I wrote about many of my caregiving challenges in my book Successfully Navigate the Marathon of Care.
This is one story that I haven’t shared.
Caregivers know that time is not something you can expand or manufacture. Your life is so full of caring for your loved one and all the other responsibilities in life that many projects are put on the shelf for months and months. Finding time is a challenge.
One year I decided that I would spend New Year’s Eve getting my office organized. It had been sadly neglected for months and I didn’t want to start the new year with a messy disorganized office. So instead of joining family and friends to ring in the New Year I tackled the office.
I worked diligently for seven hours in my lower-level office, organizing, filing, photocopying etc. and completed the task shortly before midnight. I fell into bed with the satisfaction of having completed a long-sought-after goal. I slept soundly until …
The piercing screech of the fire alarm cut through the night. Confused and foggy I went to find the source, but there was no fire. My head was pounding and I could hardly think straight. I pulled a chair up to the wall the fire alarm was mounted on. I would pull out the battery to stop the horrible, disorienting noise. I unscrewed the round fire alarm and tried to pull it from the wall, but there was no battery, it was hardwired. It was then I realized the sound was not coming from the fire alarm.
My mind shot to the CO monitor. It was under the kitchen table. I stumbled to the kitchen to find it. It wasn’t under the table. Where was it? What was going on? Where was the noise coming from??? Who had moved it? The cleaning lady?
I stumbled to the phone and called her. It was about 5 AM but I couldn’t even tell what time it was. I thought I was going to pass out. She could hear the alarm in the background and answered my question saying she had put it behind the Christmas tree.
“Open all the windows” she shouted, “that’s the CO monitor alarm. Open all the windows, hurry, it’s carbon monoxide poisoning.” Panicked, I hung up and staggered to open a living room window which I did, but that was as far as I got. I passed out.
I don’t know how long I lay there unconscious.
I was slowly awakened by heavy pounding on the front door. Still confused I managed to get up and go to answer it.
It was a man from a church about 15 km away that I had met a few times, wearing snowmobile gear.
He took one look at me and quickly opened the screen door and pulled me out of the house. “Breathe, breathe”, he said, reaching inside for my coat to put around me. “You have carbon monoxide poisoning.”
“How do you know?” I asked, trying to understand what was going on.
“This happened to my wife just last week, you look just like she did, carbon monoxide poisoning, it’s a good thing I got home to her when I did.”
The cold fresh air was clearing my mind. “But how did you know I was?”
“You came to mind, I felt massive distress and uneasiness. I knew something was wrong. The fastest way here was by snowmobile, so I blasted up the lake to the river and navigated my way here. I knew I had to see if there was something wrong.”
Standing before me was one of God’s Angels on Earth. I must have only met this man three or four times, but here he was responding to a call from God to spare me from an untimely death.
He opened all the windows to clear the carbon monoxide and explained that the fan in the downstairs office operating for seven hours last night would change the pressure in the house, drawing the carbon monoxide from the woodstove upstairs into the house, instead of up the chimney.
I’ll never forget this divine intervention, and remembering it often reminds me of the loving care of our Heavenly Father. God bless all those who are willing to be God’s hands and feet on this earth.