Post by pannt51 on Dec 1, 2011 14:53:37 GMT -5
THE CHRISTMAS TREE
By: Patricia A. Turner
Well, it’s the Christmas Season 2011 and time to drag out the decorations and trim the tree. But, before I even start that project I have a story which I would like to share with you. It is a story of how a small fiber optic tree has become a reminder to me of a Christmas that will forever live in my heart.
It had all started on a cold December day. Employed as a Legal Secretary I worked for a local attorney. As his only employee the work was, to say the least, stressful. It was Friday, December 21, 2007 and nearing quitting time. My boss and I were rushing to finish and fax out a Supreme Court Petition in a Worker’s Compensation case so that we could start our holiday.
Rushing around like a chicken with my head cut off I noticed that I was beginning to feel very ill as late afternoon approached. Trying my best to ignore the sickness I was determined I was going to get the petition finished and faxed out so that I could get out of the office and head home to spend Christmas with my family.
However, that was not to be the case. As I continued to grow more sick as the time marched on I finally had to tell my boss that I wasn’t feeling well and needed to leave. By that time I was so sick that I knew I could not drive myself home so I called my husband to come pick me up. In the meantime my boss had came into my office and had given me an aspirin and told me to stay seated until my husband arrived.
Truly sick by the time Roger got to the office I told him that I believed that I was having a heart attack and that he needed to take me to the hospital which was a short drive from the office. Getting me to hospital Roger rushed into the E.R. to get me a wheelchair. By then I was throwing up and the pain in my left arm and breast was growing much worse.
Taking me straight into a room in the E.R. an E.K.G. was done immediately. A short time later the doctor came into my room and told me that it looked like I was having a heart attack and that there was nothing they could do for me there so I would have to go to another hospital. Giving me the choice between Charleston West Virginia and Roanoke Virginia I choose Charleston.
Soon I was on my way by ambulance to Charleston. Accompanying me that night was my brother, Keith. Arriving in Charleston in, what to me seemed to be only minutes, I was taken into the emergency room there where another E.K.G. was done.
Then the doctor came around asking me a bunch of questions which to this day I don’t remember even answering. I was then taken upstairs somewhere to have a heart catheterization done. While I can’t remember too much after leaving the E.R, I do remember my brother standing beside me after the catheterization and telling me not to be scared and that I was going to be alright.
Since the catheterization revealed I had four arteries which were 80% blocked I was immediately taken into surgery, which was the very last thing I remembered until I woke up many hours later in the Recovery Unit with my husband and all my family standing around me. Looking up at them tears filled my eyes upon finding I could not talk to them because of the tube running down my throat.
It wasn’t until much later, after I was home and was recovering from the open heart surgery where I had to have four bypasses that I was to learn that the doctor had told my brother just before taking me into surgery that he needed to call all the family in because I was not going to survive the surgery.
Lying there only able to look up at my family and hold their hands, I had no idea just how close to death I had come. That Saturday after visiting with me my sister went out and bought a lovely four foot Fiber Optic Christmas tree. Allowing her to bring it into the recovery area, the nurses sat it on a shelf across the room where I could look at it.
On Christmas day I was moved out of the recovery area and placed in a private room where my husband was allowed to stay with me for the remainder of that week until I was discharged two days before the New Year. Once in that room my little tree was plugged up and I was allowed to enjoy it for the rest of my stay in Charleston.
On the morning that I was moved into the private room my Cardiologist came in to see me and his exact words to me were, “I see that you survived.” Looking at him as if to say, did you not think that I would, I was to find out much later just what those words to me had meant. The doctors had given me no chance of surviving the open heart surgery while my Lord had had other ideas.
It is now Christmas Season 2011 and I am still alive and enjoying every day of my life because my Lord saw fit to touch me with His healing virtues. And I know within my heart, that the Lord had a special reason for me surviving that horrible ordeal. Today I am the Author of four books which are published and I have many more stories to be published, Good Lord Willing.
The Lord chose to spare my life that day in December 2007 and to Him I give all the praise and glory. But looking back on that dark time I am only too aware of my own mortality. For the Word of God says that no man has promise of tomorrow. Is my time here on earth going to last much longer? Only God knows the answer to that question.
But, for however long I have left on this earth, I will always praise God and thank Him for His healing virtue. And, never will a Christmas pass that I won’t remember that Christmas week in the hospital. Nor will I ever forget that little Fiber Optic tree and just what it means to me.
Soon I will began decorating for the Christmas Season and the first thing I will bring out will be my little tree which says to me that my sister loved me enough to go the extra mile at a time when I truly needed her and I will always embrace that tree with a heart overflowing with love for my family and, most of all, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
To Melinda, I wish to say that I love you deeply and that you will never know what that little tree means to me, for it is a symbol of life and love that will continue to keep this old heart beating until that day when the Lord says its’ my time to go.
So, as this Christmas Season approaches, and I once again reflect on that cold December night there is one thing I know with a certainty. That night never once did the word death enter into my mind for I was shrouded in a perfect peace that came straight from the Throne of Grace and, as the words of that gospel song says, regardless of how the night may have turned out, I know beyond all doubt that I was truly indeed, ‘A Winner Either Way.’
