It was the 19th of March, 2020.
The handyman was a few metres away from me, fixing my
blinds.
And that was when I said it: “I feel like I’m going to die
soon.”
It was the weirdest thing.
I felt overwhelmed by a very uncanny premonition. I had
never before experienced anything like it.
I had not long quit my job. It was the right decision.
Despite all the uncertainty around me, I was covered by an
indescribable peace.
I also felt weirdly unbothered about the future. Not worried
at all. Just knew that everything was going to work out right – even though it
was a very strange time to be so certain about that.
And then came this weird sensation. I felt a presence around
me, thick in the air.
And I said out loud: “I feel like I’m gonna die soon.”
I knew it was weird. I felt weird and the sentence I had
strung together sounded very strange to me. I apologised to the handyman, whom
I had been chatting with on and off as I went about my business and he did his
work. And I walked out of the room.
And I had a chat with God. Not out loud, I don’t think it
was. And I started to cry.
I felt from that moment that I was going to come very close
to death, very soon.
I had no idea what was going to
come next.
* * *
After the handyman left, I went out to the corner shop to
get some milk. I am a careful driver anyway, but I all of a sudden felt extremely
cautious as I steered through the neighbouring roads. I thought, Perhaps
someone is going to knock me over in their car?
There were actually a few moments on the journey there and
back that car drivers nearly did not see me, but driving is a risky business,
and I have actually been in much closer near-death experiences on the road and
on the motorway. I figured I wasn’t going to die in a car accident around my
house as I got my milk after all.
But as I walked to my car after purchasing my blue bottle, I
started to feel very odd. Dozy. Dizzy. Bit out of it. I thought that was
strange, but this was a day on which I had quit my job and had become overcome
with the presentiment of dying soon, so that didn’t seem like the strangest
thing to happen in the last few hours.
In the three minutes that followed, I realised I was
probably quite ill. I began to feel extremely dizzy, and climbed into bed not
long after. In the time I was between the covers, my temperature soared
blindingly quickly. Before I knew it, even in my light clothing, I was dripping
with sweat.
Ah, I thought. I probably have the coronavirus.
This wasn’t such an unlikely possibility, considering two
colleagues at my workplace had been sent home the week prior, with suspected
coronavirus, and I had sat next to one of them a few days before that, training
her on something. I didn’t know at the time that she had contracted the virus.
Neither did she.
I didn’t worry, despite the likelihood. I just went to the
NHS website and checked to see what I should be doing to combat the virus, and
to verify that the symptoms I was experiencing were indeed related to Covid-19.
It was then that I discovered that I was actually now in the
high-risk category. As someone that already has an existing long-term
condition, I was more likely to suffer seriously from Covid-19.
Ah well, I discovered that a bit late! I had been taking
sensible precautions: washing my hands for 20 seconds and standing far enough
apart from people, as we had all been advised to do, but before now, the
guidelines had been different, and I hadn’t seen myself as at any especial
risk.
Looking back now… I realise that I had not factored into the
equation an infection that specialists have been trying to help me fight for
months – which is still being treated. A
later discovery revealed that I had also probably been carrying and living with
another serious infection for about a month before I even contracted Covid-19.
So, these things in addition to the long-term condition I already have, meant
my body was not ready to handle a virus of this magnitude.
It didn’t take long for me to realise that the presentiment
I had sensed was probably to do with Covid-19.
Over the next few hours, I did everything I could to try and
alleviate my pain, which was immense. Consider that I already live with chronic
pain. This virus made everything about 100x worse. That is no exaggeration.
In those hours, I had a long chat with God. And I cried, a
lot.
I eventually came to a place where I had accepted that I was
going to die soon. The sadness only came from thinking of my young brothers and
my mum, whom I would leave behind. The peace came from knowing that I knew
where I would go, and that I would be reunited with family and friends who had
died, and see my Heavenly Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit – the Triune God - face
to face, and LIVE WITH NO PAIN!!
The next few days are a bit of a blur. Everything happened
so quickly.
Although my temperature did not remain at an all-time high
all the time, other symptoms quickly appeared and started to get in the driving
seat of my body. Within a few hours of me realising I had contracted the virus,
my breathing started to get more and more laboured. My spine hurt. It felt as
though the virus had taken over my air passageway, and was creeping further and
further down my spinal cord.
I only told a few people at first. I didn’t want people to
worry. I later changed my mind: the thought that people might not be taking the
government guidelines seriously – and could potentially be spreading this
deadly virus around – filled me with horror.
As the illness quickened its takeover of my body, I made sure to reply to every open message I could see, and tell everyone I was in contact with that I loved them. Not that saying "Love you" is at all uncommon for me; the frequency and urgency just increased. It may not have made much sense to my friends and family at the time.
As the day wore on, though
my symptoms got worse and worse, I had resolved with myself not to call the ambulance.
After all, I believed that my time was coming, so didn’t see how calling the ambulance
would help or change anything. I also firmly believed that it was much more
important for someone that didn’t know Jesus to go to the hospital to get help to
stay alive, than it was for me.
I should explain some things about myself. I have seen a lot
of death, come very close to me, since the age of ten. My own father passed
away when I was thirteen, and I have continued to be very close to a lot of
people dying. For a number of years, I have been ever-aware of my mortality,
and thus, it is an entirely normal thing for me to think, as I prepare for bed,
“What would people say about me if I were to die tomorrow?”
