One More Miracle, Comin’ Up!!!

May 7, 2010 doncobb

I’m telling you, it was an undeniable miracle today at Kaiser Hospital! Let me explain:

A year or so ago, Maddy had a staph infection manifest in her thumb. Because of her Autism, she hadn’t said anything to anyone. One morning, we just happened to notice her thumb was swollen on the bottom side to about twice it’s size with a huge yellow (sorry for the graphics) spot of infection in the middle! It was on the inside of her thumb, which, which faces into her palm, so we simply hadn’t seen it yet! We raced her to Kaiser emergency room where the doctor immediately said that we needed to lance it. Maddy’s Autism comes with several different syptoms, one of which being more sensitive than most to sound, and another being an extreme version of fear. When she is afraid, even of a fly or car noises (a couple of things which she struggles with), she is very afraid. She races to the very afraid place. So as she listened to us talking to the doctor, she understood what was being planned, and there was no way on Earth she was going to cooperate. She made that very clear, with her little scared face and her unwillingness to even let the doctor look at her thumb again.

We only saw one viable option, which was to use a drug which takes away a person’s awareness yet they remain awake. The facts were (1) that this needed to be lanced or Maddy could have experienced some very serious consequences and (2) she was not going to let anyone cut her with anything, no way, no how, not in her lifetime! So we opted for this drug that they assured us was safe, and it worked. It was, however, the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced! I hated it! Maddy was awake but she was gone, unable to respond in any way. When she came back around she burst into tears as she regained her awareness and she was as scared as we were, probably more so.

So last night, we noticed some swelling on one of her fingers. She said it had been hurting for 2 days. Again, she hadn’t said anything to us, despite our ongoing teaching and reminding her how important it is for her to let us know if there is anything unusual going on with her body. Her Autism simply comes with a degree of inability to communicate sometimes about some things.

It wasn’t that bad, the swelling, so I called Kaiser and made an appointment for today at 2pm, the earliest appointment they said they had. Upon awakening, however, I saw that it had swollen considerably overnight, and I was praying that we would not ever have to use that drug again EVER under any circumstances. In fact, my wife and I had promised each other we would never let a doctor use that drug on Madison ever again. So my goal last night and this morning was to get her to a doctor and get some antibiotics in her body before any further swelling took place.

I called Kaiser at 6am and told them I need an earlier appointment, and they found one at 9:45am for us. I posted on Facebook, asking my friends to please pray for Madison and explaining my fears and desires. When we got to Kaiser, the doctor looked at it and said she thought we might get away with just using antibiotics, thank God! But she also said we really needed to drain the infection, and assured Maddy and me that it would just be a little prick and it wouldn’t hurt much. I knew Maddy would not go along with it, but to my surprise and with my encouragment and support (she was on my lap), she reached her little hand out and offered it to the doctor! (I’m crying as I type this, it was so awesome!) Madison struggled in a big way to keep her hand out there, as tears poured down her face before the doctor even did anything, but she held her hand out and let the doctor use a scalpel to make a small incision, and then squeeze her little finger to get the puss out! Tears were flowing as Maddy told us “It hurts! It really hurts now!” but she let the doctor finish! It was AWESOME! It was amazing! I couldn’t believe what had just taken place!

I know it was all of our friends prayers that caused the Lord’s power to flow into Madison Cobb this morning. Unexplainable courage that I have never seen before in her! Willing to let a doctor use a scalpel on her finger? She won’t even let us use a needle to get a splinter our of her finger! She won’t let anything pointed come even close to her body! But today, as all of our friends prayed for her, she walked through this ordeal like an adult! She is 11, and anyone who knows anyone with Autism knows that it comes with some difficulties and challenges. Today, however, her Autism was not an issue at all. None of her symptoms showed up. She walked through this in a way that I could not believe!

As we were driving away and I was telling her again how much I admired her courage and how proud of her I am, she said “If I ever have to do that again, I will just do it. Now I know how much it hurts.” I told her we would do ALL WE CAN to insure it doesn’t happen again! LOL But I was just amazed at how our naturally timid and sensitive girl walked through this adventure today with unexplainable courage and determination and willingness. It was unexplainable.

I think that’s because God is unexplainable. My family is so grateful to all of our Facebook friends for their prayers this morning. I believe it facilitated God’s direct and intentional, undeniable intervention in my little girl today. Thank you all, and thank you Lord!

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