A Lifesaving New Treatment
LEAVING Gary’s room for a few minutes, I caught sight of two of our Christian brothers from the congregation sitting in the waiting room. They approached, one of them holding in his hand a photostatic copy of a page from a Watchtower magazine. After a brief exchange of greetings, he gave it to me. It was “Insight on the News” in the September 1, 1974, issue.
As I read it, a sharp pulse of hope entered my heart. The quoted news report told of a new technique to aid patients with large volume blood loss. The treatment is called “hyperbaric oxygen.”
A Showdown
It was around 11:30 a.m. when the hospital chief of surgery came down the hall. He summoned us into his office with the remark: “We are going to settle this once and for all.”
It was a small office made smaller with three doctors, myself and two of my friends crowded into it. I could see that the doctors were tired, I presumed because they put in so many long hours and are faced with many difficult problems. The no-blood restriction in Gary’s case seemed to add to their burdens. I could understand that.
“I’ve talked to my doctors and we are upset,” the chief of surgery declared. “More than upset, we’re angry! We have a young man we can save, but the principles you people live by and encourage him to live by make it next to impossible to help.”
Slapping several X rays of Gary’s broken leg under the holding clips of the viewing screen situated on one of the walls, he pointed to the multiple breaks in Gary’s leg. They looked like the jagged sawtooth break of a pencil. One vividly showed the bone sticking out through the flesh.
“This is what we’re fighting,” he said, pointing in rapid succession to each of the breaks shown on the X rays. “Gary needs rods here, here and here, and in each case the operation calls for blood.” Over and over he kept repeating, “I’m very mad!” I was terribly frightened, knowing that I was the principal target of his indignation. I bowed my head and gave way to tears.
“I’m a Christian,” the chief of surgery announced. “I see nothing wrong in taking blood transfusions. Even if it was wrong, God would forgive you.” Changing his tactic, he said: “If you don’t try to get Gary to take blood, it will be the same as murdering him. Anyone that really cares [I knew his eyes were probably fixed on me] will try to influence Gary to take blood.” Reversing himself again, he skillfully appealed to my desire, saying: “If he does take blood, he could be out of here and home with you and the kids and eventually back to work. Blood is the only answer.
“This man is dying, and we can save him, but you are tying our hands. Have you ever had someone just die in your hands and not be able to save him?” he continued. Interrupting, I said softly, “Yes. I had a daughter.” My statement must have caught him off guard because he stopped talking. The awkward pause was broken when he declared: “All right, I want everybody to leave. Go out there and think about what that man has to go through.”
Change in Attitude
As I got up to leave, I turned to him and asked: “Can I speak to you?” Everyone stopped and turned to me. “Alone,” I finished. “OK, everybody out,” he bellowed.
When everybody left, I immediately sensed a change in his bearing. He seemed to soften. Engaging in small talk, he asked how I became one of Jehovah’s Witnesses and inquired about my daughter. Then he asked my age. “Twenty-six,” I said. To my surprise, he replied: “My, you’re such a young thing to be going through all this.”
I was astonished at the transformation. I asked him if he had an open mind. He said he did. I wanted him to commit himself before I gave him the Watchtower report about the hyperbaric treatment. As he gave it back to me, I asked, “Do you think it might work?”
“Well, I don’t know,” he answered. “At this point anything is worth a try.”
“Can you send him somewhere?” I pleaded.
“Oh, no,” he said. “I’m not going to do it; you have to do this all by yourself. You can call the naval base.”
“What do I say? Whom do I call?” I asked.
“You just have to call and ask for whoever is in charge of Hyperbaric and just tell them about it.” At that he quickly leaned forward, reaching for the telephone on his desk. He began talking to someone—someone he knew on a first-name basis. Relating my entire experience, he acted as though he really wanted to help me. Replacing the receiver, he said: “It’s all set.” Gary was to be transferred to Long Beach Memorial Hospital.
Probably due to the decisiveness of the chief of surgery, preparation for sending Gary off went surprisingly fast. While getting him ready for the trip, however, one of the doctors said of the hyperbaric treatment: “It won’t do any good.” Although speaking softly, his voice was furious as he stressed: “He needs blood to heal his wounds.” This discouraged me. But in no time Gary was wheeled down to a waiting ambulance. A doctor accompanied us on the trip.
My Hopes Revived
Finally, I saw coming into view a huge ultramodern hospital. Attendants were waiting. They wheeled Gary up to the seventh floor, to a small private room in the Intensive-Care Unit. Approaching me, the nurse explained that I was to wait outside until the doctors had completed their examination. I left to go to a rest room downstairs to freshen up. There I paused to pray for courage and strength. Some 18 hours had passed since I had been awakened by the frightening phone call the night before.
I managed to drag myself back up to Gary’s room. When I entered, the two doctors were still there. For a moment I forgot that I was carrying the article about the hyperbaric treatment. Walking over to the doctor closest to me, I handed it to him. He was a tall, slightly rotund man with broad shoulders and black wavy hair combed back. He took it and began reading. When he finished, he muttered in typical doctor fashion, “Ah, ha.” Impatient for his opinion, I asked: “Have you ever heard of this treatment?”
“Oh, yeah,” he replied rather nonchalantly. “I wrote the article.” (This was the article appearing in the May 20, 1974, Journal of the American Medical Association, referred to in The Watchtower.) I felt my face reddening as a combination of embarrassment and extreme joy swept over me. As he continued to speak, describing the manner of treatment, my low spirits soared.