Some people die – and the people with whom they interacted
have very little good to say about them. I don’t want to be one of those
people. I want to be someone who people remember as having loved well, laughed
hard and made the world a better place, just by being herself. And the person
that enables me to do that is God. Well, God in three Persons.
It is because of my relationship with Jesus Christ that I
felt this indescribable peace as my breathing progressively deteriorated. It is
also because of Jesus, that in this time, I started frantically rushing around
to tell people about Jesus.
You see, when you are so ill and have already had a premonition
that you are going to die soon, a few things become blindingly clear. I became
impressed with an impervious sense of urgency.
It may seem crazy to you, but as my temperature soared and
my face turned red and sweat dripped down my face – my overwhelming concern was
that the neighbours in my building that I had not yet spoken to, needed to know
about Jesus. I knew Him, and knew that if I were to die, I would be with Him.
But I could not be sure that I had given them the answer that would make a way for
them to know the peace that surpasses all understanding.
So at a time when most “normal” people would ring the ambulance, I spent time composing this, and placed it on the entrance to my building. I was literally gasping for air as I wrote this, and my temperature was probably at around 42 degrees Celsius, at a guess. My handwriting kind of shows that I was feverish.
Although in my head I had decided I would not ring the emergency
services, late that night it became clear that the situation had gotten a lot
worse – and my supposed impending death was taking a lot longer than I had foreseen.
Where I had imagined I would die peacefully in my sleep, I found I was in so
much pain that I could not sleep, and that my struggle breathing made the lying
awake even more unpleasant. If my death was going to come, I would rather have
some help in feeling less agony when it did take place! So I asked my friend to
ring the ambulance for me: remember, I no longer had a voice.
That night, the emergency services were exceedingly busy, as
you can imagine. I waited for HOURS. Finally, I accepted that the paramedics
were not going to come in time. My breathing was so bad that my friend later
told me she thought I was going to die that night. So did I! At one point, it
felt as though I had a centimetre left of my air passageway to breathe from. When
I tell you, I thought I was minutes away from Heaven, I kid you not.
And then, suddenly, it was as though my lungs slowly started
filling with air. I can only describe it as a miracle. I KNOW it was a miracle.
There were a lot of people praying with me.
I had two paramedic visits after that incident, and the second
paramedic told me that: the way that I had been breathing… it doesn’t get better
from there on out. Well, it did! And without help from emergency
services – because they hadn’t made it to me yet. So, take from that what you
will.
Even though I survived that night, the journey had barely
begun. Over the next few days and weeks, I would experience severe pain, feel
my body fill up with salt to the extent that I actually had visible salt granules
on my tongue… I won’t show you the pictures but my face and lips did turn a combination
of blue and purple. NHS clinicians decided that it would be best not to take me into hospital, because my immune system was so weak at that point that I probably would easily have caught something else from other patients that would further worsen my state. I forget that even several weeks on, I am still in recovery:
although no longer contagious – my body still hasn’t adjusted from going
through that nightmare.
There were points when, though thankful to God for bringing
me through, I wondered why He had kept me alive – only for me to live life as a
vegetable. I was unable to do the simplest things for myself – and living alone,
there was no one else to do them for me (although I did get lots of help from
people dropping things off for me that I needed!). There were days that I was
so weak that it took me a good two hours to get out of bed to even make myself
breakfast! And of course, when your body is fighting infection, you need to
eat!
We’re talking about someone that had literally packed up
their bags in preparation for Heaven. I didn’t see for a number of days why God
hadn’t just let me die. After all, I knew that where I was going there would be
no pain! Instead, He had kept me alive (great) to keep me in indescribable pain
(not so great). I was definitely not suicidal, but I really struggled to see
the point of my life at this point.
That’s when I called on my friends for encouragement. I
literally didn’t see what else I had to do here. (Yes, I would have liked to
get married and have kids, but I think Heaven is better than all of that, so
there.) They helped me get to a turning point where I decided that God still
had more plans for me down here – and the crux of that was, I needed to tell
more people about this Jesus. The Jesus that does miracles. The Jesus that
gives you peace when it doesn’t make sense.
It isn’t a secret that I’m a Jesus follower. Jesus addict, as
I like to say. But going through the mill has taken me to a whole new level of
telling people about Him! I literally wouldn’t let the paramedics leave until I
told them about Jesus, haha!
God gave me a revelation a few years back, which has forever
changed the way I see this.
Imagine, you are a seismologist. You study the patterns of the
Earth’s vibrations, and help foresee earthquakes so that you can get people to
safety before their worlds cave in. Well, the seismologist has information that
can save people’s lives! Can you imagine being a seismologist that KNOWS when
an earthquake is coming, and knows exactly how far out residents of the
affected areas need to be in order to escape its wrath… AND DOESN’T TELL
ANYONE?!
I reckon you have a few words for a person like that. “Selfish”
would probably be one, right?
Or, here’s a more topical analogy. You are a virologist and
have the cure for the coronavirus, but decide you will guard it with your life –
only administering the life-saving treatment on yourself and your family, but
keeping it a secret from everyone else. Ummmm….
Jesus has changed my life. He has saved me from spiritual
death, and now has also given me a new lease of natural life. I can’t think of
anything more important to share with you.
Imagine you knew it were your last day on Earth. What would
change about your today? Would you love people around you a little more? Would
you reverse some decisions you took yesterday?
Would you feel peace because you knew exactly where you were
going when your breath expires?
