Karen’s story, suffering's gift, and the secret you're looking for.

Karen’s story, suffering's gift, and the secret you're looking for.

I nearly lost my wife in March 2023. She was sick. I was back in it.

It was full of echoes.

And alternating periods of complete silence.

Strong currents in my life that felt familiar, yet unseen. Only the echoes and silence and time advancing and something at work in me.

The morning of her first surgery I watched the sun rise and the sun set that evening through the windows.

The sound of my own heartbeat and my inner voice and the mysterious swift current and prayer – a constant frequency somehow - in the silent late afternoon hospital emptiness.

Once you've been close to the edge of losing someone you never forget what “high alert” feels like. I’d been there before…

Fall 2008

In 2008 my wife spent 10 weeks on hospital bed rest after going into labor at 19 weeks pregnant with our twins. It was a roller coaster every day. She spent the first few weeks inverted with her head lower than her feet, hoping that gravity would aid the various medical ways they tried to delay birth. She had a constant IV of Magnesium sulfate, which we learned 14 years later was contaminated. I took her on a single wheelchair ride many weeks into her hospital stay to the Serenity Garden that felt like the best vacation we'd ever taken.

The nurse said with smile and a wink, "be back in 15 minutes or I'm coming to get you." But we took our time, her in a wheelchair with an IV pole attached, and me internalizing the severity of the situation, pushing it down to the subterranean depths to be dealt with later – that mysterious current, while still trying to care for our then 4 year old daughter at home. 15 minutes in the sun, then back to bed for several more weeks.

They did an emergency C-section at 30 weeks because my wife had also contracted a mystery infection - which would eventually be written about as the "first ever diagnosed in a human" in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology (Williamsia Seredens). She had become very sick and was in septic shock, her internal organs shutting down- the Drs. weren't sure yet if the babies, then 3 pounds each in utero, were also sick.

I'll never forget being called one evening to the hospital where I found her nurses, all of whom had become her friends, holding hands in her darkened room around her bed, praying, some of them in tears. The doctors and I spoke in hushed tones about the options, given the sudden speed of the sepsis, the state of her decline, and the variables of the unborn babies. There was only one real option.

They unhooked her from the birth delaying medications and scheduled a surgery.

A young infectious Disease doctor held my wife’s hand and told her “it’s going to be okay. I was born at 31 weeks and I turned out just fine.” Little did we know that Dr. would eventually save her life twice in 14 years, 2008 and again in 2023.

I sat alone in the empty hallway outside of the OR while they prepared my wife before delivering the twins.

God's mercy wrapped Himself around me in those moments when I wasn't sure if my wife or my kids would survive. I know it was the Holy Spirit, because only He provides comfort we can't understand, but can feel- even though I was "alone". That’s God alive inside of us. This was Jesus promise even as He ascended into Heaven.

“I am with you always.” – Matthew 28:20

I was in the OR when our twins were delivered each weighing 3 pounds. My wife and I cried with joy at the sight of them and how "big they were." I think I'd imagined them being much smaller. Everyone was okay, though the journey wasn't over.

The twins then spent the next 6 weeks in the NICU at two different hospitals. I became accustomed to the constant beeping alarms and life and death. We weren’t allowed to touch them for several weeks. My wife came home a few weeks later with a pic line in her chest still administering IV medications fighting the still unidentified infection being treated as sepsis (blood poisoning), while the twins clung to life in the NICU, first just for prematurity and then with RSV which had caused them to stop breathing and to be intubated. I visited the NICU daily and eventually was able to also bring my wife week later and my oldest daughter to introduce her to her brother and sister.

Everyone survived and time passed.

March 2023

Now it's nearly 15 years later. My twins are amazing student athletes; more than perfectly healthy now. The young infectious disease Dr. was right. Things turned out okay. They're star track runners, school record holders in XC, and are varsity starters on their respective soccer teams. My oldest, who was just 4 years old back then with a daddy trying to put hairbows on her every day, is now 19 and in the Chancellors School/Honors College at UTK. 19 years ago we named her Isabella Hope…beautiful hope.

March 1, 2023 I found myself alone again in that same hospital. My wife was 10 hours into a spinal fusion, laminectomy, and discectomy to fuse 10 levels of her spine and pin her hips to her spine. Her genetic scoliosis had been worsened by the long hospital stay in 2008 during which her core musculature had entirely atrophied and separated, and her spine had completely collapsed upon itself over the last decade. She was facing eventual paralysis and eventually being bound to a wheelchair. She always said “it’s worth it and I’d do it again” referencing our twins. Still, she smiled and always put others first through what must have been the most unthinkable physical pain imaginable over the last decade. Her spine and discs had been reduced to rubble, yet she hobbled to soccer games, swim meets, XC meets, track meets, through campus tours and orientations, and to church on Sundays, her feet numb and her needing to sit or hold onto something, but still always smiling and there for our kids - and lending a comforting ear to other people’s problems. Love your neighbor and all that.

We arrived at 4:45am on March 1st. Surgery began at 7am. The hospital emptied out over the course of the day while I paced the various waiting rooms, alternating between drinking coffee and praying in the chapel. My best friend came and sat with me for most of the day. He came every day for the next month and sat in the cafeteria with a book “in case I was able to sneak away for a break.” He wore funny outfits some days to make me laugh.

Doctors texted and called me throughout the day of her first surgery with updates. 10 hours later, the surgery complete and her in recovery, I got to see her in the ICU. She smiled at me and asked if I'd brought the Uno Cards because she wanted to “kick my butt in Uno.”

I kissed her on the forehead and told her how proud I was of her - that she'd done it and now things could start getting better. That was just the beginning though.

Let's step back a few months to December of 2022.

You've heard the saying "be careful what you ask for"? I'd say this is especially true when you ask the creator of the Universe for something.

In November of 2022 I chose the word "Prayer" to be my guiding principle for 2023. I wanted to make every decision in my life based upon prayer and to rededicate my focus. I wrote the word down on my desk so that I could see it every day. I prayed through lists of people’s names daily that I wrote in my notebook.

By December, I was struggling with some truths about myself as I focused on Prayer for others each day. A decade before, around 2012 or 2013, my career wasn't going so well, or so I thought. I left an unfulfilling job at God’s prompting on my heart, and I was selling peaches for $13/hr. My kids were on reduced lunch at school. Someone put an envelope of money on our front door at Christmas time to help with Christmas for the kids. We were happy as a family, but things were tough financially and I was happier, but in a tough spot personally.

10 years later, by winter 2022, I was in control again; 10 years into a job. I had an EVP title at Nashville's fastest growing tech company and my financial situation had changed dramatically. I was grateful and muttered the same old gratitude to God daily during my prayer time, but it felt hollow somehow.

“Thanks God for the blessings, for being faithful to your word to provide…and oh yeah, for the money.”

I was kind of a big deal and had the house and the Volvo to prove it. I felt far away from the miracle God had performed in 2008 saving my wife and kids. I was a good person: we went to church most Sunday’s, I was kind (usually), I prayed every day, my kids were in church all the time, but my heart didn’t know how to pray in such prosperity in a way that felt genuine.

I came across a book called Dangerous Prayer (actually a bible study on the Bible App). As I read it each day I realized that my prayer life was weak - "thanks for the cheeseburger, thanks for money, thanks for healthy kids, etc." Deep down I knew something had to change. I'd pushed that idea down for a long time because I was convinced that God had already brought my family through enough challenges (my wife's illness in 2008, the twins survived serious illness at birth, my youngest also got very sick at 7 years old and was hospitalized for a long time we had financial struggles, etc). Surely God would just bless us the rest of the way, I thought.

But something grasped my heart and told me that I needed to pray more boldly, more dangerously. And so I did...I prayed: God, break me. Humble me. Take away my pridefulness in my own accomplishments and possessions, give me a cross to carry again- so that I can honor you as my only hope and source. I thought too much about career, money, and trivial things. And I think I honored myself too much for achieving things. I was a “good person”. But I wanted to be more for His glory.?So I prayed for God to humble me and make me completely dependent upon Him and Him alone. Pride, as C.S. Lewis wrote is the root of all other sin, because it's based upon comparison and having more - or better - than others. Pride leads to the other sins. I was proud to have come so far in life - and I gave myself too much credit for it all.

Although I had achieved a traditional view of success, I felt guilty somehow. Guilty that I wasn’t doing more for God. Giving Him more credit. Even guilty for the old me who struggled. So I prayed dangerously that God would show Me my dependence upon only Him.

“Search me, God, know my heart. Test me. Know my anxieties.”

-??????Psalm 139

Be careful what you pray for.

Fast forward back to March 1, 2023.

My wife's surgery was now complete, and we talked in the ICU about everything life would hold for us now that she was on the path to recovery and would eventually be functioning without daily pain. We planned trips and talked about fun things we'd do again - like old times.

