Power in the Blood

Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.”

Matthew 12:25

In Matthew 12 the pharisees accused Jesus of casting out demons in the name of Satan.  Jesus used logic to show them how silly their ideas were.  Why would Satan cast out his own minions?  It just doesn’t make sense.

The same logic would lead my primary care doctor in Union City to determine that I would need to be admitted to the hospital once again as the holidays rolled around in 2022.

My progress was noticed by all.  It seemed like every day I was getting stronger and stronger as I became more independent.  I was now preaching nearly every week at the church and had returned to an adapted, but much more normal work schedule.  I would typically work from home on Monday and Thursday.  Tuesdays would find our associate pastor, Garrett picking me up at my house and chauffeuring me to my therapy appointment, to the office for staff meeting, and then back home to finish the work day.  Wednesday morning our Children’s Minister and Administrative Assistant Courtney and Casey would pick me up and bring me into the office for work and I would catch a ride home with my family after programming that night.  Friday, a friend Bentley, would make sure I got to physical therapy and then back home.  It was a great system, and I was so blessed as everyone was more than willing to  chip in to make my life as normal as possible.

November means Be Rich season at Crosswind Church and in 2022 we started a brand new tradition.  As a way to love and give back to our community, we invited the local blood bank to come to our services and asked our congregants to consider donating blood.  Little did I know, this little bit of divine providence would be needed to save my life once again in just a few short weeks.

Toward the end of the month, I began having some new and troubling symptoms.  Extreme fatigue seemed to plague me every day no matter how much I slept.  Added to the malaise were changes in my vision.  Words on the page and the tv screen were routinely blurry and I began to experience dizziness, especially when sitting up or standing in the mornings or at therapy.  My occupational therapist took my blood pressure one Friday and found it to be troublingly low.  I immediately made an appointment to see my primary care physician that afternoon.  

Upon evaluation, he decided to do some blood work and discovered that I was severely anemic and neutropenic.  My hemoglobin levels were dangerously low putting me at risk for a stroke or a heart attack.  I was instructed to go to the emergency room immediately.  Jodi and I asked if we could drive to Vanderbilt instead and we were told that I was so anemic that if we were to get into a car accident and I were to be injured I could bleed to death before medical professionals could arrive on the scene.  The risks were just too great. We headed over to the local ER where the doctors began preparations to get me to a larger hospital via ambulance.

But hospitals in both Nashville and Jackson were full with no beds available.  I would have to have treatment here in Union City.  Vanderbilt sent the information needed to our local ER where they began to give me a transfusion.  I spent the night on an ER gurney receiving liters of blood donated by men and women just for this purpose: to save the life of someone who needed it. 

But a larger question loomed.  Why had this happened?  The conventional wisdom suggested I had an internal bleed somewhere, but that clearly wasn’t the case as there was no obvious trace.  Perhaps an antibiotic used to treat an infection the month before was the culprit, or something more sinister.  No one seemed to know.  After the transfusion my hemoglobin levels were back to an acceptable level, and I was sent me home with a plan to monitor my symptoms.  And they would soon worsen.

A month later in early January, while preaching in the first service, Jodi and the elders at Crosswind began to notice that I wasn’t quite up to par.  My speech was a bit slurred and a little slower than usual.  I made it through the first service and was greeted by my friend and elder Tommy in my office.  “You need to go to the hospital,” he told me.  “We have just met outside of your office, and something isn’t right, you need to get checked out.”  Thankfully we video record each service so we were able to play the video recording of my message for the second gathering while I loaded up in the car and headed straight to the emergency room at Vanderbilt.  I was immediately taken to a triage room, assessed, and found to be severely dehydrated and anemic with dangerously low hemoglobin levels again.  Now we had a problem.  The doctors admitted me and began testing immediately.  They eventually determined that I had some vitamin deficiencies that weren’t allowing my body to adequately mature my red blood cells.  They put me on a number of supplements, gave me several units of blood and then sent me home.

But they couldn’t have been more wrong.  Instead my body was starting to fight against itself and as Jesus reminded the Pharisees, if this continued, I wouldn’t last long.

The final straw came a month later.  Jodi was out of town and I arrived at church early that Sunday as was my custom.  As I began going over my notes for my sermon I began to notice the same symptoms beginning to come upon me again.  Only now I wasn’t even able to put a sentence together or keep my mind straight.  I called Garrett and Tommy into my office and I shared with them that I wasn’t ok.  We quickly arranged for Garrett to take over the Sunday service and Tommy brought my van around and took me home.  A phone call to my father had him on his way to pick me up and carry me back to Vanderbilt.  Once at the ER they determined my hemoglobin levels to be 2.4 when they were supposed to be 14.  The lab kept trying to type and screen my blood so that I could have a transfusion but the samples were too watered down to get a good result.  I literally had no blood.  The doctors and nurses made me aware these were the lowest numbers they had ever seen and I was quickly and thoroughly reprimanded by my hematologist who reminded me how dire the situation was. 

It was clear that my problem was not dietary, but something much more sinister.  A condition called autoimmune hemolytic anemia in which my immune system attacked my red blood cells and destroyed them before they ever reached maturity.  My body was literally destroying itself.  

We had discovered what was plaguing me; the most recent roadblock in a long line of ailments.  Treatment plans were devised and found me back at a familiar place: the oncologist office and talk of chemotherapy.

I was the recipient of several units of blood as they treated my condition over the period of several months. Local blood banks are always in need of individuals willing to donate blood to their stores. If you would like to donate blood to your local blood bank, visit the American Red Cross and type in your zip code to make an appointment!