Ideal Life Put in Jeopardy

“I was praying at that point for God to heal him. I was trusting God that, you know, it's gonna be over within a couple days. They said probably a couple of days, he'd be fine.”

Audrey and Clyde have been married 40 years and looked forward to growing old together, but that was put in jeopardy one night when Clyde started vomiting and developed a high fever. The next morning Audrey rushed him to the ER.

Audrey reflects, “I knew something wasn't right, that he wasn't getting better. So they admitted him to the hospital.”

They stabilized Clyde and moved him from the ER to a room, but then he took a turn for the worse.

“I knew he had a high temp, because I could feel the heat, if I just put my hand near his body.” said Audrey.  

His nurse Tammie Milton remembers, “I got my tech in there and she took the temperature. The temperature was 107.6. And I was like, "No, that's not right." I've never seen a temperature like that, so I got her to repeat it. It was correct.

That is the temperature that every organ in the body, especially the brain, can-can fry, basically.”

Audrey says, “(The) room just filled up with medical personnel, and I knew it was serious when I heard them say, "He can go into convulsions."  They had him laid back in the bed.”

Clyde’s body was fighting a double kidney infection, a urinary tract infection, and a bladder infection.  His temperature was so high the medical staff was concerned about brain damage.

Tammie states, “Well we were at first putting ice like up under his armpits and everywhere we could put ice. And then we got what we call a cooling blanket, which goes up under him and over him and it's supposed to help with that temperature, too.”

Fearing the possibility of losing Clyde, Audrey called their pastor, Ken, and he remembers, “When we got there, things were – seemed to be pretty urgent. A lot of medical staff trying to help, and I was some distance from the room as they were trying to work with him. But we began to pray very earnestly.”

Audrey says, “Everything was happening. I was seeing nurses poking and, you know, needles in him, and doctor running around, you know, them doing so much to him until I just didn't think to pray. I just knew that I needed other people praying.”

A prayer chain started at their church while Clyde was barely conscious.

“I thought that we were gonna lose him. I thought that, you know, there's no way he's gonna come out of this with-with no-no deficits whatsoever.”

Says Tammie, “a temperature that high, I mean, it could affect everything.”

Audrey nearly crying says, “I never felt nothing like that before. Because we've always been so close and the first few moments there, I thought he was gonna go on to Heaven. I was never gonna have him again on this earth and be by myself.  And it was very scary.”

Pastor Ken comforted her, “I remember telling her just to-to be calm and-and, you know, God's gonna take care of this. Everything's going to be okay. We believed that the Lord was gonna take care of him.”

Audrey states, “Well, then about five minutes after hearing that, I had this calm come over me that I've never felt before, and I just sat down and let them do their work, and I knew he was gonna be okay.

After a long night of treatment clyde woke the next day. His recovery stunned the medical staff.

Audrey thinks back, “When he started coming to, he opened his eyes and he started just looking around the room like, 'Where am I at?' And so the doctor come around and started asking him questions. Do you know what year it is? And Clyde told him 2019. He said, 'Do you know who that is?' And he said, 'My wife.'"

Clyde happy to be through this said, “I panned the room with my eyes and my pastor, he was on my left side. And when I panned over to him, I could see his thumb, he stuck his thumb up at me. And I-I thumbed him back, I was okay.”

Tammie remembers, “A couple of days later, I seen him, because he was transferred back to the floor, and he was perfectly fine. 

Uh, I mean, a miracle. It had to be a miracle. “

During his extreme fever Clyde says he saw the gates of heaven and God’s light shining from them.  

Clyde, “Some people thinks that dying is it. I think God let me see Heaven and see His glory shining from the – the inner walls to let people know that, hey, there's life after death, you know, don't be afraid of death.”

Clydes’s brush with mortality has grown audrey’s faith and clyde’s confidence in his hope for Heaven.

With gratitude Clyde says, “Without prayer, I wouldn't never made it. I don't believe I'd be here talking to you, talking to whoever, you know. Or telling my story. If it hadn't been for prayer.” 

Audrey smiles and says, “I have seen a lot of miracles in my life, but now – I expect to see them. When I ask God for something now, I expect it. He's my Heavenly Father and after what happened in January – and I actually watched  a miracle. And so now, I just believe He's gonna do what needs to be done.”

Clyde concludes, “You know, I love my wife. And I love my kids but when it comes my time to go, I know my wife would miss me if God took me today, but if God took me today, I've got nothing to lose. I've got everything to gain.”