Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you. The days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.
Psalm 139:16 MSG
After three months of continued pain in my back and weakness in my legs, the doctors at Vanderbilt decided that an MRI was in order. The Powell Girls and I loaded up in the car and made the three hour trek to Nashville. A trip to the big city meant a visit with my mother, a shopping at Trader Joe’s, and something good for lunch. The COVID-19 pandemic required me to go to the imaging center solo, so the girls dropped me off and then ran on to their errands around town.
An hour later, MRI complete, I found myself on the street corner waiting for Jodi to swing by and pick me up. The freezer bags were filled with delectables from the store and I was ready to grab some grub and get back on the road to Northwest Tennessee. We swung into Chipotle to get my favorite steak tacos and we pointed our car westward toward home.
But we never made it out of Green Hills before my phone rang. It was the infections disease nurse from Vanderbilt. Something seemed wrong.
“Have you already left town,” She asked?
“No I have not, I’m getting ready to turn onto the interstate,” I replied.
Then the urgency in her voice increased, “I need you to come back to the hospital. Your MRI showed something and Dr. Tomlinson wants you to get back here right now. Go to the parking garage and call me when you get there, we are still trying to work out the details.”
We pulled into the parking garage and parked in a largely unoccupied area. The phone rang again and it was my doctor. The MRI had showed infectious material throughout my entire spine and up into my brain, but this wasn’t like other infections that I had suffered through before. This was something more.
This was meningitis.
I feel like I need to explain a bit.
As a young baby, I began running fevers. Multiple trips to the doctor would leave medical professionals dumbfounded as to their origins. Finally, at just over a year old, I was admitted to Vanderbilt University Children’s Hospital where a group of particularly brilliant doctors diagnosed me with a rare genetic disorder called Fatal Chronic Granulomatous Disease. This illness had rendered my body unable to fight off particular bacteria and fungal species and inevitably would take my life some day. In fact, with no known cure, and medical technology at its current level my young mother was told that I would not live past the age of five.
After successfully treating me for a Serratia infection in my liver, the doctors told my family that one day I would contract an infection that wouldn’t respond to antibiotic treatment and when that happened, I would not survive. My mom took me home and began helping me live my life, however short it may be, to the fullest.
But God is the one that numbers our days, not doctors.
Through His grace and some incredible medical care, I not only survived, but I thrived in many ways. Yes, I battled multiple infections throughout my life; fungal infections in my lungs, brain and lower back, bacterial infections in my chest cavity, various skin accesses, and nasal polyps saw me with countless hospitalizations and a dozen or more surgeries in my 4 decades of life. Every time, my body responded to medicines and treatments, and every time I bounced back. I was able to go to college and graduate school, get married and have two amazing daughters. God had been so good to me and I had devoted my life to serving him in full-time vocational ministry. My medical history gave me a helpful perspective into the lives of my parishioners struggling with their own ailments, but I lived with the reality that one day I would contract an infection that would take my life.
And this infection may just be the one that ends it all.
In all of my studies I had never done much research on spinal infections, but I knew enough to know that meningitis was serious. My heart rate began to increase and I did my best to stay stoic in front of my girls, but when Abbi began to cry because she wasn’t going to be able to see her grandmother, I lost it for the first time. Emma was old enough to remember some of my past infections and surgeries, but Abbi had been too young to really register the gravity of what was happening. I am ashamed to say that I was way too harsh with her as I let her know that we had bigger problems than a missed visit with her Grandy. Dad wasn’t going to go home with you tonight. Instead he was going to have to go to the hospital and there was no way to know how long he would be there.
We shared some tears and embraced in a hug as I got out of the car, Jodi prayed for me and I walked into the emergency room so that I could be admitted to begin treatment. Hours later I found myself laying in a hospital bed listening to an infectious disease doctor explain to me that he had no idea what was causing the infection, bacteria, fungus, or virus, so they would begin treating me for all three while they tried to figure it out.
That night, as I lay awake in my hospital bed unable to sleep I googled meningitis on my phone. In reading the prognosis of such infections, I came across the following sentence.
In patients with compromised immune systems, chance of surviving a meningitis infection is 18%.
The number penetrated my heart and mind with a harshness that there are no words to describe. I spoke with Jodi soon thereafter and shared with her the results of my internet query. She was stolid. “Stop reading the internet,” she said, and she assured me that God had this under control, and we would just take this one day at a time.
She reminded me, that God is the one that numbers our days, not doctors.
Jeremy Powell 