I wanted to be optimistic, but still had doubts. I repeated the comments made by the doctor just before we left the university hospital. “It was his opinion,” I explained, “that the treatment would not help, and, even if it did, Gary still would not heal right because he needed whole blood.” Looking directly into my eyes, he nodded his head understandingly and declared philosophically: “Some men speak only in their ignorance.” Satisfied and reassured, I now believed that the odds were in Gary’s favor.
The Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment
What the hyperbaric oxygen therapy does is subject the whole body to 100 percent oxygen under pressure greater than that of our atmosphere, which is 14.7 pounds per square inch at sea level. The raised pressure dissolves oxygen in body tissues and fluids in concentrations much higher than normal. The apparatus used is a cylindrical tank of heavy metal construction with a thick glass dome that enables the patient to see out and those outside to see in. The unusually thick, circular chamber door resembles the door of a bank vault. Communication is possible by means of an intercom system.
Compression is begun slowly, and is gradually increased until reaching the prescribed level. The sensation on the eardrums is similar to what one feels when driving up or down a mountain. For the first few days Gary received treatment every six hours around the clock. Upon completion of each treatment, he would feel an invigorating stimulation.
Upon his returning from Hyperbarics at 8 p.m. on the fourth day, the nurse, as usual, took Gary’s blood count. The reading generated some excitement—the hematocrit level had risen a full percentage point, from 10 to 11. Although it still was perilously low, the news had a buoyant effect upon us both. By the eighth day of treatments his count reached 19, sufficiently high to transfer him from Intensive Care to Isolation.
An unmistakable evidence of Gary’s improving health occurred one morning when he woke up. “You feel like eating breakfast this morning?” I asked cheerfully. Since the accident he had been unable to keep any food down. I was brought right out of my chair, which I used as a bed, when he said, “Yes, I think so.”
“Good, good,” I bubbled excitedly. His awakening taste for food was added proof that he was going to live. Contrary to popular medical opinion, he had survived without blood, and, at the same time, had avoided the complications, sometimes fatal, that often occur when blood transfusions are given. But, of course, the reason for refusing blood was God’s law to Christians: “Keep abstaining . . . from blood.”—Acts 15:28, 29.
Another Crisis
Before Gary was moved out of Intensive Care, Bryan began running a high temperature. His fontanel, the soft spot on top of his head, was swollen, indicating that pressure was being exerted on the brain—a first clue to spinal meningitis. A wave of sickly horror descended upon me when the attending woman doctor announced he needed a blood platelet transfusion. She explained that since his platelet count was so low, performing the spinal tap posed a risk of causing hemorrhaging, possibly leading to paralysis.
A court order to take custody of Bryan away from us had been obtained the first time we admitted him into this hospital. But no blood was given, because no amount would help. Bryan was unable to manufacture his own platelets properly. So we reached an agreement with the doctor treating Bryan that no blood would be given to him.
Finally, the doctor we had made the agreement with arrived. I briefed him on what had occurred. He said he would proceed with the spinal tap without blood. It was as simple as that—no blood was to be given. Yet the possibility of hemorrhaging to death and of paralysis existed. The spinal fluid was sent to the laboratory, and it was learned that Bryan had viral meningitis. I sighed.
A Dramatic Reversal
Since his first platelet test had been taken the day we discovered his malady, Bryan’s count had remained a static 4,000 per cubic millimeter. But a few days after his attack of meningitis, a test of his blood revealed a dramatic reversal. His face beaming, the doctor reported: “Bryan’s count went up a little bit.”
“It did?” I broke in.
“Yes,” he continued. “It went up to 25,000.”
Terribly excited, I wanted to believe Bryan would live. But we had given up hope because we were told that few had ever survived this disease, at least to the doctor’s knowledge. I could hardly contain myself as I told Gary the good news about Bryan’s increased platelet count. “That’s still not good, Jan,” he said flatly, unmoved by my enthusiasm. He was trying to protect me. One of the doctors declared that chances of Bryan’s surviving were one in a billion.
A week passed. We took Bryan in for another blood test. This time his platelet count was 50,000! And each successive weekly test continued to show an increase. The next test measured an overwhelming 193,000; the following week it read 309,000. Eventually it reached 318,000, which is considered normal. The doctors were amazed, so much so that they made remarks like: ‘Here comes the Unique Baby,’ and, ‘He is making Jehovah’s Witnesses out of all of us.’ They even went so far as to attribute the change in Bryan’s condition to ‘a miracle.’
Both Gary and Bryan have completely recovered, and I am so grateful for the fine outcome. No one wants to see loved ones suffer or die. Yet, at the same time, these experiences emphasized to me that there is something more important than our present life. It is of even greater importance that we keep God’s laws, because, if we do, we have the sure promise that God will raise us from the dead into his righteous new system where we can enjoy everlasting life in perfect health and happiness. (Rev. 21:3, 4) Doesn’t the faithfulness of Jesus Christ even to death, and his resurrection by God, prove that such a course of obedience to God’s requirements is the wisest course?
I am thankful to our merciful and kind God, Jehovah, for providing me with the strength to endure faithfully, while obeying his laws through those trialsome days. These inspired words of the apostle Paul, I feel, were truly applicable in my case: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the power beyond what is normal may be God’s and not that out of ourselves.” (2 Cor. 4:7)—Contributed.