Lord… not yet… not now

A Jon Post

Lord, not yet… not now.

Praying out loud, then in my heart, then under my breath, then moving my lips, in English, in Portuguese…

Lord… not yet. Be merciful… not yet.

Filomena Loves Holding Karasi

Filomena sat in the back of my car in a sweaty panic.
“I can’t breathe, Jon. I can’t breathe!”
“I know. I know. You’re going to be fine. You’ll be fine. Just hold on.”

Lord… be merciful. Don’t let her die… not yet.

Our little car screeched onto the sidewalk in front of the 24 hour clinic and I wrapped my arm under Filomena and got her inside.
“She can’t breathe! Where is a doctor?” I asked, trying to communicate urgency to the man behind the desk, while communicating calm to Filomena at my side. “She can’t breathe.”

Lord… be merciful.

In a small examination room, oxygen being piped over her nostrils and mouth, Filomena sat heaving her chest up, desperately trying to fill lungs that refused to inflate and offer her blood its critically important oxygen supply.

“Take it off, I can’t breathe with it on.” Filomena said, clutching at the oxygen mask and pulling its elastic band over her head.
“Wait, dear sister. Wait. You need this air. You need it. I know it feels horrible but trust it. Trust me. You need it. It’s helping. Wait, dear sister.”
“I can’t breathe, Jon. I can’t.”

Lord, not yet… not now.

Filomena had been feeling fine until 9 PM last Sunday night. She had eaten dinner, watched a little TV and at 9, lain down to rest. Her problem started as a slight difficulty in drawing full breaths. She described it as a weight on her chest that she couldn’t take off. She let Layne and I know when it started and we both went to her room to see how she was. She was clearly struggling to breathe so we made the cautious decision to get her to a doctor and make sure it wasn’t anything serious. While I went to find my car keys and wallet, her breathing drastically worsened. When I came back, ready to drive her to see a doctor, she couldn’t draw enough breath to stand up.

Lord… PLEASE

On the examination table she sat there quietly, swaying back and forth from exhaustion but unable to lie down because the little breaths she was drawing couldn’t be found when she lay down. I held her against my chest and kept praying.

Lord… PLEASE

Layne, at home with the girls, echoed every prayer I prayed and rallied our families to join us.

LORD, WAIT! NOT YET!

An emergency X-ray of her chest showed her lungs were full of fluid. The doctor inserted a tube through her ribs and into her right lung. 1.8 liters of yellow fluid came crawling out.
1.8 liters. The average female lung capacity is 4.2 liters.
That’s for both lungs.

Lord… please… be merciful.

Filomena started breathing. It wasn’t perfect, her left lung was still full of fluid, still not doing its job, but she was breathing. She was breathing.
And then she started resting.
At 2:30 I finally felt comfortable leaving her resting. The clinic told me they would transfer her to the central hospital’s Oncology ward the next morning at 6. Come back at 5:30 they said.

Lord… be merciful.

A couple hours rest at home and then back to the clinic to make sure she got on the clinic’s little ambulance and then back home to get two of our other patients and get them to the hospital for scheduled doctor’s visits.
The day blurred by as Filomena was first admitted into the Central Hospital’s emergency room (as is common for clinic-hospital transfers), seen by a doctor there, had a new X-ray taken, had blood tests done, and then… finally… transferred to Oncology to be seen by her oncologist.
The Lord was merciful. She is alive. She’s alive. She’s still very tired a week later, but she’s alive and she’s breathing normally.
He was very merciful.
Filomena is still with us. She’s here and God is good.

Oh, Jesus. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.