She spent 3 nights in the ICU recovering from the lengthy surgery which had left a 2 foot incision running from between her shoulder blades all the way down to her tailbone. She was transferred after 3 days to a regular hospital room where she spent 3 more nights. She did physical therapy daily, walking the halls with a walker, practicing getting in and out of bed and other tasks. So far things were going according to plan.

On Tuesday, March 7 she was released from the hospital. It was terrifying to think I'd have to care for her incision, medicate her pain and take care of her for the coming months, but it was a joyful day to be going home.

The next 3 nights at home were tough. I woke her on a 4 hour interval to medicate her pain, though she was only making it 2 hours before she really needed relief. The 2 hours between needing it and being able to give it were hard. I helped her from the bed at night to go to the restroom and held her on the edge of the bed as pain ravaged her body. But we both knew things would get better. She'd taken the necessary step, trading short-term pain for long term recovery and a better future.

On Friday March 10, she woke early and felt good. She wanted to get out of bed and into a chair in our sitting room so that she could see the kids off to school. Her spirits were high that morning, despite lack of sleep and ongoing pain. She'd made a breakthrough it seemed.

The day prior I took a picture of her incision as I was changing her bandages and sent it to the surgeon's team. The wound looked angry to me and "not good". They called in an antibiotic (Keflex) which I started giving her that night, just as a “precaution”.

Friday morning after the kids left she wanted to move to the recliner in our living room for a nap. I assisted her and got her some medication.

"Will you put some fuzzy socks on my feet?" she asked. "My feet are freezing."

I put socks on her and then she asked for a blanket. "Maybe another pair of socks and another blanket?" she said, now visibly starting to shiver. I put several blankets on her, all while she also asked me to turn the heat up, to turn the fireplace on...

Within 2 minutes she'd gone from having a great morning to shaking uncontrollably, her lips turning blue, and being unable to talk.

I called 911.

The EMT's arrived and problem solved how to get a patient onto a stretcher who couldn't move due to a 2 foot long wound on her back. She continued to shake as they strapped her down and wheeled her to the ambulance.

I beat the ambulance to the hospital – 35 minutes North to downtown Nashville.

She spent several hours in the ER as various doctors looked at her incision site, monitored her vitals, and took blood samples. Eventually she was admitted to the hospital to begin fighting an infection. We were back to 2008 again. The young infectious disease Dr. from 2008 was now older, but back in a position to save her again.

She spent the next few nights in a regular hospital room receiving a cocktail of antibiotics, pain killers, muscle relaxers, and other drugs. She continued to have the shaking spells each day, some lasting as long as 30 minutes during which the care team would cover her in 7-8 blankets and turn the thermostat up to 80. She just had to ride the spells out unfortunately. Her fever spiked to 103 overnight every night. Her blood pressure swung from 65/40 to 190/105. Her doctors became increasingly nervous about the shaking and fevers and began to talk about an eventual "irrigation and debridement" surgery, which essentially means opening the original incision, cleaning it all out, and then leaving it open for a few days with a wound vac. In the meantime, she had a variety of other tests done: daily blood work, CT scans, ultrasounds, ECG, bodily fluids, and more. Everything continued to come back "clean".

Still, the Drs. were sure of Sepsis, because her incision looked bad and she had the classic symptoms. ?

On March 14th she was taken for a CT guided aspiration, which means a CT guided surgery where they tried to extract fluid from a spot on her wound to see if they could find infection. They failed. There was nothing there. Yet the shaking and fevers persisted - the fevers now also in the daytime hours as well as overnight.

Over the next few days I held her hand, brushed her hair, and tried to assure her it was all going to be okay and they'd find the source. But the shaking and fevers were so taxing that she, in some dark hours, started telling me the details of her funeral. I resisted and told her that wasn’t happening, but she made me listen to her wishes. She wanted to see the kids “one more time” so I brought them to the ICU.

I fell on my knees multiple times each day and night in the hospital chapel. I begged God to save her. I begged God to make me dependent upon Him and his mercy. No title or money could do anything to save her. Only complete dependence and obedience.

I read his miracles in the Gospels daily, with those in the Luke 8:48 seeming especially relevant:

“50?Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus,?“Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed.”

51?When he arrived at the house of Jairus, he did not let anyone go in with him except Peter, John and James,?and the child’s father and mother.?52?Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning?for her.?“Stop wailing,”?Jesus said.?“She is not dead but asleep.”

53?They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead.?54?But he took her by the hand and said,?“My child, get up!”?55?Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up.

