed to near body temperature. Embracing, we gazed at our son, Bryan, partially floating in the water as he was being gently rinsed. It is all so amazing, we thought, as we took inventory of our little one.

The Worst News

It was 3:30 the next morning, while my mother was tending to Bryan and diapering him, that I noticed the familiar and dreaded purple patches around the groin area. I peered more closely, concentrating on what I was seeing. Then a sinking feeling came over me. My whole body weakened and my legs trembled. “Oh, no, not again!” I blurted. I quickly woke Gary to tell him.

Later that morning the doctor, familiar with our daughter’s case, took Bryan’s platelet count. In a few minutes he told us what we feared most: “Bryan has what Lisa had.” He advised us to take him to the hospital as soon as possible. Grief-stricken and scared, we left his office.

Returning home, we frantically called doctors everywhere, starting with the doctor who had treated Lisa, but who, we now learned, had since then moved to Wisconsin. With our phone inquiries not bringing results, we took Bryan to a highly recognized university medical hospital on the west side of Los Angeles. While we were explaining all about our daughter’s sickness and now our son’s, one of the attending physicians spoke up. He said that Bryan, upon admittance, would immediately be given a blood transfusion. Staring at Gary, I said impatiently, “We better leave.” Driving home, we felt dejected and mentally fatigued.

It was almost midnight when we reached home. My parents, who looked after the boys while we were gone, said that a doctor from an Orange County hospital had telephoned and he wanted to speak to us and see Bryan. Just the knowledge of the call gave a spark of encouragement.

As the hospital building came into view the next morning, it looked new and modern, giving me confidence that perhaps something could be done. A doctor greeted us and, after some conversation, Bryan was taken to a small room in the Pediatrics Ward. He was put into an incubator. They gave him medication and observed him for about five days. But being unable to do more, they decided to release him.

Although a court order had been obtained to take Bryan away from us to give him blood, it became clear that blood would be of no help. We were told that few had ever survived this disease. The prognosis: Bryan would probably die within six months. His platelet count was only 4,000 per cubic millimeter; normal is 200,000 to 400,000 per cubic millimeter. A sneeze or even crying could lead to his bleeding to death.

Just before Bryan was to have been released, he began bleeding from his gastrointestinal tract. Alarmed, the doctors kept him for further observation and treatment. Since there were no accommodations for me to stay at the hospital, I would always make sure that he was asleep before I would leave for home. The nurses were excellent. They took fine care of him; they would even permit me to take him into another room so that I could nurse him to sleep each night before I left.

Another Tragedy

Tuesday, July 19, began like any normal workday. Bryan was now home. Gary left for work early. Then, at 4 p.m., I received a phone call. “Gary has been in an accident,” the voice began. “But don’t get excited! He has a broken leg. You better hurry and get down to the emergency room!”

Entering through the large swinging doors of the emergency room, I identified myself to the woman clerk, asking about Gary’s condition. A loud cry rang out, followed by another, then another. My heart turned over. “Was that my husband?” I asked. “Yes,” the woman answered.

“How serious is he?” I demanded.

“Pretty serious,” she replied soberly. I learned he suffered a severe head abrasion, internal hemorrhaging and multiple fractures.

“He’ll need a blood transfusion. Otherwise he will die,” the attending physician said. For a moment I was stunned by the news, unable to answer. Then the familiar sinking feeling came over me. Fighting the urge to give in to panic, I told the doctor, “No blood.” He protested. Again I said, “I can’t help it; no blood.” He shrugged his shoulders, turned and started to walk away.

“Can I see Gary?” I pleaded.

“No, you can’t,” he answered.

“Look,” I argued, “I’ve lost a daughter. I’m about to lose my son. I think I can take being with my husband!” He conceded.

Gary was lying on a table under the bright lights of the operating room. For a few incredible seconds, I just stared at him, aghast. He was lying on his back with only his undershorts on. His left leg was split open in two places, below the knee and above it. His face was badly swollen and dirty. A deep wound appeared on the bridge of his nose, apparently caused by his sunglasses gouging out the flesh when his face hit the pavement. And there was a deep, gaping hole in the top of his head, exposing a pink layer of tissue next to the skull.

Looking over to the doctor, I could see he was obviously alarmed. He said they were going to transfer Gary by helicopter to the County-U.S.C. Medical Center on the east side of Los Angeles. The arrangements were made. Stifling my fear of heights, I boarded the large, military-type aircraft along with Gary. The flight took only five minutes. Gary was then wheeled into a ward where other accident victims awaited treatment.

The chief concern was whether Gary had severed an internal artery. If so, he would bleed to death. A diagnostic test to determine whether he had or not was performed. Finally, one of the doctors announced that they had found no ruptured arteries, and that things looked good. His vital signs—heart rate and rhythm, blood pressure and temperature—had stabilized, although his hematocrit (measure of cells in the circulating blood) was down to 25; normal is in the range of 40 to 65.

About 11:30 the next morning Gary was taken into neurosurgery. The surgeon explained what was done: They sewed up Gary’s head wound, cleaned out the dirt and pavement particles that had lodged in the open wounds of his leg, inserted three stainless-steel pins to provide support for traction, and then sutured up the skin. Following this, his leg was encased in a cast and put in traction.

An Emotion-draining Crisis

Friday, July 22, I left Gary after being at his side all day. His condition was about the same—stable but very serious. Putting Dana, Adam and Bryan to bed, I went to sleep around 11:30 p.m. In what seemed only minutes later, the chilling ring of the telephone woke me. My pulse racing, I jumped out of bed. Lifting the receiver, I heard the neutral voice of a doctor telling me that Gary had taken a turn for the worse, and that he would not make it through the night. “Oh, no!” I blurted, dumbfounded. The same sickening feeling spread through me.

The drive to the hospital with friends took 30 minutes. I felt enormous pressures building within me. If they gave Gary blood he might survive; if they did not, he would die—it seemed as simple as that. Why die and leave me bereaved with three boys? Why? I realize it may be difficult for some persons to understand. But to me God’s law on blood is very clear. “Blood—you must not eat,” God told Noah and his offspring. (Gen. 9:4) And showing that such law still applied to Christians, the early Christian church council in Jerusalem ruled: “For the holy spirit and we ourselves have favored adding no further burden to you, except these necessary things, to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication.”—Acts 15:28, 29.

When we arrived at the hospital I hurried up to Gary’s room. Approaching his bed, I saw an oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth. He was pale white and weak because of his reduced blood supply. His breathing was shallow and his voice very weak and thin. Above him hung two IV bottles containing salts and water and other ingredients to replace body fluids. The clear tubes made their way down to the bed and over to both forearms where they were securely taped. He managed to say a few words with effort, then closed his eyes.

A Matter of Integrity

I asked: “Gary, are you sure this is what you want?” I wanted to know if he was mentally alert enough to know what he was choosing. He answered, “It’s all we have, Jan . . . it’s all we’ve got.” Although I was grief-stricken, his clear, coherent answer gave me renewed strength. He did not seem to mind that he was dying; but he was positive that he would not violate Jehovah’s law on blood.

One of the attending doctors walked over to Gary. He spoke with a concerned tone of voice, saying: “Gary, you’re dying. What makes you think you’re right, when every other religion in the world does not believe the way you do? They all can’t be wrong. They must be right. I know in my heart if you take blood, God will forgive you.”

Mustering up the last reserves of strength, Gary spoke. “The majority are not always right,” he said emphatically. “Remember Elijah of the Bible?” he continued. “The whole nation of Israel turned away from God. They weren’t right. Just one man, Elijah, who thought he was alone, although there were others who were faithful, knew he was right.”

Exhausted, Gary finished. Weakly he reached over to the doctor and, with a clenched fist, landed a punch on his arm and said: “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Gary was hemorrhaging internally. To stem the bleeding, vitamin K was added to his IV’s. At last, in the early morning hours, his vital signs stabilized. He narrowly clung to life with only a fourth of his blood supply left. I sat there beside Gary’s bed for a long time, bewildered and afraid. I spoke to Jehovah in prayer as one would talk to a kindly father. How long I lingered in prayer and in private thoughts, I cannot say. But it seemed that it was for the whole morning until I was interrupted by the nurse who entered to make her routine examination.