To all I wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas.
By: Patricia A. Turner
Well, it’s the Christmas Season 2011 and time to drag out the decorations and trim the tree. But, before I even start that project I have a story which I would like to share with you. It is a story of how a small fiber optic tree has become a reminder to me of a Christmas that will forever live in my heart.
It had all started on a cold December day. Employed as a Legal Secretary I worked for a local attorney. As his only employee the work was, to say the least, stressful. It was Friday, December 21, 2007 and nearing quitting time. My boss and I were rushing to finish and fax out a Supreme Court Petition in a Worker’s Compensation case so that we could start our holiday.
Rushing around like a chicken with my head cut off I noticed that I was beginning to feel very ill as late afternoon approached. Trying my best to ignore the sickness I was determined I was going to get the petition finished and faxed out so that I could get out of the office and head home to spend Christmas with my family.
However, that was not to be the case. As I continued to grow more sick as the time marched on I finally had to tell my boss that I wasn’t feeling well and needed to leave. By that time I was so sick that I knew I could not drive myself home so I called my husband to come pick me up. In the meantime my boss had came into my office and had given me an aspirin and told me to stay seated until my husband arrived.
Truly sick by the time Roger got to the office I told him that I believed that I was having a heart attack and that he needed to take me to the hospital which was a short drive from the office. Getting me to hospital Roger rushed into the E.R. to get me a wheelchair. By then I was throwing up and the pain in my left arm and breast was growing much worse.
Taking me straight into a room in the E.R. an E.K.G. was done immediately. A short time later the doctor came into my room and told me that it looked like I was having a heart attack and that there was nothing they could do for me there so I would have to go to another hospital. Giving me the choice between Charleston West Virginia and Roanoke Virginia I choose Charleston.
Soon I was on my way by ambulance to Charleston. Accompanying me that night was my brother, Keith. Arriving in Charleston in, what to me seemed to be only minutes, I was taken into the emergency room there where another E.K.G. was done.
Then the doctor came around asking me a bunch of questions which to this day I don’t remember even answering. I was then taken upstairs somewhere to have a heart catheterization done. While I can’t remember too much after leaving the E.R, I do remember my brother standing beside me after the catheterization and telling me not to be scared and that I was going to be alright.
Since the catheterization revealed I had four arteries which were 80% blocked I was immediately taken into surgery, which was the very last thing I remembered until I woke up many hours later in the Recovery Unit with my husband and all my family standing around me. Looking up at them tears filled my eyes upon finding I could not talk to them because of the tube running down my throat.
It wasn’t until much later, after I was home and was recovering from the open heart surgery where I had to have four bypasses that I was to learn that the doctor had told my brother just before taking me into surgery that he needed to call all the family in because I was not going to survive the surgery.
Lying there only able to look up at my family and hold their hands, I had no idea just how close to death I had come. That Saturday after visiting with me my sister went out and bought a lovely four foot Fiber Optic Christmas tree. Allowing her to bring it into the recovery area, the nurses sat it on a shelf across the room where I could look at it.
On Christmas day I was moved out of the recovery area and placed in a private room where my husband was allowed to stay with me for the remainder of that week until I was discharged two days before the New Year. Once in that room my little tree was plugged up and I was allowed to enjoy it for the rest of my stay in Charleston.
On the morning that I was moved into the private room my Cardiologist came in to see me and his exact words to me were, “I see that you survived.” Looking at him as if to say, did you not think that I would, I was to find out much later just what those words to me had meant. The doctors had given me no chance of surviving the open heart surgery while my Lord had had other ideas.
It is now Christmas Season 2011 and I am still alive and enjoying every day of my life because my Lord saw fit to touch me with His healing virtues. And I know within my heart, that the Lord had a special reason for me surviving that horrible ordeal. Today I am the Author of four books which are published and I have many more stories to be published, Good Lord Willing.
The Lord chose to spare my life that day in December 2007 and to Him I give all the praise and glory. But looking back on that dark time I am only too aware of my own mortality. For the Word of God says that no man has promise of tomorrow. Is my time here on earth going to last much longer? Only God knows the answer to that question.
But, for however long I have left on this earth, I will always praise God and thank Him for His healing virtue. And, never will a Christmas pass that I won’t remember that Christmas week in the hospital. Nor will I ever forget that little Fiber Optic tree and just what it means to me.
Soon I will began decorating for the Christmas Season and the first thing I will bring out will be my little tree which says to me that my sister loved me enough to go the extra mile at a time when I truly needed her and I will always embrace that tree with a heart overflowing with love for my family and, most of all, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
To Melinda, I wish to say that I love you deeply and that you will never know what that little tree means to me, for it is a symbol of life and love that will continue to keep this old heart beating until that day when the Lord says its’ my time to go.
So, as this Christmas Season approaches, and I once again reflect on that cold December night there is one thing I know with a certainty. That night never once did the word death enter into my mind for I was shrouded in a perfect peace that came straight from the Throne of Grace and, as the words of that gospel song says, regardless of how the night may have turned out, I know beyond all doubt that I was truly indeed, ‘A Winner Either Way.’
To all I wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas.