THE SECOND CHANCE MIRACLE
From the earliest times, man as a species has believed
in something higher, in a religious context. Man believed that the sun and moon
were gods and should be worshipped. In fact, man has had so many gods over the
years, even the days of the week are named after them.
I myself am not particularly religious, although I am
spiritual (if that makes sense). I do
believe that there is a God and also in an afterlife, but I also believe that
my belief may be down to indoctrination at a young age and is just part of the
human condition. So in a way, I believe that my belief in god is no more than a
learnt thought process, which in a way beggars belief why I believe in the
first place. That was a mouthful wasn’t
it?
The reason I am blogging about God, is down to the fact
we had a near fatal tragedy that 99% should have happened but didn’t. With that
1%, I suppose you could say we had a miracle if you like, and not the first
miracle that has happened with in the family either. Now of course everything can be explained logically
and put down to luck, but as most of us Irish have a belief in God, and yes,
maybe it’s down to indoctrination, I think we would all look at it as a miracle.
I am going to keep this story very short, so a lot of
details are washed over as I know if I wrote it the way it happened, it would
turn into a novel.
ANYWAY
My Aunt Angela came up to Donegal for a few days as we
had family visiting from the UK and Donegal being the ancestral home, it is the
gathering point for the clan. As my mother and father, as well as my aunts and
uncles are at the age of retirement, they all decided to go on a bus tour of
Donegal which included a meal in the Abby hotel in Donegal Town.
So, after touring south Donegal, most of the day. The bus arrived at the hotel for dinner at 5.30pm. As it was only 5 o’clock, and as they were more than a few minutes
early, my folks decided to have a few drinks at the bar.
While the drinks were on the way, my mother and Aunt Angela went to the
washroom as girls normally do, and they were washing their hands and re-applying
lipstick or whatever else women do when they go off to the bathroom together. As my mum was just about finished and drying her hands, she heard an almighty crash and turned
round to see that my poor aunt Angela had collapsed and was unconscious on the
floor. Mum cried out for help and within seconds, staff were on hand with there first aid training and a few
minutes later a doctor (whose clinic was next door to the hotel) was on the scene
with a defibrillator and was able to work on her straight away. In that hotel
washroom, my Aunt Angels hart had stopped 3 times and due to the aid she was
given, she was brought back to life once again. Within 15 minutes, the ambulance was ready to take
her up to Letterkenny general hospital and she was in intensive care within an hour of the incident. Angela was then kept in an artificial coma for few days
and on Friday morning, as her immediate family (her sons and daughters) were at
her bedside and expecting the worst; and at that, she came out of her coma and started to talk to everyone, asking what was going on. Within
a few more days of care, Angela was back to her lovable self again to the relief of us all.
It turned out that the signal from her brain that
tells the hart to beat, just stopped working and it could have happened at any time or
anywhere. For this reason. I think it was a miracle because if it happened on
the bus, sitting while watching TV, in the toilet cubical or even back home,
she just would not have stud a chance of survival. In fact it could have happened
while she was asleep or on her own. It was an amazing stroke of luck that she
was in a place with trained staff on hand and also a Doctor with a
defibrillator only a few moments away. It was also a miracle or luck, depending on you point of view, that my mum was with aunt Angela and was so
quick to call for help. Everything went in her favour to help her survive and
it really makes you feel like someone is looking out for us. The doctors say
that if she didn’t get the treatment within the first 3 minutes, she would not
have had a chance as Angela has an enlarged hart and other health issues.
She was in the hart unit in Letterkenny hospital for
over a week, as she had to be monitored 24 hour a day as her hart may stop any
time due to the signal miss firing. Then, last Saturday, she was transferred to
St James’s hospital in Dublin and fitted with an internal device (almost like a
pacemaker) that will kick in if the signal from the brain stops again. Now she
is back home and everything seems to be back to normal.
The big difference is we are all so very happy and
feel we were given a second chance. I have to say there is a really good
feeling in the family and it seems that someone or something was looking out
for us. You know what? Indoctrination or luck, I prefer to say that god played
his hand in this family miracle.
There was also another miracle in the family back in
the late 1940’s or early 1950’s, with my great grandfather. I will write about
this in the future, but I just want to find out a wee bit more about it.