I begged for faith the size of a mustard seed when mine waivered. I asked for Him to cleanse me of any doubt and to use me. I kept going back and saying Jesus name out loud. When I didn't know what to pray I just said "Jesus" over and over in the dimly lit chapel. The chapel was empty all of the time – except for the recurring scripture in my head and the last thing Jesus said to the Disciples in the book of Matthew before taking his seat at God’s right hand: “I am with you always”.

On her 46th birthday, March 16th, the neurosurgeon’s decided to move forward with the irrigation and debridement surgery to clean the wound. This was an extensive surgery after which they would leave the incision "open" until the plastic surgeon capable of such a complex procedure returned from vacation. I wasn't mad at the guy for being on a vacation. People are entitled to a life. It was bad timing, but no one’s fault.

I waited for hours again, pacing, walking the streets of Nashville with my friend, on my knees in the chapel with the Holy Spirit. 5 hours later the surgery was complete and she was back in the ICU. She'd now had 3 surgeries in 3 weeks and they'd taken a toll on her body.

I began to document the timing of her medications, dosages, and her visible reaction to each every day. Her fevers and shaking continued despite what the doctors called a "totally clean wound" during her irrigation surgery. The mystery was deepening, and her condition was still declining.

She spent 6 more days in the ICU, her wound open with a wound vac constantly drawing fluid away. She lived in a “fish bowl” of a glass room, fighting fever still. I eventually presented my findings from my handwritten notebook to one of her infectious disease doctors. I asked if a medication could be causing the fevers and shaking.

“Absolutely,” he responded. “What have you noticed?”

I’d noticed that she reacted by getting cold feet, then chills and shaking about 45 minutes after she was given Cefepime antibiotic each day – a drug in the same class as the antibiotic she’d taken at home before the 911 call. After the shaking, she’d fall asleep, then wake up with a high fever, high heart rate, and high blood pressure.

They stopped the Cefepime immediately…and the fevers subsided. It’s hard to say if the fevers and shaking were the Cefepime/Keflex or if the sepsis symptoms just began to go away – or both.

Here’s what I learned: Doctors are brilliant people. But they’re not all-seeing. They are overworked and constrained by lots of factors outside of patient care too often. Take an active role in your healthcare, don’t take things for granted, report what you’re seeing, document things, and be kind. Doctors are tired, stressed, and just human beings. They are not equipped with adequate evidenced-based care data. You want the same thing they do, so be a team without getting upset.

Blood tests for allergic reaction confirmed the allergic reaction to Cefepime and Keflex. And eventually lab results also confirmed sepsis.

Once the fevers subsided, on March 21st, they took her for her 4th surgery in 3 weeks – this time to close the wound they had reopened 6 days prior. It was another multi hour surgery.

She was transferred back to a regular room and eventually discharged to home on March 24th.

The long term care plan was this: weekly infusions of a high dose antibiotic called Dalvance at the hospital infusion center for 5 weeks, home oral Levaquin antibiotic for 35 days, pain killers, muscle relaxers, and physical therapy/occupational therapy. Her recovery will last 6 months to a year, during which she’ll progress from a walker to a cane to a better life than pre-surgery.

My wife has beaten a sepsis diagnosis twice in her life now – and Williamsia Seredens. Many aren’t as lucky with a single case. Sepsis kills 1 of 5 people.

I’m convinced it’s because: 1. She’s tough. 2. She’s a daughter of the King who lives out our greatest command and is frequently the comforter of our friends and neighbor’s needs.

“It is doubtful whether God can use a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.”

-A.W. Tozer

I’m still processing everything we learned during the last month. First, let me be clear – I don’t think God put my wife through this to answer my prayer “to be broken”.

That’s not how God works.

He doesn’t harm someone to answer a prayer for another, any more than he allows my favorite team to win the world series at the cost of your favorite team losing. I can’t pretend to understand how He works all things for good, but I do know that in some way He answered my call to be made entirely dependent upon His mercy and grace – taking away my pridefulness and refocusing my life on obedience to wherever He sends me. His will, not mine.

We had hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people calling, texting, messaging, bringing food, sending things, and praying. Churches and groups I don’t even know calling and messaging. People I don’t know sent cards in the mail. We had meals every night from March 1 – through the end of May. The hands and feet of Jesus at work.

We were in need. And I was humbled before God and everyone – just like I’d asked.

So many people texted me daily or sent messages. All of them meant something, but I put so much of my life and identity into wrestling as a kid that messages from my wrestling coach who shaped me in a lot ways, alongside my parents, seemed to be coming at just the right times:

He messaged me: “Be strong,” in a moment I felt weak and thought I might break. Just at the right time. And I suddenly felt strong.

He messaged me: “Keep the Faith,” as I read my Bible in her ICU room one morning, even as my faith seemed to be wavering after so many days of worry. And I dug back into the word and my prayer.

He messaged me late in the month when things seemed darkest and my energy waivered: “This is like going into overtime. Stay strong.” I took a deep breathe, fixed my face, and straightened my posture. The fight wasn’t over. I knew how to contextualize that from him.

God sent me the words I needed through someone I needed them from. I believe that.

Years ago a woman in our community lost her husband. She had a young daughter my twins age and they were suddenly alone. Their family lived in other states. My wife immediately started helping the widow navigate school issues, transportation for the daughter, before and after school care, etc. My wife was the hands and the feet of Jesus, even if I wasn’t. Yes, I was there, but a passive observer.

That woman, now remarried, has delivered dinner to us 4 times. A few nights ago she stood at my door after delivering food me to me and my kids. Karen was still in the hospital. I was exhausted from long days and nights at Karen’s bedside, but we talked for a few minutes under the front porch light.

“Your wife took care of me when my husband died,” she said seeming confused by her own words. It sounded like a question but wasn’t presented as one. Like it didn’t make sense in hindsight, but somehow it made perfect sense.

“I don’t know what else to do, but to bring you food.”

I thanked her. We agreed that my wife is a good person. And when she left I closed the door, walked back into my house, and burst into tears. God was showing me Grace because I’d asked to be humbled. I didn’t deserve it – Karen did. But He gave it to me anyway. Grace is getting what you don’t deserve.

So many people sent messages about how scared they’d been. How helpless they’d felt. How hopeful they were for good news each day. How crushed many of them were each day by bad news. Many of them said “I was afraid things were going to end badly.”

As we battled through the toughest stretches of her illness, we both knew it was an opportunity to fulfill some new calling in our lives to share our testimony at minimum, and perhaps more.

I prayed constantly. I posted scripture of Jesus’ miracles on Facebook and even on Linkedin. I wanted her healing to be something our little community could rally around – because that’s what I’d asked for: to be humbled and entirely dependent upon Him so that he’d get the glory. And regardless of how it turned out, I was committed to surrendering to something more.

“Here I am. Send me.”

-??????Isaiah 6:8

I told a friend recently that March 2023 was probably the worst month of my life. And I’ve been through some stuff...miscarriage, my wife’s previous illness, the passing of my brother at a young age, a close friend dying of an overdose short months after my brother died, my kids have been seriously ill. But watching my wife battle sepsis day after day for a month – while also dealing with a very serious wound in her back was hard. Really hard. It was a pain that wouldn’t relent, day after day.

She hurt physically more than I can imagine with the high fevers, shaking, open wound, and constant testing.

I hurt emotionally sitting and watching. Our kids hurt too – Max and Kate trying to carry on with life, school and sports, and Isabella away at college. And that hurt both Karen and I. I can’t describe this hurt – even in writing. I’m inadequate, because it’s so deep and dark and painful I don’t think I can verbalize or even paint a picture with words. I was afraid, but I knew something was happening to shape us.

“rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering?produces endurance,?4?and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,?5?and?hope does not put us to shame, because God's love?has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

-??????Roman 5:3-5

Just moments after I told my friend that March was the worst month of my life, I said this:

“You know, I also think March may have been the most heart fulfilling month of my life. I can’t explain it. I feel closer to God. I feel like I’m completely His – like I gave Him all of me and in return he gave me something I can’t describe, but I know is there.”

I think it’s awareness of the Holy Spirit. And Hope. Christ in me. His life given for me interwoven in everything I do and how my heart beats. I feel alive, like my eyes are open to the world around me suddenly, like things are in color now that were black and white, like Faith is something real – even if we can’t see it or feel it sometimes. Because it is.

“This is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.”

-??????Colossians 1:27

Karen is going to be okay. She will remain on antibiotics for an entire year, which is scary, but apparently necessary due to the amount of hardware in her back. This all started with a spinal fusion of 10 levels. She will do a lot of grueling physical therapy . . . and yes, she will endure some pain.

And I’ll be with her because I love her.

And God will be with us, always, because He loves us. He hears our prayers and comforts our suffering. He offers Hope of things yet unseen but believed in fully – now with all of my heart in which Jesus resides.

He met me on my knees, just like I asked. Just like he promised.

-??????Chad Nikazy 4.26.23